The Unforgivable Beetle

I was thinking of writing an extremely short story centering around the idea of a bug that bites you and never lets go. Well, here we go:

The Unforgivable Beetle

On one of my more recent trips to the South American rain forests, I stumbled upon a very peculiar creature. My companions and I were making our way through a dense knot of ferns when I came face to face with a small insect, perched on a leaf directly in front of me. It was a bright red beetle with yellow splotches along its carapace, rather ordinary in all aspects besides its mandibles; they were enormous. They were at least equal in size to the rest of its body, and they looked like they were designed to bite into flesh,. For that reason, I started to back away from the insect, hoping that I could leave before I suffered a painful, and most likely poisonous, bite. However my movement seemed to have disturbed it, and with a clicking sound it turned towards me and leaped.

I yelped and tried to swat it off, but it had already sunk its jaws deep into my exposed arm. I was preparing to kill the gruesome thing when one of my traveling companions shouted at me to stop. He rushed over and looked at the bug, which was still attached to my arm, and gave me a sympathetic grunt.  

"That's some poor luck," he said, "It's never fun getting bitten by an Unforgivable Beetle."

"What, why?" I asked, starting to panic. "Is it poisonous?"

"Yes, but it isn't poisonous enough to kill you as long as you don't touch it. That's not why they're annoying though. They're buggers because they never let go."

I looked down at the beetle on my arm and saw it had folded up within its shell. One could barely tell the difference between the bug and an ordinary welt.

"Can't I just pull it off?" I asked.

"No!" my friend shouted, "If you hurt the beetle in any way it will release all of its poison directly into your body. You'll die almost instantly."

"Well I certainly wouldn't want that," I grumbled. "So I'm stuck with this thing forever?"

"Just until you can see a surgeon that can pull it off without killing you," he said, patting me on the back. "They're pretty common in cities and towns close to the jungle."

"So I'll be fine?" I asked, as we started running to catch up with our group.

"You'll be fine."

That night, as we were preparing our dinner, I asked one of the native guides how the Unforgivable Beetles earned their name. Apparently there is an old legend that says that one of these beetles will bite you for every unforgivable deed you have committed in your life. The natives believe that they are supposed to stay with you forever, serving as a constant reminder of what you have done.

After contemplating this, I asked the guide how many times he had been bitten. He sighed and pulled off his shirt. His body was covered in red and yellow lumps.



I hope you enjoyed that, I know I did.