Benevolent

TW: Bugs.

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"Yuna,"

he smiled.

...

After waking up from a dream that lasted forever, Yuna forgot it right after waking up. Although, there remained residual feelings of sadness left in her heart. She wanted to find a way to get rid of the terrible stench which disturbed her slumber.

The light source-less room wasn't helping Yuna with her predicament, but she had to bear it. Staring off into the darkness for a clue went in vain.

Then, she had an idea, 'Is it possible they've thrown me into a cell with decaying bodies?'

She shivered at the thought and told herself not to think about it anymore, 'What do they think I am? Invincible? Do they think any normal child would be able to survive in this place? Let alone a newborn...'

Yuna contemplated the words her kind father barked at her before she was banished to this room.

He wanted to make her feel like she'd rather be dead.

'Well, he's doing a wonderful job so far... I guess I better be grateful that he's so benevolent as to spare my poor little life,' she thought sarcastically, 'Really, what did I ever do to deserve this?'

Yuna stared off into the room's darkness in a daze, '...What time is it? Morning? Afternoon? Night? Well, I have the feeling that I won't be seeing the outside world for a long time, so I shouldn't bother keeping track.'

Her eyes wandered mindlessly around the barely visible silhouettes of items in the room. But, when she turned her eyes to the one beside her, she froze.

Staining the rotting table she rested on, a bloody chunk of rotting meat lay.

Crawling ants dug out tiny holes, bringing pieces of the meat back down the table. Spiders stuck themselves all over the flesh, chewing parts of it. Other small insects nibbled on whatever was left, and Yuna couldn't help but gag out of revulsion.

'How did I not notice this before? Did someone throw it in while I was sleeping?' her stomach churned.

It was the oppressive voice of a man rang in her head, '"I'll have you pay tenfold and make you wish that you were dead."'

Yuna stared at an ant that crawled out of the meat with a piece in its mouth. A spider came up behind the ant and swallowed it with the chunk it was carrying.

'I think... I'm beginning to understand what he meant.'

...

Yuna watched as the bleeding meat was shredded down to the bone.

That's when she realized something, 'It wasn't enough to give a baby raw meat, but they also didn't put the energy into checking for any bones? I feel like they're trying to kill me or something,' Yuna sweated a little, 'They probably are... I should be careful of what I eat in the future.'

She looked away from the sickening content, 'Not like I expected anything more.'

With disgust, Yuna summoned her remaining infant strength to scoot away from the mosh pit of insects. The awful smell of decaying meat only added to her nauseous stomach.

Suddenly, she paused her retreat.

Yuna felt something crawling on her face. No, multiple things on her face. Countless legs of tiny insects trailed her head. Each bug that inched over her face caused her to involuntarily shiver.

Yuna could put up with the darkness, but bugs were another story. Yet, at the same time, her stomach was growling, 'That's right, I'm a baby right now. I need to find something to eat, or I'll probably starve to death in a few hours...' She looked away from the bloody piece of rotting meat from god knows where on the table filled with thousands of squirming insects.

'Curse this body. I feel so hungry,' Yuna lamented.

The trail of ants diverged into three paths over her mouth, nose, and forehead. Her heart beat faster, and droplets of sweat fell from her forehead.

She felt a tiny insect with six legs trying to enter her tightly closed mouth. It wanted to force its way in, but she didn't relent.

But her head was hurting, and she felt too depleted of energy. Her stomach was on the verge of eating itself... The feeling was too unbearable.

Then a thought came to mind.

'...Raw ants are edible, right?'

With a growling stomach driving her, she opened her mouth and felt a few squirming objects landing on her tongue-

-then swallowed.

'...sour.'

...

After the meat disappeared, all the bugs dispersed back into the darkness. Most of the insects that came for food would never return.

Staring up at the ceiling, Yuna fell into another daze. She was still unsatisfied, but she felt like she'd be able to survive.

Truthfully, she wasn't sure if a baby's body would be able to digest raw ants or if it was even safe. She wasn't in the right mind when she ate them earlier and was too hungry to know what she was doing.

Yuna scolded herself, 'I need to toughen myself up. Now that I'm a baby, my impulses are much harder to control.'

While looking into the dark, her eyebrow flinched; squinting her eyes, she thought, '-as is my insatiable boredom level.'

Yuna looked around the room for something to keep herself busy, only to come to another mind-blowing realization, 'Wait, I can already see?! I thought it took some time for a baby's eyes to develop. How is this possible...?'

She reached her arms to her eyes, hoping to find some answer to give her an explanation, only to come to yet another shocking discovery. Yuna's body was strong and flexible!

'What's going on here...' Yuna waved her arms around her body and even tried rolling over to her belly. To her surprise, it was a simple task.

With a gulp, Yuna attempted to sit up.

She did it with ease!

With her functioning eyes, she looked down at her abnormally pink and healthy hands, which are supposed to be a shade of purple [1].

If someone saw her, they would guess she was a few months old. She looked nothing like a newborn.

Her skin was also unnaturally soft... 'Wait, no. That makes sense. I'm a baby. Of course, I'd have soft skin.'

She trembled a bit, '...Come to think of it, am I even human? If that's true, how could I progress my growth so fast?'

Her thoughts were racing.

Babies didn't usually progress in their development so quickly - at least the babies on Earth didn't. It would take at least a couple of months for babies to develop eye functions, blood circulation, and other things. Did this world just have weird babies? Or could she be the only outlier? She wouldn't know; not any time soon, anyways.

Speaking of being an outlier, she could understand what the people around her were saying. But here's the weird part - they weren't speaking any language she recognized.

Their words were strange, yet somehow, she could understand them. It was as if she had this information inserted into her brain.

'Weird... this is all way too weird.'

She went through all of the possible languages they could've spoken while referencing Earth's languages, but none of them matched. The language they spoke was different from the ones she knew.

Plus, putting aside their unusually colored hair and eyes, the strange faces and features of the people she saw looked more magical than the familiar earthly faces. Yet, it wasn't their looks but more of the air around them. She didn't have the time beforehand to evaluate their appearance, but now that she could, Yuna found it odd.

Strange appearances? A foreign language to Earth? There was a high possibility she was not on her home planet.

'I bet I could get more information if I took a look at the outside.' Yuna pondered as her eyes shifted around the room, then to the moldy iron door.

A sharp creak and clank broke the room's silence, and Yuna flinched in surprise. Another few clicks, cranks, and creaks sounded before the door was slowly pushed open. For some reason, Yuna was feeling a bit anxious.

A lantern entered her view, and a black leather shoe clacked on the cold floor.

...

[ 1 ] Because of underdeveloped blood circulation, babies usually have this skin color after birth.