At the bottom of a seemingly endless chasm, a man lay gasping for air. The treacherous tundra had tricked him after weeks of travel. As he stared up at the opening that had lead to his downfall, he felt his warm blood slowly pool around him. He allowed himself to cry. It wasn't fair.
The stillness of the cave frightened and infuriated him. No one knew where he was. No one cared where he was. He was alone in the dark, with one crack of light ahead of him.
His salty tears flowed freely now. There was no sobbing to go along with it; he didn't feel as if he had the energy. Rather, there was an ache deep in his gut. He wept for his short life and wept that he would never see his parents again. He wept that he had never had the chance to make love, or be in love.
If there was any bright side, he felt no pain. He struggled mightily to stay awake, but that endeavor slowly slipped from the grasping hand of his consciousness. It was strange that the stone floor felt comfortable, and that the cold and biting wind above seemed to caress his face softly and tenderly here in the cave
Then, he felt something watching him. He was too weak to call out, or even to move his head. All he could do was move his eyes around the room, searching the cave with his peripherals. Even here, at the end of his life, his animal instincts screamed for him to run and hide from whatever was hiding in the darkness just out of his sight.
He heard what sounded like pens dropping in quick succession. It took his mind a moment to place the sound, and horror gripped his throat as he realized it was the sound of insect legs skittering across the rocks.
While he had struggled earlier to remain conscious, he now silently begged for death. The thought of being alive while some horrible creature devoured him enveloped him in a blanket of dread.
The skittering continued. At first it was far away, but it slowly grew louder. Terror built in the man's heart. The sound of the insect legs clicking against the rock suddenly stopped. Silence stretched, seemingly endless. On and on and on it went, until the man felt a prick on his leg. His already ragged breath caught in his throat, and he cursed his weakness.
Too exhausted to move, all he could do was wait as the pricking sensation slowly crawled up his body. The horror was all encompassing. It was near his groin now. It was on his chest. It stopped for a moment.
A leg twitched up, and slowly moved towards the man's mouth. The sharp end of it rested tentatively on his lip. 'I don't want to die like this,' he thought, 'someone, anyone, please help me!"
"I am trying to help you."
The voice was not auditory. He heard it the same way he heard thoughts in his own head. It was not entirely pleasant either, like a splinter in his mind.
"Did… did you just talk?"
The creature crawled over his face, revealing its horrendous features.
"Control yourself."
Its voice was old and flowed smoothly. The paralyzed man realized the thing could read his mind. "Wh-What are you?" It took him a moment to realize that he had not asked the question out loud.
"What I am doesn't really matter. What does matter is what I can do to help you."
"You can help me? How?!"
"Again, that is the wrong question. All you need to know is that I can."
Hesitantly, he asked, "What do you want?"
Nothing for a moment.
"I have a dilemma. I can't leave this place without a host. I can get you out of here. I can heal your wounds. I can give you power. But you must agree to be my host."
He wheezed "It's not like I have much choice. What's your name?"
"Insecare. Yours?"
"Bradley. I agree to be your host."
"Good. Get ready. This will not be pleasant."
He screamed in agony.
Atop an icy tundra, a man crawled out of a chasm. He was covered in his own blood. If you looked at him once, you'd think the wind was moving clothes. But for once, the tundra was eerily silent. If looked closer, you'd realize he was covered in thousands of miniscule crawling, corpse-eating insects.