While the five Numbers are currently recognized to correspond to the attributes of strength, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma, these “attributes” are of course arbitrary. Aside from centuries of tradition, the only thing tying those specific words to the Numbers on our arms is general observation. The ancient Placton civilization had a different way of referring to the Numbers, based on the professions most related to each Number. Translated into English, those were: fighter, messenger, leader, scholar, and merchant.

- Excerpt from “The Five Numbers, 5th Edition”

I pause, listening.

At first, I don’t hear anything. Just the breeze and the slight crunching of the dry grass as I shift from foot to foot.

I’m about to speak, to ask Styx what she means, when I hear it. A slight hum. It’s very quiet, and after listening to the blood coursing in my plugged ears for the last few hours it’s hard to pick out. My first thought is that it’s a car speeding down the road in the distance, but the sound doesn’t quite match up.

“What is it?” I ask. “How long has it been going on?”

“I’m not sure, I noticed it less than a minute ago, but it could have started earlier. I might have been ignoring it for a while.” Styx responds. Melete has a worried look on her face, her knives held tight in her hands. Pallas has removed one of his earplugs, listening to our conversation as his eyes search behind us.

I also turn to scan our surroundings. I can’t tell where the noise is coming from -- it feels as if it completely surrounds me, not coming from any specific direction. I turn east, away from the setting sun, and squint. I can’t see nearly as well that direction, the darkness of twilight shadowing everything in the distance.

“Wait…” I mutter to myself, looking into the growing darkness. It shouldn’t be that dark. Not yet, at least. The sun hasn’t gone down that far.

What I previously thought was just the gloom of sunset is expanding, a growing shadow on the horizon. And as it gets bigger, a cloud of black that reaches into the sky, the humming begins to grow in intensity. I can clearly make out the noise now, a thrumming buzz that gets louder and louder.

“Over there!” I yell out, pointing it out to my companions, although as the seconds pass it becomes impossible to miss. The black cloud is rising, seeming to cover miles.

What is this? No, there’s no time for that -- that’s not what’s important. What’s important is what do we do?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for that either. What can we do? Whatever it is, it is moving across the horizon at a pace far faster than even Styx can run. There’s no cover anywhere nearby, not that we can get to within a few minutes. Fight? How can we fight something that’s big enough to darken the horizon?

The others are looking at me, seeming to wait for my instruction. What can I tell them? My mind whirls, searching for possibilities but coming up empty. What do they expect from me? I decided to be the leader they needed, to make the decisions that needed to be made. But what if there is no decision that can be made? I just stand there, staring at the approaching blackness, heart in my feet. Is this how it all ends?

Melete’s good eye is wide and afraid. Pallas still holds an earplug in his hand, waiting for instructions that aren’t coming. Styx, normally so confident, looks ready to run, unsure of what to do.

In that moment, as the edge of the cloud gets closer I come to a realization. Being a leader, being someone who always makes the correct decisions to keep us safe -- that’s not who I am. I can’t be that person. No matter how much I improve my wisdom, I won’t be able to always make the correct choice, because I’m human, and I’m fallible. And because sometimes there is no good choice.

I can’t be a leader who always makes the choice that keeps us safe. But right now, that’s not what they need. They need someone who can make the choice -- even if it isn’t good.

Words burst out of me in a torrent.

“Circle up, Pallas in front. Melete get in the middle, get ready with your skill, we’ll protect you from anything that gets close. Styx, do you think you can use your skill in an area around us?”

“I don’t know, maybe…” She replies, but I cut her off.

“Well get ready to try. I’m not sure what this is, but I’m hoping your skill can protect us. Pallas, toss me some earplugs. I don’t want Styx’s skill letting me hear Melete.”

Within seconds, we’re situated and ready. The hesitation in my friends is gone, replaced by determination. Sure, the fear is still there. But instead of a paralyzing fear, a fear that drives us to run and hide, it is a fear we are ready to overcome.

The cloud draws closer, and I can see something rolling in the darkness, twisting and turning. I squint, trying to make it out.

Suddenly, Styx yells out, loud enough to be heard even through my earplugs. “BUGS!”

I realize she’s right. The cloud is close enough to see a few details within, and it terrifies me. It is a giant swarm of bugs. Thousands, maybe millions of them.

There’s no time for any change of plans though. In seconds, they are around us and all is chaos. Each of the bugs is about the size of my closed fist, heavy enough that I flinch when they bounce off of me. I swing my machete wildly, once, twice, but hit nothing. I turn the blade in my hand, now using the flat of my blade, and have a bit more success, hitting a few of the bugs on my next swing.

They are everywhere, but always shifting and moving. I see my friends swinging their own weapons next to me, a few bugs getting knocked from the sky.

One is knocked, mostly intact, to the ground in front of me. It looks a bit like a large cricket, except it is a dark greyish color. The part that terrifies me is the short, pointed stinger on its rear.

The number of bugs flying around us intensifies as the swarm surrounds us in truth. My swings connect with more and more bugs each time, but for each knocked away or killed more take their place.

And then a spike of pain pushes through my head as Melete’s voice rises above the buzzing, faintly audible through the earplugs. The bugs surrounding us stutter as their flight becomes erratic, clearly affected by her skill.

