Most of us didn’t see when the monstrous giant sky worms first attacked, we were just told by the government to dig deep tunnels that our communities could hide in.

They were real, though. You were allowed to go outside if you wanted, and risk being eaten by them. I had myself seen their malevolent forms wringing themselves through the air.

We all voted for a leader of our various communities in the tunnels, and for our tunnel that role came upon Chenille, a lovely lady who said she came from France. I grew close to her during our months under the earth, and we eventually fell in love.

“Chenille, why do you think the worms never dig into the ground to eat us?” I pondered one day.

“Maybe the government has a deal with them? Sorry, a bad joke.” She answered.

I laughed.

Eventually a grave depression came over Chenille, and she secluded herself to her room in the underground, in the deepest part of the tunnel. She refused to see anyone, only speaking to them through a crack in the door. I tried to get her to come out, but she refused.

Until at last she told me that her depression was because she missed the outside world, and she asked me to, despite the danger, bring her a photo of it. I obliged and carried my camera all the way to the outside.

Just as I stepped out, I heard a horrible roar as the ground started shaking. Suddenly a giant sky worm leapt out of the tunnel, narrowly missing me.

That’s when I realized, they’re not worms, they’re closer to butterflies, and Chenille, whose name I now grimly thought must really be Papillon, had been one of their caterpillars. She hadn’t been in a depression, she had been in a metamorphosis.

The tunnels aren’t hideouts for humanity, they are incubation chambers for the monsters.

My only comfort as I see her glimmering body dance in the sky, is that as cruel as she had been to my comrades who she consumed, her love for me must be real.