Pest

Then comes the blade.

The cockroach is shaken from the polymeric plane. Blade teeth crush upon it, but the surface gives way more easily than the cockroach, like a fluttering veil. In the tremor, without a taught field to hold, the cockroach loses its grip. Free of tension, free of footing. The blade swoops somewhere in the nearby air, which folds from the push. But the cockroach is grown and heavy; its wings do not pull even at calm air. The cockroach feels a strong pull from behind and is sucked away as the blade pounds the surface again, collapsing it deeply. But it is nothing for the cockroach.

Spluoaghhgfff

The cockroach is drowning. Really suffocating in the water. It is lodged. This is water, but the cockroach has not seen water like this. This is not a drop or a stream. This water is vast, it is continent. The cockroach aims its legs and its whiskers and cannot pull out. It has managed to puncture this surface, break through it and grapple with the matter beneath, but cannot break out. Cannot even reach out. It keeps its eyes above and slowly, easily as it is done, rocks its tail down enough to gain its breath.

The cockroach is alive. It continues to push its legs, waiting because it can do nothing else. It pauses, battling for position. It knows how to crawl but cannot crawl in this tractless stuff and cannot crawl into it. Could not burrow, for certainty of asphyxiation: the slick particles endlessly caving in. But can't at all, can barely evenly shift. The cockroach boils in madness. Wet up to its armpits. It suffers immobility worse than paralysis. Able to move and wiggle; totally suspended.