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Description
Maya Cross ducked under the fallen stone supporting beam. The moss covered structure could easily be ancient Greek or Roman, perhaps even older. Even with her knowledge and keen eye it was difficult to place the architecture when it was so overgrown with vegetation.

She descended down the steep stone steps. The stairs were littered with a thick layer of fallen leaves and other dying flora. Each footfall brought a wet squish or loud crunch that seemed all the louder as it echoed down into darkness. She didn’t want to think about the insects crawling on each of those filthy steps. She could practically hear the rotting vegetation thriving with life.

The passage grew darker the further down she got but she held off from using her torch. She knew what would happen as soon as she flicked on that bright light and she dreaded it every time. The descent seemed endless and when she looked back the light of the entrance seemed dim and distant. With loud, reverberating taps her feet finally reached a horizontal surface that was bigger than the slim steps and thankfully free of decomposing vegetation for the scuttling insects to gorge on.

Maya looked around. She could see she was in a large chamber but had no inkling of its size or what it contained. The dim light from the staircase hardly lit the room at all. She had no choice but to use it.

With a loud echoing click, Maya lit the chamber with her flashlight and immediately she heard the fluttering and the buzzing and the scuttering of all manner of creatures creeping in the darkness. A loud buzz like a dental drill entered her ear and she felt something brush past it. Maya shrieked and batted at the air with her eyes closed, her voice echoing in the chamber and more creatures of the dark scrambled in the shadows. She dared to open her eye to see dozens of moths chasing after the light of her torch. She could feel them landing on her tickling her hand and she swiped at them. Maya hated the wretched things.

The air was hot and humid even in the darkness but then the whole island was uncomfortably warm and moist. It was a perfect breeding ground for that fat, revolting bugs. Maya trudged through dust, cobweb and insect filled rooms slowly becoming disheartened. It seemed like the place had been picked clean of valuables long ago and the hundreds of years old skeletons she saw seemed to prove that. From the tattered remnants of their clothes and swords she judged that they were 18th century sailors or pirates and that they had already taken all the ‘booty’ that Maya had came in search for.

Then she saw it on a plinth in the center of a chapel like room. The silver statue was of a bare naked woman, majestic and proud even in her nudity. Her hair seemed painstakingly carved out of onyx into short curls. Her only clothing was a simple cloth that hung over her shoulders though it was rendered in the most luminescent gold. But most unusually, the silver of the Goddess’ skin sparkled like moonlight having not tarnished at all. Maya had to have it.

After slowly pacing around the plinth, searching for any signs that statue was held in place or connected to any crude mechanisms to ward off thieves, Maya decided it was safe. She reached out and slowly and plucked the statue from its stand. She held it close, admiring the workmanship of the intricate shapes etched into the silver of her shoulder and between her thighs. I’d hazard a guess that she is some effigy of a Goddess of fertility from the the way she’s prominently displaying her womanhood and breasts. The attention to detail is astounding. Maya thought to herself, though the curious smile on the statues face didn’t seem to convey proud motherhood but something else. Something naughtier… or mischievous.

I guess the pirates didn’t get all the booty. Maya chuckled to herself as she admired the statues wide hips and ample bottom before placing it in her satchel.

She could have turned back then and been richer than sin but there was still so much to explore, so many rare and ancient artifacts to uncover, so she pressed on. A short walk through black hallways led to a fairly dull room that seemed to have once been a public bath or shallow pool, though now it was empty save for some moss and weeds creeping from the cracks in its base and pushing up the floor tiles. She carried onward to the next corridor though she stopped in her tracks when she saw what waited there. It was a maze of spiders’ webs.

Maya shuddered and shook her head, “Nope. Not going in there.”

She turned on the spot, intending to find another route but stopped dead when she saw something snake-like scurry across the floor. It was a foot long millipede. She inhaled deeply and sharply.

“Stay calm. It’s just a bug. Just stay calm,” she assured herself.

She heard the chittering of bugs to her left and saw the bones of a long dead man in the corner. A whole hive of little brown insects scuttled about inside his ribcage and a thick millipede curled out of an eyesocket.

“Calm. I’m calm. Totally calm.” Maya trembled but every fibre of her being was telling her to panic. To run and get out of there.

