“So very, dingy, sister.” Solis yelled out into the black. 

  “It is what I had to do. Kyara was foolish enough to ask me for help, and so she paid for it. I could use a Lion in my army.” Luna sighed and the room lightened enough for Solis to see her face. 

  Solis frowned, “She never wanted to come here! You influenced her!” 

  “And what if I did? I am an immortal being!” 

  “You may be, dear sister, but you can still be imprisoned!” Solis grabbed a large sword from behind his back and pointed it at Luna. The sword filled with light, illuminating the whole room. “Meet the Godslayer.”

  Blue fire erupted around Solis burning his skin. 

  “You don’t scare me,” Luna said as the sword disappeared from Solis’s hand. 

  “Where-” Solis stumbled as he saw that Luna was now holding the sword to his throat. 

  She laughed at Solis’s pathetic cries for help and slit his throat with the sword. His body turned to dust and Luna could now see Solis’s face carved into the blade. 
Luna grinned, "This is only the first of many."

Hi! I'm 芋圓, and I'm squishy, sticky, and my skin is made of taro while the inside of me is made up of silky red bean paste.

I'm a great swimmer, but I usually just float in a bowl filled with soup and my other taro and sweet potato friends. But before we start swimming, we usually end up in the freezer. It's really cold there, but luckily we're already used to it, and we're protected by a thick wall of paper. I don't like being in the freezer though, because I can't move or talk to my friends! We're all separated by a tall, white plastic wall, and it's not at all comfortable. We are squished inside those cells, and soon we are coated in a thick layer of ice. But it definitely feels good when we go into the sauna (the kitchen steamer).

It seems like we're always taken out on the Lunar New Year's Eve! My friends and I are carried all the way to the steamer, and then all the ice on our skin melts. It feels really good, and after we get put into a bowl. Finally, we get to talk to each other! But it doesn't happen for long. After a while, we're carried onto a white, ceramic spoon, and all I remember are loud sounds and going down a deep, dark tunnel.

Shrink, shrink, shrink. I tried to make my body shrink, tried to make it condense into a much smaller version of itself. Something as tiny as an ant. So tiny you don’t even remember it’s there. I could feel the stares pour over me, pulling every part of me away. Making me smaller. Smaller. Smaller. I was shrinking faster than ever but not in the way I’d wanted to.

Shrink, shrink, shrink. The words pierced through my body, my ears barely understanding them. They were like daggers, cutting through me, tearing me apart.

Shrink, shrink, shrink. Every part of me seemed to shrink at the cold words my ears wouldn’t believe. Refused to believe. I was getting smaller by the second, but I wanted to shrink even smaller. I wanted to run away and hide. I pulled away, but the cold grip on my arms just became tighter.

Shrink, shrink, shrink. Tears welled up in my eyes, threatening to spill. I wouldn’t let them. I couldn’t let them.

Shrink, shrink, shrink. The last of the words settled into my brain, leaving a mark I knew would last forever. For the first time, I realized how small and how alone I really was. I realized that somewhere along the line I’d made a mistake I’d regret for a very long time. I was completely alone now. 

Shrink, shrink, shrink. This had all gone wrong. Very very wrong. And now I couldn’t stop shrinking.

But that only made them notice me more.

"Then why aren't you climbing up?!” called the ant on the rock.

"Well, you're bigger than us and actually have experience climbing!" called the same ant from below.