The snow-storm continues to rage as Jordan, slowly and shudderingly, raises his head from the snowbank.

His face reddened by the bite of the cold, and his eyelids drooping from exhaustion, Jordan sees that he rests upon a rocky mountain outcropping, the outline of a forest visible very far down through the storm. The all-consuming white of his location hides all, save for this, from view.

Inside, we see Wenji and Angosin making more progress on opening fridge-like metal crate.

The lid moves, more and more. With each inch of progress she and Angosin make, her movements become more frantic.

By the time the lid is taken fully off, clanking to the ground and revealing the jacketed man, Biskawaagan’s form, Wenji is crying and sniffling, shivering all over.

Biskawaagan’s eyes are closed, and his body is enitrely still.

At first, Wenji is hesitant to even come near him. She steps back, almost crushing a smaller one of the wounded birds.

Then, all too suddenly, Wenji throws herself onto him. Her eyes shut tight as she grabs at his torso, hoping to lift him from the crate. “Bapaakwa’am, indede,” she utters between sobs as she tugs at his limp arms. “Mooshkamo! Mooshkamo!”.

Angosin watches Wenji from behind, his expression betraying some semblance of boredom. In his mind, as his eyes widen a bit, he realizes: “Oh, they’ve been speaking Ojibwe.”

Angosin’s brow falls again as he turns to his right, seeing a growing mound of bugs, many climbing over each other and others buzzing around the mass. Streams of the insects issuing from within the army of birds’ feathers meet in the center of the crowd, continuing to add to the now watermelon-sized conglomerate.

Even the birds nearest the mound remain passive, not heeding it in any fashion. Wenji’s control, apparently, remains strong.

When her hand brushes against that of Biskawaagan, she freezes.

Looking down at the hand, she trembles a bit as she brings hers back to it. Touching it, her full-on shivering returns.

As she whispers, so softly as to be nearly inaudible, her hard sobs are replaced with a more subtle shake in her voice.

“Aanin dash– akininjii?”

The mound of flying and crawling insects is now shifting towards Wenji, sloping and twisting psat the birds, now having grown to the height of her lower back.

Seeing this, Angosin scowls for a moment before continuing down the hallway, past the crate with not so much as a backwards glance at Wenji or Biskawaagan.

We see as Wenji remains bent over Biskawaagan’s body, silent save for some sniffling. Behind her, the mass of insects grows yet larger, up to the point that it would surely dwarf her. In the distance, we see Angosin walking off.

Angosin thinks to himself: “Children can learn at an astounding rate. They can reproduce languages, social conduct and more, faster and with less effort than it would take an adult.”

Wenji’s attention is stolen by a shadow that has come to envelop her. She does not turn her head.

“And even considering all of that, I fail to understand how I’ve learned so much so quickly.”

Wenji finally turns to face the thing, her eyes having assumed their avian aspect. The birds around the thing can be seen flaring their wings.

Hearing Wenji’s quiet yelp of shock, Angosin looks over his shoulder.

“I’ve watched people around the world through their own eyes. A great, great many at once. With but a week’s study, I can now recognize languages with the accuracy of a professional linguist.”

Now looming high above Wenji, standing but a foot away from her with its top nearly scraping the ceiling, is a massive bug-construct that matches Ookomisan’s silhouette to a T, shawl and all.

“At my age, Wenji likely couldn’t recognize any more than the two languages she was taught. But, to begin with–”

Angosin turns to look at one of the circle-rimmed windows high on the wall. Looking back at him is a gaunt, tired face, not unlike that of an early teen’s in age.

“–am I even my age anymore?”

Leaving Angosin’s thought-narration, the bug-structure of Ookomisan raises a massive arm, all-too-similar in shape to that of her original body.

Wenji recoils, slamming into the crate and nearly falling onto her father.

Then, the recreation of Ookomisan parts its centipede lips to speak.

Her words are delivered through a symphony of low and high buzzing, as if from the many flies, bees and hornets within her form.

“Wenji, my dear. There is no time for fear, now, as we have none left at all.”

Angosin turns, now, to face the creature fully. Wenji is frozen on the spot, watching the thing’s mouth move.

“I came here to tell you two things you must accept. Now, as my mind is clearer than it had ever been in that old shell, contained now in the pheromones and sounds shared between thousands of ants, I realise that it is three things.”

Wenji responds, after a time: “Wh-what?”

The bug-mound apparition’s face contorts into something resembling worry.“What I did, Wenji, I want you to know I did for you.”

The Ookomisan replica raises its head to look at Biskawaagan.

“…For your father.”

“What?!” Wenji squeals, breaking from her confused paralysis.

“Do you know something?! Is there some way to help him?! How do I wake him up!? Tell me!”

The replica’s centipede lips disappear, the mouth becoming a flat sea of wriggling bugs.

“…Sometimes I wish he hadn’t left it to me to teach you so many things.” it utters, from nowhere in particular.

“For I was the most afraid of exposing you to the bad things in this world.”