A loud buzzing in her right ear sent her into a panic. Something was touching her, making its way inside her ear! In a moment she imagined it crawling in, eating away at her from the inside out. She let out a shrill scream and dropped the flashlight and satchel and began flailing wildly. In her panic, her heel slipped on the bath rooms marble floor tile which was raised by a particularly large and tentacle like plant. Maya lost her footing and reached out desperately for anything to grab onto but there was nothing. She fell backwards into the web filled hall.

Maya closed her eyes, expecting to feel the impact of her head on the floor but instead she was caught. For a brief moment she felt relieved, then there was a moment of horror as she realised what had saved her. She’d fallen into the web like it was a trap that had been lain there centuries earlier - waiting for her.

“Uh, ughhhh!” Maya panicked and tried to free herself from the thin strands before she was assaulted by spiders. The webs were strong but not sticking to her as she expected them to and oddly devoid of spiders. In fact, it felt very different to a spiders web. It was strangely smooth, almost slinky. She rolled to get onto her front but the webs seemed to roll around her trapping her a little more. She saw she was suspended a few feet in the air. The strong strands had twisted around her hands and legs. She was trapped like a helpless little bug.

Maya shuddered as she considered whether starvation or those starving insects would get to her first. She remembered reading that the majority of worms lived underground and that in some places there were as many as 700 of the disgusting, wriggling things per square meter. How long would it be before the spiders, maggots and worms had picked her bones clean of flesh if she died down in this deep dark place?

She pushed the thought away and concentrated on escaping. She saw that her satchel lay beneath her and her flashlight still rolled along the uneven floor nearby. She watched it roll in slow motion and as it did it started to turn, spinning slower and slower, the beam getting closer and closer to her until she was fully illuminated. Then the horrid buzzing started.

Maya had little time to prepare before the moths descended on her as she was lit up like a candle. There were hundreds buzzing and flapping their wings as they covered her body. Instinctively, she rolled in the webs causing the moths to flutter away for a moment but trapping her tighter. She could hear them eating, gnawing away. The sound of tearing filled her ears and she winced but was surprised when she couldn’t feel any pain. She looked down at her body and saw the creatures didn’t cover her arms or calves. Not one had landed on her face or any of her bare skin. They were on her clothes, eating away at her shorts and tanktop.

Maya shook, trying to get them away, too afraid to open her mouth to scream lest a stray moth find its way inside. Scraps of her clothing fell to the floor and she even felt her shoes become loose and clop onto the ground in ruins. Soon she felt them crawling and tickling her all over her naked body, their fuzzy bodies brushing against her breasts and crawling between her toes. She couldn’t help but laugh and shake. Though she tried to resist she couldn’t help but roll and roll trying to escape the tickling. Then it stopped.

All at once, the moths' furry forms skittered away from hers and she panted catching her breath, feeling dizzy, like the world was spinning. It was spinning, or at least she was. Maya was turning slowly like meat on a spit. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the moths working. Turning her and spinning their silk around her. Cocooning her!

“No! Stop it! STOP! STMMMMPPP!” Maya cried out but her mouth was covered by a strip of silk that silenced her. She could feel the silk, hardening around her, compressing tightly. Inexplicably, her body seemed to give way, deflating beneath the layers of silk. She was being squashed inside the cocoon and it was somehow shrinking her. Maya panicked as the walls and the floor grew further away and the thin silk strands stretched longer and thicker before her tear filled eyes. The moths, too, grew larger and larger around her becoming the size of rats and then dogs until she could see each of the individual hairs of their furry bodies. Soon they were enormous beasts, bigger than she was loudly scurrying over her covering her in wet gooey silk. She screamed and cried into their excretions fully expecting to be eaten alive by the moths. She prayed for rescue but if anyone did arrive all they would see would be a tiny little cocoon hanging from a web with no clue as to the bug sized woman trapped inside.

The last thing Maya saw, before her eyes were covered in silk, was the now giant silver statue, staring out from her satchel. Its huge, glowing silver presence oppressed and dominated her making her feel insignificant. The Goddess cruelly smiled at her pathetically tiny form. Maya realised that she was not merely a Goddess of Fertility but also a Goddess of Vengeance, punishing the explorer for stealing from her shrine.

