I couldn’t count how many times the cycle repeated. A tiny part of me would tingle, angry shards poking from the inside of my skin. I would struggle to move, to regain control of my limbs. The Masters would return and sting me back into paralysis. It could have been hours, days, or weeks. I was dimly aware of Jerome and Gil on each side of me. Were the same thoughts of betrayal and rage pounding in their minds? Did they remain loyal to the Queen? With each passing moment, the anguish grew. I hated her. I hated them. The Queen I had so revered was nothing more than a pale, fat, egg-spewing monster, crouching in darkness in a room she had grown to fill. If I could have moved, I’d have run in to her chamber and ripped her head from her thorax. I imagined how it would taste as I lay there. My mandibles would crush her old carapace, and the juice from her body would run down my armor.
You don’t have mandibles. You’re a Lowform.
But the image wouldn’t leave my brain.
***
The eggs hatched.
***
I couldn’t feel the larvae that buried their heads into the skin of my belly. There was no pain as they started to suck the life from my body. My rage grew with each wave of their slimy tails, splashing in the water.
***
My left index finger twitched. My left toe. The angry shard pain needled into my right calf, cramping the muscle. Where the larvae burrowed into my skin, it started to sting, the numbness of the venom wearing off. My vision darkened with the shadow of a Master. Three of them crowded around us and I waited for the sting that would take the pain away. Just a few more. Soon they’ll have taken all I have to give, and this final nightmare will end.
The Masters didn’t sting us.
They lifted us out of the water in turns, running their feelers over the larvae on our bellies. The clicking they made was so fast I couldn’t understand them. My back burned as they dragged me out of the water, pulling my wet tunic down to cover the larvae.
My arm twitched, and my head lolled to the side as a Master Digger picked me up in its strong forelimbs. Leaving the water beasts in the pools, they carried me, Gil, and Jerome out of the chamber and into the dark corridor beyond.
***
My body was wracked with pain. Every inch of my skin screamed with fire as the Masters’ paralyzing venom wore off. Great spasms lurched through me, and the Master carrying me tightened its grip. I had no control over my arms and legs, flailing them around like a waterbug held in the air.
They carried us through passages I had never entered, beyond the boundary where Lowforms were allowed. In a dark hallway, they paused. Noise echoed down the cavern, crashes and bangs, and the harsh screams of Lowforms. In a moment, another Master appeared. It did not click to the ones that carried us, but they followed it up and up.
Light brightened the caverns, and the air smelled fresher. I struggled against the Master that carried me, and it clicked at me to be silent. We entered a hall I recognized, the one that led to the chamber where our huge vats of green slime sat in the sunny chamber that faced the sky. The Masters carried us into that huge room. The holes that led to the sky were covered in cloth now, as they always were during the pollen storm. The chamber was dim. No one stirred, Lowform or Master. Where had everyone gone?
The Masters clicked. “Wait. Still. Silent.”
They dumped us on the floor and scuttled away.
“Noah?”
Jerome’s voice sounded like rocks rubbing together.
“I’m here,” I said, sounding just the same.
“What . . . what’s going on?”
I shoved my elbows up under my back, raising up. All three of us were hidden behind the slime vat. Jerome and Gil were still lying flat, but both were moving their arms and legs, flexing their fingers. The moving bulges under their tunics looked the same as mine.
Larvae. They were still eating us alive.
“We have to get these things off us,” I grunted. “They’re sucking us dead.”
I struggled to push myself up against the outer wall of the chamber, shoving my feet into the hard ground. The solid wall tore at my back, but I pushed with my legs, arms splayed against the flat wall. When my fingers found purchase in one of the holes that let sunlight in, I grasped it and hauled myself up. My head felt heavy and soggy, like I’d just come up from too deep a dive. I leaned against the wall and pulled up my sopping wet tunic.
Underneath, the larvae squirmed on my belly. My hands still felt like they belonged to someone else as I grasped one of the larvae and pulled. The shock of pain sent me sliding back against the wall.
They’re sucked on to you. Pry them off like a shellfish.
I stuck a finger under the rim of one of the larva’s mouth where it joined my skin. With a wet, popping sound, the seal broke. It flailed around in my hand. The sticky white goo that had cemented the eggs to my belly was still smeared all over me and I couldn’t drop the writhing maggot. I tried to wipe it on the side of the slime vat but my hand stuck.
Finally I plunged my hand into the slime. The sticky goo let go and the larva dropped away into the murky depth.
One by one I pulled the larvae off, washing them away into the giant vat. The last one held tighter than the rest, and was bigger. It sucked on to my hand as I pulled it free of my belly, and I had to peel it off under the slime. When I was free of the last larva, I looked down at my belly. The skin oozed blood from dozens of perfect rings where the larvae had attached to me. I pulled my tunic back down and turned to help Jerome and Gil, who were just struggling to their feet.
“Pull them off,” I said. “They’re really sticky. You have to wash them off in the slime or they just stay glued on to you.”
A harsh clicking cut me off. The three Masters surrounded us and grabbed us, pinning our arms to our sides and lifting us like we were nothing.
You are. To them, you are nothing.
They each waved their feelers over my tunic and clicked fast.
“Silent. Leave.”
I had no idea what they were talking about. I wanted to scream, but what would I say? The Hive was full of Masters. All the Lowforms together weren’t a quarter of their number, and four Lowforms would barely match the strength of one. Who would I cry out to?
They carried us out of the food chamber and down the hallway toward a small, side entrance to the Hive. In the doorway, they paused. Outside, the pollen storm raged. The air was full of tiny red dust particles that covered everything. Pollen storms lasted two days each month, when the moons aligned. Every forty-three days it happened, and the Lowforms including myself would have to venture out of the Hive without the protection of our Masters. The Masters hated the pollen. They always stayed safe behind our mud walls, or deep in the tunnels below until the smaller insects cleared the pollen from the hard ground. Would they carry us outside now?
They dropped us in the doorway and held us by the shoulders. Smaller shadows filled the entrance. They smelled unfamiliar, but their shapes were like ours.
Ferals.
Right here in our Hive.
The Masters held us and the Ferals grabbed our hands, winding woven rope around our wrists, binding us tight. They nodded to the Masters, who shoved us out into the storm, tethered to the Ferals. Gil, Jerome, and I were pulled from the Hive, stumbling along behind the Ferals that clutched our binding ropes.
“No!” I shouted into the hot, red wind. But no Master came to save me.
The Ferals tugged our ropes, and we ran across the open field in the haze of the storm.