Mosquito System: Blood Required

Blood Tax

​"Damn it! You two grown-ass men couldn't even hold one half-dead moron?"

​Arsh stood at the ledge, his fingers digging into his waist as he stared into the abyss.

Below them, the world was nothing but a churning throat of fogginess. From the twenty-seventh floor, the ground was invisible. There was only the sound of wind and the silence.

​Xena stood beside him, her face screaming of twitching fury. Without a word, she spun around and delivered a stinging slap to the guard on her right.

​"Fucking bastards!" she hissed, her voice vibrating with high pitched verbal note. "You had one job. One. And you still managed to let him slip through your fingers."

​"Baby..." Arsh reached out, resting a hand on her trembling shoulder.

"Relax. Look at the height. From twenty-seven stories up. He's steak on the pavement by now."

​Xena let out a sudden, hysterical laugh that echoed off the rooftop machinery like jagged glass. "He's steak? Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

​"The papers," Arsh muttered, his gaze shifting back to the empty air. "He didn't sign. We're left with nothing but a body and a mess."

​Xena scratched at her curly hair, her manicured nails digging into her scalp. "I don't know, I don't know! Who knew that fucker had a suicide play up his sleeve? He was always too soft for that."

​Arsh let out a cruel, mocking smirk. "I have to hand it to him. Your betrayal turned a rich brat into a lunatic. He chose the concrete over being killed by the woman he doted on. It's romantically tragic, really."

​"He's definitely dead, right?" Xena asked, her eyes darting toward the streetlights far below.

​"Unless he's a ghost," Arsh joked.

​"Don't," Xena snapped, her face paling. "I'm serious, Arsh."

​"Fine. It's better to be sure." Arsh whistled to his men, his voice turning cold and professional. "Go down. Check the surrounding. Find the meat, clean it up, and don't alert the locals. Go. Remember to clean the area without leaving a single clue."

​As the guards scrambled toward the stairs, Xena wrapped her arms around Arsh's neck, pulling him close.

"Ten years, Arsh. We planned this for ten years. If we don't get that wealth, what was it all for?"

​"We'll forge it, baby," Arsh whispered into her ear. "Think about it. No one knows what happened tonight. He's gone. We'll make up the lies, copy his signature, and we'll move on like nothing happened."

​Xena's eyes brightened as she processed the plan. She leaned in, slurping at his skin with a predatory hunger.

"You're a little devil, aren't you?" She traced a slow, invisible pattern over his chest. "We'll say he had a mental breakdown. Suicide due to depression. As his partner of a decade, If I step in to manage the estate... No one will dare question me."

​She threw her head back and laughed, the sound carried away by the wind that had just claimed a life.

---

In the bush nearby the building:

​When my eyes finally opened, the world felt wrong.

​It was pitch black, yet I could see. Everything was filtered through a thousand jagged lenses, a mosaic of shadows and heat. I tried to remember the fall, the wind, the screaming—but it was all buried under a heavy, suffocating silence.

​"Did I die?" I whispered. Or I tried to.

​Tut... tut... tut...

​[Welcome back, Host. The System is now fully integrated into your biology. It is time for your first Tax.]

​The robotic voice from the void crashed through my mind. It wasn't a dream. I wasn't dead.

​"I haven't even processed the fact that I'm not a pancake on the sidewalk," I raged internally. "And you're already asking for a handout?"

​[The Blood Tax is mandatory,] the voice droned. [There are currently no hidden rules, but as the System evolves, your obligations will increase. Do you accept?]

​"Do I have a choice?" I muttered. "Is there a time limit?"

​[The Tax must be paid every night at the stroke of midnight. That is when your connection to the System is most potent.]

​The voice faded, leaving me with the chirping of crickets that sounded like thunder in my ears. How was I supposed to do this? How do I even turn a mosquito...

​Boom.

​A sudden, violent shift occurred. I tried to shout "Holy crap," but what came out was a high-pitched, agonizing eeeeeeeee.

I reached for my face, but my hands were gone. In their place were spindly, bristled limbs. My mouth felt heavy, weighted down by a long, serrated straw.

​I was a mosquito. A tiny, fragile parasite. I fainted again, the sheer horror of my new reality short-circuiting my brain.

​Half an hour later, I got my sense back, hidden deep within a thicket of bushes near the base of the building.

My night vision flared to life. I could see the heat signatures of the world around me. The memory of the rooftop—Xena's laughter, Arsh's hands—surfaced like a poisonous film.

​"Since you wanted to be cruel, Xena," I thought, "don't complain when I come for my pound of flesh."

​I tried to laugh, but all that came out was an annoying eeEeEeEe.

​I took flight. I was moving at a staggering 1.5 miles per hour, which felt like warp speed when the world was this big. It was like those movies I watched as a kid—Spider-Man, but worse. Much, much worse.

​I was soaring, fueled by spite, until a sudden gust of wind caught me. I was tossed like a leaf, spinning wildly through the air until I crashed onto a blade of grass. My stomach growled with a hollow, aching hunger. I needed fuel.

​I landed on a damp patch of clover and reflexively dipped my straw into the nectar. It was sweet, refreshing, and filled me with a surge of artificial strength. I felt ten times stronger, my wings humming with newfound energy.

​Then, the air changed.

​An eerie, ultrasonic pulse rippled through the darkness. It was too high to hear, but it made my very soul prickle. I looked up and froze.

​Bats!

​At least ten of them were sweeping through the park, their jagged wings cutting the moonlight. They were hunting. And I was the snack.

​"I almost died once today! Not again!" I screamed internally.

​I dived. I pivoted. I moved with a desperation that bypassed logic. I saw a human jogging through the park. A heat map of pulsing, delicious life.

​Thinking fast, I sped toward him. Bats hated being too close to the erratic movements of large mammals. Just as a leathery wing brushed the air behind me, I tucked my wings and landed straight inside the man's jacket pocket.

​I lay there, my wings burning, my heart—if I still had one hammering against my ribs.

​Ding... Dong...

​[System Notification: 30 minutes remaining, Host.]

​"I get it!" I hissed.

​[If the Blood Tax is not paid by the deadline, a portion of your soul will be permanently erased. Proceed with the harvest.]

​"No... no, wait!"

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