At some point, Izzah must have gone to go look for work, as a whole day had passed without her bringing him food. He had felt particularly off, and his stomach was gnawing at him, threatening to eat him from the inside out. He tested the strength of his legs, they were weak, but if he took it slow, he may just be able to go down and find something himself. He covered himself with a blanket, assuring himself he’d just be in and out before anyone would see him. 

Mostly, he wanted to prove he could still take care of himself. 

Getting down the stairs was the hardest part. His legs were long and spindly, and were no longer equipped to carry the weight of his now rotund body. He nearly tripped a few times, and on the bottom steps he tripped and fell forward. He realized it would be easier to crawl the rest of the way, despite how humiliating it was. 

Still, it was almost nice to be outside of his room after weeks. Everything in the main room felt bigger, had he been shrinking? Against a wall, a shrine to the Spirits was lit with candles. His mother never lit it unless she needed religious guidance. 

There was a sense of relief that came from the house being empty. Even if he wasn’t horribly mutated, he couldn’t stand being down here with all the noise when people were home. Just walking to the kitchen in his condition left him out of breath, and he collapsed on the floor to rest a moment. The kitchen was a wall of smells that made him want to be sick, and his sense of smell was even stronger than before.

The fridge was a disappointment. The groceries had been bought recently, but there was little he could eat. The syrup had been shoved into the back. Unable to stand on his hind legs anymore he was forced to climb into the fridge to reach it. His chubby insect body had grown heavy, so the shelf collapsed sending him and its contents tumbling to the floor. The syrup in its glass jar shattered on impact. 

Symon found himself on the verge of tears. He wanted to scream and cry like a toddler, at his wits end. He cursed the spirits for leaving him in such a state. 

And still the syrup smelled sweet. And still his stomach yearned painfully. His mouth filled with saliva that drooled out of his mangled lips. He did something shameful in a moment of despair and desperation. He leaned down and lapped up the sticky liquid off the floor. He'd figured if he were to look like an animal, it made no difference if he acted like one. 

Eventually he rose up, what was left of his human face covered in sticky slime and what was left of his dignity gone. As he prepared to move back to his room, he heard the front door open. It was his mother returning home. She didn’t have any shopping, had she been working as well, despite her health issues? He wouldn’t know. No one ever told him anything. Regardless, she couldn’t see him like this. He attempted to sneak past her quietly, 

His mother however spotted movement in the other room. “Symon? Darling is that you?” She called out.

He opened his mouth to speak, but only let out a hoarse croak instead of words. He’d not spoken in a few days, his throat was sore and tight, and whatever words he could have said would not come out. He felt a lump form in the back of his throat.

His mother peaked into the dark kitchen and only saw the pathetic lump hidden under a blanket. For just a moment, she felt a flashback from when the boy was young and would wander around the house late at night after having a nightmare. 

“Symon dear. Come here, let mama see you.” She said softly.

“N-no!” He finally managed to choke out with just a whisper. His voice hissed and rattled inhumanly. “G-go… away. Don't… look at m-me.”

He felt the lump in his throat grow thicker.

“Symon? What’s gotten into you. I haven’t seen you for weeks, I wanna see if you’ve gotten better.”

“NNngg…” He let out a grunt. A cramp washed over his body. Symon felt a burning pain in his sides that nearly made him keel over on the spot. He bit down on his tongue to keep himself from screaming. “No… not here!”

“Symon? Sweety?”

"I… I have to g-GHHK-!” He choked mid sentence as that lump slithered up to the opening of his throat. Warm, brown liquid dripped from his mouth. 

"No! Please, I want to see your face one more time. I want to see my son!" She demanded, grabbing at the fabric that obscured his face.

Symon tried to push her away, but the pain in his sides was making him weak. "Nn-! NNnghkhk..!”

But it was too late, and the blanket was yanked off of his head, revealing the hideous insectoid face he was hiding. His mother immediately started screaming at the sight, falling backwards into the table. Symon tried to reach out to her, but the pain in his side had turned into something digging and tearing through his flesh. He held himself and fell to his knees as he let out the most horrifying, animalistic screech. Reminding him of a cicada's call.

He writhed as long, segmented appendages burrowed their way out of his skin. He bled everywhere, but his blood was no longer red, but turning a sickly orange color and then a golden yellow, as large pieces of skin fell to the wooden floor. 

His mother went into full blown hysterics upon seeing this, screaming for his father to help. He quickly found his way to the commotion, and looked at Symon with horror and disgust. 

“Fa…. faa…” Symon tried in vain to speak. He hunched down towards the floor, gagging and coughing as the ‘lump’ began forcing its way out his mouth, a large, wet proboscis slid out of his mouth, knocking out teeth and splattering more sickly yellow fluid onto the carpet. 

His mother hid behind the door while his father stormed over and grabbed Symon by the head and started dragging him out of the room, smearing blood along the kitchen floor. His mother protested for him to be careful, but his father seemed to be in his own mind at the moment.

His father’s grasp felt like hot burning knives. Everything was too much for his senses, everything was on fire. Overcome by pain and anxiety; Symon began to flail his body violently, screeching and hissing like an unruly animal. He was fighting off his father in an attempt to get free, trying to hit him with his claws and scratch at his legs. 

This fight ended with a swift kick to the stomach by his fathers boots, sending a shock to his whole system. Symon went limp as he was dragged back upstairs and thrown back into his room. He cried out in pain on the floor once again, but human sounds no longer left the remains of his mouth. 

“How could you do that to our son!” His mother screamed from downstairs.

“That was not our son! That thing is a monster!” His father shouted back.

Symon blacked out shortly after.