Under the silk, Maya felt her body twisting and contorting. Her legs grew smaller even as they were forced into a fetal position as her bottom pushed out larger and rounder. Her arms, packed tightly against her torso. Her elbows sunk into her body. She tried to raise them, pulling apart from her body but instead her upper arms tore away from her elbows. She looked at the stumps in horror as they blackened, her forearms that stuck out at her waist, changed along with them until she had four stumpy, furry bug legs. She could feel her shoulder blades sliding out from under her skin, separating from her body and becoming the beginnings of wings. her eyebrows grew out into exotic and complex feelers. Maya watched her body changed into that of the bug that she feared and that disgusted her the most. She cried out, eyes bulging and darkening. In a tiny squeak of a voice she said, “No! No! I have to get out. I have to get out!” until she could no longer speak at all.

The statue of the Goddess watched the tiny cocoon begin to shake a little and crack as the insignificant little moth pushed its way out. She couldn't believe what had happened. Was this her life now? Had she really gone from filthy rich explorer and tomb raider to an insignificant and revolting little bug? She had a mansion, a butler and three cars! She refused to believe that her life had been all but stolen away as she was reduced to a mere insect forever. The thought of spending her life as a moth, breeding with other bugs and squeezing out eggs utterly disgusted her. That couldn't be the humiliating end for the proud Maya Cross!

The terrified creature crawled from her cocoon and desperately searched for the exit, hoping that somehow she could find help and return to being the bright and successful woman she once was. It seemed utterly hopeless and she thought she would be forever trapped in the darkness but then she saw the light. Her heart and her wings fluttered as she flew toward it. She was so close now, she could feel the warm rays of light. Then suddenly she bounced off an invisible barrier. She tried to push through again and again but some invisible force seemed to keep her away from her light of hope. No! No! I have to get out, let me out! She screamed in her head as she tried again to break through the barrier.

The Goddess smiled as she watched the pitiful little moth hopelessly plink and bounce off of the flashlights lens again and again and again...

Description
Maya Cross ducked under the fallen stone supporting beam. The moss covered structure could easily be ancient Greek or Roman, perhaps even older. Even with her knowledge and keen eye it was difficult to place the architecture when it was so overgrown with vegetation.

She descended down the steep stone steps. The stairs were littered with a thick layer of fallen leaves and other dying flora. Each footfall brought a wet squish or loud crunch that seemed all the louder as it echoed down into darkness. She didn’t want to think about the insects crawling on each of those filthy steps. She could practically hear the rotting vegetation thriving with life.

The passage grew darker the further down she got but she held off from using her torch. She knew what would happen as soon as she flicked on that bright light and she dreaded it every time. The descent seemed endless and when she looked back the light of the entrance seemed dim and distant. With loud, reverberating taps her feet finally reached a horizontal surface that was bigger than the slim steps and thankfully free of decomposing vegetation for the scuttling insects to gorge on.

Maya looked around. She could see she was in a large chamber but had no inkling of its size or what it contained. The dim light from the staircase hardly lit the room at all. She had no choice but to use it.

With a loud echoing click, Maya lit the chamber with her flashlight and immediately she heard the fluttering and the buzzing and the scuttering of all manner of creatures creeping in the darkness. A loud buzz like a dental drill entered her ear and she felt something brush past it. Maya shrieked and batted at the air with her eyes closed, her voice echoing in the chamber and more creatures of the dark scrambled in the shadows. She dared to open her eye to see dozens of moths chasing after the light of her torch. She could feel them landing on her tickling her hand and she swiped at them. Maya hated the wretched things.

The air was hot and humid even in the darkness but then the whole island was uncomfortably warm and moist. It was a perfect breeding ground for that fat, revolting bugs. Maya trudged through dust, cobweb and insect filled rooms slowly becoming disheartened. It seemed like the place had been picked clean of valuables long ago and the hundreds of years old skeletons she saw seemed to prove that. From the tattered remnants of their clothes and swords she judged that they were 18th century sailors or pirates and that they had already taken all the ‘booty’ that Maya had came in search for.