The figure raises a massive hand from within its shawl of flies. It opens its palm to face Wenji.

At its center is a single beetle, its body crumpled and still, apparently dead.

“Now, with my new minds, I realise that death–this thing I was too scared to teach you of–is not something to be feared at all.”

“What are you saying?!” Wenji shouts at the thing. She now widens her arms at the edges of the casket’s rim, apparently trying to protect her father from the thing. “He is alive! He just fell down!”

“No, Wenji.” the thing utters in a quiet buzz. “He is dead.”

Wenji lowers her head, suddenly looking sick and very tired at the same time. “No.” she whines under her breath. “No, no, no.”

The figure, placing a hand on Wenji’s cheek, turns her head to face Angosin. Outstretching her other, massive arm, she points at him.

“Your father is dead, Wenji, and he is not your friend.”

Wenji, though slowly, manages to raise her tortured gaze to meet Angosin’s.

Angosin says, in his mind: “That must be why I never could relate to you; I never let myself. Because I knew it would come to this.”

The figure continues, proclaiming to Wenji: “It was only ever his plan to use you, and kill you the moment you stopped being useful.” 

Wenji’s eyes begin to shift to their avian aspect, filling with both a yellow tint and anger.

Now, Angosin speaks out loud.

“Just as I told you, hag.”

Wenji’s eyes drift from Angosin’s to her machete, still in his grip.

Her eyes widen, followed by a sharp pain in her stomach, as the machete’s blade slowly evaporates, beginning at the tip.

All too quickly, the blade has disappeared entirely from Angosin’s hand, handle and all. It appears now, protruding from Wenji’s gut, drenched in blood.

Wenji’s croak of pain progresses into a scream that fills the hall, blood flowing in rivers from the blade onto Biskawaagan’s chest.

Wenji’s hunched form is reflected in every one of the compound lenses of the flies in Ookomisan’s new body.

Through these many lenses, she sees better than any as the yellow of Wenji’s avian aspect melts away, and the many birds behind them begin to go all but berserk.

“Wenji!” the Ookomisan-thing yells in a buzzing scream as it dives to support her. Its efforts are for naught, however, as its form is all-too-quickly enveloped by an avalanche of winged wrath and hunger.

As its buzzing screams split, and become less and less recognizable as any voice at all, Wenji slumps fully onto her father. The blade of the machete presses into the casket’s rim, sliding back and forcing a wince out of its wearer.

 It is all that Wenji can do to hold on to her father’s jacket, and keep herself from slipping to the floor.

Her vision is foggy and shaken as she heaves her suddenly heavy head to face her father’s.

His face, even in the midst of all this, is serene and still.

Angosin has turned to leave, but only a few steps into his stride he turns around yet again.

Two ravens have now taken a perch on Biskawaagan’s face, inspecting it and digging their beaks into his eyes. Wenji is trying to scream, but releasing only a gurgle. She is trying to raise an arm to shoo the birds off with, but is only beginning to slip off of the casket after sacrificing her grip

“Good father, why would you allow this?” Angosin utters upon seeing this. “I’m so, so sorry, Wenji.”, he says with remorse in his eyes as he swathes an arm through the air. “Perhaps these two will put an end to your suffering.”

As he does this, Wenji’s form disappears, disintegrating into a mist.

Her wounded form, machete and all, re-appear in the sewer pipe, sliding out of Charleen’s back as mist as she helps Terry free his leg from the hole.

“Come on!” Charleen yells to Terry. “I’m fucking leaving you if this shit starts caving before you’re out!”

Behind these words, and the ringing in her ears besides, Wenji hears a sort of hissing sound coming from many parts of the pipe.

“I’m good! Let’s go!” Terry yells as Charleen finally pulls him from the hole melted in the pipe’s floor.

They run down the pipe, towards the dim, far-away light of where they’d entered.

Wenji, however, finds a light much closer to herself. A series of them, actually.

The hissing noise is intensifying, all around her, as a series of holes in the pipe widen steadily. It is as if it is being eaten away by the maroon-orange substance at the hole’s edges.

Outside, in the snow, Jordan watches as the pipe he’d recently exited loses a large portion of its end, tumbling loudly down the cliff-face.

Jordan pushes himself from his resting spot panickedly, the huge pipe-portion coming to rest not too far from where he had landed. As it fell, a comparatively small figure seemed to fall out of it, landing in another snowbank created from the frost its tumble knocked free.

Jordan’s eyes dart from the pipe to the snowbank. His breathing becomes more panicked.

Soon enough, he sees where Wenji’s face is uncovered by snow. It is bruised and bloodied, likely largely due to the fall. 

Her one visible eye is completely red, save for the pupil, suggesting a massive subconjunctival hemorrhage. It is staring directly at Jordan.

Though Jordan cannot hear her through the heavy, freezing wind, he sees her lips tense and move, as if to utter “You.”

Above her broken form, Jordan sees something massive and dark, spectral and feathered begin to manifest.