A few of the bugs nearest to us drop to the ground, unhit. It appears they’re weak enough to die simply from her skill. I can feel a slight rush as the Number on my palm reforms, but I don’t have any time to check. Even though the bugs closest to us are having the hardest time coping with Melete’s song, her voice seems to be acting as a siren call. More and more of the swarm surrounds us.

I swing my machete frantically back and forth. I can’t tell how useful it is, there’s too many bugs now to confirm any kills, but the occasional resistance against my blade convinces me to keep swinging. My vision is almost completely obscured by the darkness of flying bugs. One lands directly on my face, and I bash it off with my left hand, still swinging with my right.

Another bug lands on the exposed back of my right hand. Before I can knock it off, I feel a prick on my skin below the bug monster. I knock it away, but there’s no time to check my hand for injury.

Within seconds my right hand goes numb, the machete falling to the ground from fingers too weak to keep hold. I can no longer hear Melete’s voice behind me -- I hope it’s just the buzzing that is drowning it out, but there’s no time to check on her. I dive and grab my machete with my left hand, almost hitting my head on the handles of the wheelbarrow. At some point, it was knocked over and is laying on its side in the dirt, food and blankets strewn across the ground.

In an instant, a new plan forms, and I drop the machete. Grabbing the blankets in my good hand, I turn back to my friends amid the swarming insects. Melete is on her hands and knees in the dirt, coughing. Styx and Pallas stand on either side of her, swinging their weapons at the air. There appear to be hundreds of dead bugs in a circle surrounding them, but they are only a drop in the bucket compared to the remaining swarm.

I don’t have time to question my plan. I grab our two thickest blankets, thankfully in easy reach, and throw one to Pallas, unfolding the other quickly with my one useful hand. I feel a bug land on top of my head, but I ignore it.

“Cover up!” I scream as loud as I can. I hope they understand me. “Styx! The wheelbarrow!”

Mid-swing, Styx makes eye contact with me. For an instant there’s confusion and I almost panic. I don’t have time to explain any further. But then understanding flashes in her eyes and she runs to where the wheelbarrow lays on its side.

I don’t have time to observe as she dumps the rest of the supplies out or as Pallas unfolds his own blanket. I run to where Melete is almost lying on the ground and jump on top of her, knocking off several bugs that had attached themselves to her back in the process.

Melete is tiny, a good six inches shorter than me and barely more than a hundred pounds. I hug her to my chest and roll on the ground, cocooning us together inside the thick blanket.

We aren’t safe yet. The blanket is by no means airtight, and I spend a few seconds trying to wrap it even tighter around us. There are still openings above our heads and at our feet, and I try to free up a hand to pull the blanket tight around my head. But I’m not able to reposition my arm, not while keeping the blanket tightly wrapped.

I can’t feel any bugs crawling on my head, at least not yet. Actually, I can’t feel anything from my scalp aside from a strange tingling sensation. I must have gotten stung. I need to close off the openings, somehow.

I focus in on my skill. I picture my hair, short and dark brown. Always a bit thinner than I wanted it to be, I used to worry about going bald like my dad. But before I get any more distracted, I banish that image from my mind and imagine my hair as it could be. I imagine when I once felt the pelt of a bison -- hair long, curly, and coarse. I picture my hair changing to mimic that, growing to a ridiculous length, covering the opening above us and protecting me from the bugs. I imagine all of this, and then with my skill, I push.

It takes over a minute, but finally the change is complete -- or at least I assume it is. I can’t feel or see any difference, not wrapped in the blanket in the dark, but the skill in my chest seems to confirm that the change was successful.

I focus instead on my feet. Quickly slipping out of my shoes, I picture my feet expanding to fill the entire entrance, tearing my socks and forming a wall to keep out any bugs. I imagine my soles hardening, becoming impenetrable to their short stingers.

As I activate my skill, I feel the energy drain from me. And I gasp for breath. I continue to push for just a second longer before I stop, sweating and barely conscious against the weight of my skill. It seems like the change is too substantial, too different from my normal feet for me to do. I can’t handle it.

But then I grit my teeth. With no hesitation, I release my skill from every other part of my body. My leg spikes in pain as the injury returns, the tattoo of my skill on my right arm is suddenly revealed, the skin over my knuckle splits into a small cut, and a half dozen other modifications I had been training as we walked reform into my normal body. The weight on my chest lifts. I’m not sure if it will be enough. It will have to be enough.

I restart the change to my feet. The weight is still heavy, crushingly heavy. The seconds drag on as I continue to use my skill to apply the change. I don’t know how much longer until it is complete. Surely not a minute? Two minutes? I can’t last that long.

But I can last for one more second. And another second after that. Just one more.

I repeat the mantra in my head as time stretches on. Just one more second.

Just one more.

One more.

Until finally, the change is complete and I feel the weight on my chest lift to a manageable amount. We’re safe, or as least as safe as I can make us. I turn my focus to Melete. Her eyes are closed and I haven’t felt her move since I tackled her. Her breath comes in short bursts, shallow and wheezing. But for now there’s nothing I can do.

I lie there wedged up against Melete wrapped tightly in the blanket. The only noises are the swarm’s constant thrum and Melete’s rapid gasps.

I lie there hoping Styx and Pallas are safe.

S: 100

D:100

W: 308

I: 74 (+1)

C: 56 (+1)

?

Skills: Adjust:Self