Then she saw it on a plinth in the center of a chapel like room. The silver statue was of a bare naked woman, majestic and proud even in her nudity. Her hair seemed painstakingly carved out of onyx into short curls. Her only clothing was a simple cloth that hung over her shoulders though it was rendered in the most luminescent gold. But most unusually, the silver of the Goddess’ skin sparkled like moonlight having not tarnished at all. Maya had to have it.

After slowly pacing around the plinth, searching for any signs that statue was held in place or connected to any crude mechanisms to ward off thieves, Maya decided it was safe. She reached out and slowly and plucked the statue from its stand. She held it close, admiring the workmanship of the intricate shapes etched into the silver of her shoulder and between her thighs. I’d hazard a guess that she is some effigy of a Goddess of fertility from the the way she’s prominently displaying her womanhood and breasts. The attention to detail is astounding. Maya thought to herself, though the curious smile on the statues face didn’t seem to convey proud motherhood but something else. Something naughtier… or mischievous.

I guess the pirates didn’t get all the booty. Maya chuckled to herself as she admired the statues wide hips and ample bottom before placing it in her satchel.

She could have turned back then and been richer than sin but there was still so much to explore, so many rare and ancient artifacts to uncover, so she pressed on. A short walk through black hallways led to a fairly dull room that seemed to have once been a public bath or shallow pool, though now it was empty save for some moss and weeds creeping from the cracks in its base and pushing up the floor tiles. She carried onward to the next corridor though she stopped in her tracks when she saw what waited there. It was a maze of spiders’ webs.

Maya shuddered and shook her head, “Nope. Not going in there.”

She turned on the spot, intending to find another route but stopped dead when she saw something snake-like scurry across the floor. It was a foot long millipede. She inhaled deeply and sharply.

“Stay calm. It’s just a bug. Just stay calm,” she assured herself.

She heard the chittering of bugs to her left and saw the bones of a long dead man in the corner. A whole hive of little brown insects scuttled about inside his ribcage and a thick millipede curled out of an eyesocket.

“Calm. I’m calm. Totally calm.” Maya trembled but every fibre of her being was telling her to panic. To run and get out of there.

A loud buzzing in her right ear sent her into a panic. Something was touching her, making its way inside her ear! In a moment she imagined it crawling in, eating away at her from the inside out. She let out a shrill scream and dropped the flashlight and satchel and began flailing wildly. In her panic, her heel slipped on the bath rooms marble floor tile which was raised by a particularly large and tentacle like plant. Maya lost her footing and reached out desperately for anything to grab onto but there was nothing. She fell backwards into the web filled hall.

Maya closed her eyes, expecting to feel the impact of her head on the floor but instead she was caught. For a brief moment she felt relieved, then there was a moment of horror as she realised what had saved her. She’d fallen into the web like it was a trap that had been lain there centuries earlier - waiting for her.

“Uh, ughhhh!” Maya panicked and tried to free herself from the thin strands before she was assaulted by spiders. The webs were strong but not sticking to her as she expected them to and oddly devoid of spiders. In fact, it felt very different to a spiders web. It was strangely smooth, almost slinky. She rolled to get onto her front but the webs seemed to roll around her trapping her a little more. She saw she was suspended a few feet in the air. The strong strands had twisted around her hands and legs. She was trapped like a helpless little bug.

Maya shuddered as she considered whether starvation or those starving insects would get to her first. She remembered reading that the majority of worms lived underground and that in some places there were as many as 700 of the disgusting, wriggling things per square meter. How long would it be before the spiders, maggots and worms had picked her bones clean of flesh if she died down in this deep dark place?

She pushed the thought away and concentrated on escaping. She saw that her satchel lay beneath her and her flashlight still rolled along the uneven floor nearby. She watched it roll in slow motion and as it did it started to turn, spinning slower and slower, the beam getting closer and closer to her until she was fully illuminated. Then the horrid buzzing started.

Maya had little time to prepare before the moths descended on her as she was lit up like a candle. There were hundreds buzzing and flapping their wings as they covered her body. Instinctively, she rolled in the webs causing the moths to flutter away for a moment but trapping her tighter. She could hear them eating, gnawing away. The sound of tearing filled her ears and she winced but was surprised when she couldn’t feel any pain. She looked down at her body and saw the creatures didn’t cover her arms or calves. Not one had landed on her face or any of her bare skin. They were on her clothes, eating away at her shorts and tanktop.

