The roaches discovered a new part of their home that had remained unchanged for the entirety of their lifespans. It was an exciting sight for them and one they welcomed with open antennae.

Like one homogenous unit, the swarm of roaches filled the coffin, eagerly greeting its inhabitant.

He was similar to the many bodies scattered around their home, but unlike them, he was warm and had meat on him. This one also moved on its own, something they felt as the man struggled to remain still while the roaches explored every crevasse of his body.

They were delighted. Finally something new to feel, a new place to explore. It was truly a break from the monotony of their lives. What a welcome change.

-

It wasn’t fear that he was feeling in those moments, but instead just a feeling of disgust and discomfort that had gripped him. He was sure that he had felt worse things. What exactly they were, he couldn’t tell, but he had felt worse things.

Some time passed and the roaches still wouldn’t give up. To him, without any way to tell the time it could have been seconds or hours that he spent waiting for the roaches to leave him in peace, but one thing was certain. He had had enough.

He began to move his hands blindly in the dark, feeling out the roaches. The first one that touched his palms was quickly caught in his hand.

The insect flailed its tiny legs in his grasp but it was to no avail. The flailing quickly stopped as his grip tightened and the carapace of the roach began to crack, releasing its insides onto his skin.

For a second, the inside of the coffin fell silent.

…

In a flash, the swarm of roaches began rushing to the aid of their comrade, all of them now piled around his hand.

The roaches had no eyes, but their antennae were well equipped to detect most any sound, and especially that of their brethren dying by means that weren’t rockfall.

His left hand moved as much as it could towards the right, grasping onto as many roaches as could fit. This time he had caught several of them and they all began squirming like the first as he began crushing them in his hand. Unlike the first one, however, these did not die without a fight.

The roaches started moving their antennae, grinding them one against the other, creating a sound.

It began as something akin to the scraping of two stones against each other, but it quickly evolved into a deafening screech. The other roaches quickly joined in and soon a maddening cacophony was born within the coffin.

He made quick work of the roaches in his hand, but not before the sound made him wince out in pain, his mouth now open wide for the remaining roaches to enter.

The sound slightly subsided as the roaches began moving towards his face, enough so to give him time to realise his current situation. Quickly he seized control of his jaw muscles once again and closed his mouth, but not before a roach made its way inside.

Once within the mouth, the roach began to produce its sound loudly once again, only this time it felt so much more wrong coming from the inside of his head.

In a moment of desperation, he clenched his teeth around the roach’s body, crushing it. The taste was disgusting, like eating a spoiled egg, but it was a necessary evil to make the terrible sound stop.

The roaches next headed towards his ears, attempting to make their way inside but failing due to their size. It brought him little comfort, however, as now the sound was being forced straight into his head.

-

For what felt like an eternity, he was stuck listening to the terrible sound as he attempted to catch the roaches with his hands to no avail. They had learned and now they were prepared to evade his already limited movements.

He knew that the movement would do him little good, but at least it made the roaches move, which in turn made their sound just a bit more bearable as they could not produce the same pitch whilst evading his attempts at an attack.

This would work for the moment, he felt.

But eventually he would get tired. And the hunger too was a factor he could not ignore. It was true, the roach tasted horrible, but it was meat, it was juicy.

It was so terrible in its taste, but it was food. The only food he had access to.

In a moment of both desperation and madness a decision was made.

He moved his hands back into their original positions at the sides of his body and began to calm himself. It was something that needed doing, but it was not something he would enjoy doing by any means.

As his hands came to a rest, the sound became louder once more and filled the coffin, but this time he would only have to bear it for a short moment.

He let out a final strained breath of air and opened his mouth wide, letting out a scream aimed at himself and what he was doing.

The sound of the roaches stopped and soon he could feel his mouth filling with their warm little bodies. He truly truly wanted to stop himself from what he was doing, but the need for survival came before the disgust and his jaw once again moved, enclosing the fistful of roaches within his mouth.

The squirming of the roaches inside lasted shortly as his teeth clenched down on them and the muffled crunching sound began making its way to the rest of their swarm. It was a meal to be sure, but not one to revel in.

As the crunching became faster, the remaining roaches realised that this was an enemy they could not defeat and began making their way towards the opening atop the stone walls of the coffin.

The lucky ones escaped, but those less fortunate were trapped within his hands as he was intent on not wasting any food.

He quickly moved his hands towards his mouth, refilling the now empty void with more of the roaches and crunching down on them even faster than the first batch. A feast for the famished.

-

It was a strange batch of feelings. On the one hand, he had felt the hunger strike him as soon as he ate that first roach, but at the same time he couldn’t but be disgusted at himself for eating the insect.

Luckily, they became much easier to eat after the first mouthful and surprisingly quickly, he became accustomed to the taste, not that it made it any less disgusting, just more bearable.

And they were quite nutritious it seemed as he felt the strength returning to his body while eating the roaches. He had felt powerless and drained in the moments before, but now it felt as if he could finally utilise his body properly to some capacity at least.

Some more moments were spent hunting down the remaining roaches within the coffin, but quickly he realised that all of them he had either eaten or they escaped to avoid the gruesome fate that had befallen their less fortunate brethren. The meal was over and his survival assured for a bit longer.

With the newfound strength, he again attempted to push the stone slab above him. It was easier this time, not effortless, but easier.

The stone slab moved up and then to the side as he slid it off, crashing against the floor once it had been sufficiently moved. Released at last.

He shouted into the empty room triumphantly, scaring away the remaining roaches. The basic bodily movement of standing up felt like a true victory and the man, completely naked except for the thick cloth adorning his neck, was now standing ruler over the coffin that had imprisoned him.

-

At the centre of the abandoned tomb stood a man. A man who was a survivor. He could feel his own muscles, ready to use the freedom of movement he had fought for, aching to finally begin his life proper.

He brushed his hair back, letting it flow as far as it would go. He was naked, but it didn’t matter to him, on the contrary, it felt good to be free in every sense of the word.

He stretched first his arms, then his legs and finally his back. The sensation was amazing. It was as if his body hadn’t moved for years and was just yearning to do so. But before he could continue, a name…

“Zvanimir”

It rang through the tomb as much as it rang through his head. It was a name, he was certain, but was it his?

“Zvanimir, it is good”

It mattered little, for now it was his.