The fluffy white figure (Made in Abyss fanfiction)

Maeko scrubbed at his eyes, wondering if he was seeing things. A strange figure stood before him with glowing yellow eyes, dark skin and some sort of white fur all over her. She crawled around on the ground like a spider, and he grabbed at his spear with his left hand hand, and activated the Zriver Band on his upper left arm with his right hand in order to teleport back.



He found himself missing Aiko keenly. Ever since she had died to Bondrewd's experimentation, Maeko had never been the same. The hole in his life loomed vast and empty in her absence. He felt like he could almost feel her spirit with him and clung to that feeling.



A roughly-covered pale whistle remained in the bag on his hip, his only memento of that time. Aiko had, embossed with a broken heart he has carved into it. She had taken the blow meant to fell him, by Bondrewd. He had no idea why she had glowed and changed into... that.



Maeko had barely escaped with his life, carried away by the Wings of Mist.



Without his artifacts, he would truly be dead by now. His body has changed into a Hollow, and pastel green fur covers his chest and back and extra arms. Pink puffy patches erupt from his cheeks and shoulders.and ankles and his legs taper into claws. Large orange antennae extend from his head and grant him extrasensory vision of the nature of the Abyss around him. His hands and arms remained largely unchanged, thankfully.



He dances on those claws as he scrabbles for a cliff edge. Like a skilled predator, the creature is leaping after him, intent on chasing him down.



"Fuck, fuck, fuck, " Maeko muttered under his breath. "How did it come to this? What is that?"



The black thing tackles him, moving faster than he even thought possible. He has the wind knocked out of him as he's slammed against the cliff face and only the Wings keep him aloft.



The thing begins... sniffing him avidly? And a sharp finger pokes him in the chest.



He flinches. "Ow."



"Who you?" the figure demands, yelling at him.



"M-Maeko?"



"Don't know you."



"Well, um," he swallowed, very intimidated by this small angry moth thing towering over him and clinging to the cliff. "I don't know you either."



"Smell weird."



"I don't know what that means."



"You smell dead. You carry death."



"I'm sorry, what?"



The moth with multiple tails and arms began to frisk him, sniffing him again and licking him (!) and then pickpocketing the white whistle out of his bag.



"No, that's mine!" he cried in fear and panic, afraid she'd drop it into the depths and it would be lost forever.



"This it," she claimed. "You know what this is?"



"It's a whistle. It ... appeared when Aiko died."



"I thought all Delvers knew now."



"Well, I don't understand what you're trying to tell me!" he said, frustrated.



The moth creature paused thinking. "I'm Faputa."



"Great, good, Faputa. Well, what about it? Please give it back." He pleaded, trying to snatch it from her hands. She easily evaded his reach and grasp with superior speed.



"This is an artifact, a white whistle. You understand now?"



"A ... White Whistle?"



The bells finally began ringing in his brain, the painful eureka, as he put two and two together.



"Yes, now you getting it."