Symon awoke sometime later, sore, but most of the pain had faded. Beneath him was a pool of his own blood. Sticking from his ribs were the new legs that grew out of him earlier. They twitched and spasmed about uncontrollably, but he could still feel sensation in them as if they were very much part of him.

He attempted to use his bed to prop him up to his feet, but his back legs were too weak to hold him up anymore. They'd lost a significant amount of muscle density, and were practically twigs now. He was only able to crawl on the floor, making use of the two new legs he'd grown.

He limped over to his door to check on things outside, but found it locked, and the key entirely missing. He concluded his family must've locked him in his room. For his safety? Or for theirs?

Symon was left entirely alone, him and his new body. When he thought about it long enough, he realized he’d turned into a cicada nymph. A round body with claw-like forearms meant for digging around in the dirt. He couldn’t understand why. What was the significance of this creature to him?

He crawled back under the bed, wishing he could bury himself in the dirt where no one could see him. This fat, clumsy body was never meant to walk in daylight. He could still see his miniature project on the desk, collecting dust. He mourned that he wouldn’t be able to complete it. 

A few more days would pass, and no one would come check on him. The room, his house, was quiet. His room was filthy, and he was starving. His gaze fixated on the window. As the days passed, he thought about simply opening it and leaving. Finding help, or just getting out of his family's way. 

Now he was sure if he stayed here, he would die here. Part of him wondered if that was for the best. What use was he now? He’d never work again, he could never move out, find love, take care of himself. He’d be a burden on his family, and a humiliating secret they’d have to keep. They’d never be able to have company over, Izzah would have to start working instead of going to school. 

He was so weak, so tired after his ordeal, even if he did escape, what would he do with himself? It’d be so easy to just let his meaningless life flicker out.

 Don't give up yet. You must live….

He couldn't tell if that was coming from his thoughts or he was hallucinating it. He didn’t really want to die, did he? It wasn’t fair. He deserved to be more. Didn’t he?

You must finish what he started…

There was a voice telling him to live, but was it himself or something else. It felt like both. There had to be something he could still do. Something that didn't involve becoming an ugly corpse in a dark room that no one wants to enter anymore.

  So he finally resolved to leave. Getting the window open was the most difficult part. Even after pushing a chair over with his head to reach it, his hands lost most of their dexterity, and no thumbs. With some trial, he managed to bump it, open a crack with his legs, and use his back to hoist it open the rest of the way. 

His first taste of fresh air after a month was amazing. Cool night air invigorated him to keep going, and under the cover of darkness, he’d be safe from being spotted. He’d come to find that being an insect was useful for his escape. His legs clung to the side of the wall with ease, allowing a slow descent downwards. Even when he slipped near the end and fell, his hard shell simply bounced off of the ground. He was able to easily reorient himself and continue on his journey. 

As he crawled through the back garden, he caught a whiff of something sweet and tasty. It was coming from the tree. No it was the tree. His stomach roared, demanding sustenance. His instincts took over and he found himself crawling onto the tree and digging his proboscis into the bark of the tree. He hit a vein of tree sap which he began happily drinking. I felt like he could let out a breath of relief. He was finally in his element.

But then, a shriek from the house. Symon didn’t even have to look behind him to see it, his eyes had nearly 180 degree vision. His sister was gawking at him from the back patio of the house in terror. 

“He’s escaped! Mother, he's escaped!” She cried out.

“What?! No, we can't let the neighbors see him.” His mother shouted from inside. 

Symon detached himself from the tree, and made his way towards the door. Surely they’d calm down if they saw his intention to return back to his room.

Izzah screamed again, backing away. “No! Stay away from me!” 

His father then pushed his way in front of Izzah. He was brandishing a shotgun, aimed right at him. There was a look of hatred in his eyes Symon had never seen before, even in his most angry. 

“Get away from my family!” He shouted, the shotgun trembling in his hands.

“Father wait-!” Izzah called from behind him.

“Get back inside Izzah!” He commanded. “I don’t want you to see this.” 

Symon chirred and screeched, without a mouth to plead for his life, before the gun fired. 

The bullet had hit him in the back. His sturdy carapace absorbed most of the blow, but there was still a gaping wound in his shell which weeped golden blood. It stung terribly.  

Symon narrowly escaped with his life. He dipped into the woods behind his house, the sound of shots behind him. Some would wizz by his ear and land in the dirt mere inches from him. He dragged his body through the forest, injured and limp until he couldn’t hear his family anymore, until he couldn’t hear the shots. All he could hear were the crickets and the wind in the trees. 

After all that, he was going to die anyway. At least it was far less terrifying than the alternative. He struggled to wrap his mind around the concept of his brain shrinking down to a very basic nervous system, and his ability to think, feel emotions, and form meaningful memories melting away. It was most certainly a fate worse than death, he assumed.

And yet he still moved. Despite bleeding out, Symon still felt the desire to limp deeper into the forest. The injuries did not stop his body from changing, nor his unconscious desire to press deeper into the forest.

As he moved, he felt the trees getting bigger and the grass growing taller, while his skin hardened around his body, growing tighter. Soon the trees were like skyscrapers, calling him to climb. He raised his claws and began to scale the tree, he moved slowly, until he was once again above even the tallest blade of grass. He climbed until looking down gave him vertigo. He couldn't keep going, the wound on his body ached, and slowed him to a snail's pace and he was growing tired. His skin tightened around him to the point it was suffocating. He had to get out.

He found himself pushing against himself, his arms slipping out of his skin like it was little more than tight clothing. He heaved and pushed with the last of his remaining strength until his back popped up with the harsh tearing of exoskeleton. He pulled his head out, and the breeze felt colder and fresher on his face. He leaned back gazing into the sky. For a moment, he swore had hands once more, but then  the dizziness finally overcame him, and he fainted.