Maya shook, trying to get them away, too afraid to open her mouth to scream lest a stray moth find its way inside. Scraps of her clothing fell to the floor and she even felt her shoes become loose and clop onto the ground in ruins. Soon she felt them crawling and tickling her all over her naked body, their fuzzy bodies brushing against her breasts and crawling between her toes. She couldn’t help but laugh and shake. Though she tried to resist she couldn’t help but roll and roll trying to escape the tickling. Then it stopped.

All at once, the moths' furry forms skittered away from hers and she panted catching her breath, feeling dizzy, like the world was spinning. It was spinning, or at least she was. Maya was turning slowly like meat on a spit. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the moths working. Turning her and spinning their silk around her. Cocooning her!

“No! Stop it! STOP! STMMMMPPP!” Maya cried out but her mouth was covered by a strip of silk that silenced her. She could feel the silk, hardening around her, compressing tightly. Inexplicably, her body seemed to give way, deflating beneath the layers of silk. She was being squashed inside the cocoon and it was somehow shrinking her. Maya panicked as the walls and the floor grew further away and the thin silk strands stretched longer and thicker before her tear filled eyes. The moths, too, grew larger and larger around her becoming the size of rats and then dogs until she could see each of the individual hairs of their furry bodies. Soon they were enormous beasts, bigger than she was loudly scurrying over her covering her in wet gooey silk. She screamed and cried into their excretions fully expecting to be eaten alive by the moths. She prayed for rescue but if anyone did arrive all they would see would be a tiny little cocoon hanging from a web with no clue as to the bug sized woman trapped inside.

The last thing Maya saw, before her eyes were covered in silk, was the now giant silver statue, staring out from her satchel. Its huge, glowing silver presence oppressed and dominated her making her feel insignificant. The Goddess cruelly smiled at her pathetically tiny form. Maya realised that she was not merely a Goddess of Fertility but also a Goddess of Vengeance, punishing the explorer for stealing from her shrine.

Under the silk, Maya felt her body twisting and contorting. Her legs grew smaller even as they were forced into a fetal position as her bottom pushed out larger and rounder. Her arms, packed tightly against her torso. Her elbows sunk into her body. She tried to raise them, pulling apart from her body but instead her upper arms tore away from her elbows. She looked at the stumps in horror as they blackened, her forearms that stuck out at her waist, changed along with them until she had four stumpy, furry bug legs. She could feel her shoulder blades sliding out from under her skin, separating from her body and becoming the beginnings of wings. her eyebrows grew out into exotic and complex feelers. Maya watched her body changed into that of the bug that she feared and that disgusted her the most. She cried out, eyes bulging and darkening. In a tiny squeak of a voice she said, “No! No! I have to get out. I have to get out!” until she could no longer speak at all.

The statue of the Goddess watched the tiny cocoon begin to shake a little and crack as the insignificant little moth pushed its way out. She couldn't believe what had happened. Was this her life now? Had she really gone from filthy rich explorer and tomb raider to an insignificant and revolting little bug? She had a mansion, a butler and three cars! She refused to believe that her life had been all but stolen away as she was reduced to a mere insect forever. The thought of spending her life as a moth, breeding with other bugs and squeezing out eggs utterly disgusted her. That couldn't be the humiliating end for the proud Maya Cross!

The terrified creature crawled from her cocoon and desperately searched for the exit, hoping that somehow she could find help and return to being the bright and successful woman she once was. It seemed utterly hopeless and she thought she would be forever trapped in the darkness but then she saw the light. Her heart and her wings fluttered as she flew toward it. She was so close now, she could feel the warm rays of light. Then suddenly she bounced off an invisible barrier. She tried to push through again and again but some invisible force seemed to keep her away from her light of hope. No! No! I have to get out, let me out! She screamed in her head as she tried again to break through the barrier.

The Goddess smiled as she watched the pitiful little moth hopelessly plink and bounce off of the flashlights lens again and again and again...