The Queen that Killed the Colony

Our final days started while we were foraging in the outlands. The squadron in which I traveled consisted of a line of diligent and mighty ants, both young and old. All were trained and conditioned to forage in the outlands, but no amount of preparation could prevent the dangers that awaited there. Beyond the secured perimeters of our colony, stood a labyrinth of blades of grass that stood a hundred times above our height. A plethora of predators roamed rampant in the wilderness. Cunning spiders sat patiently in their webs that hung above the forest canopy. Centipedes writhed across the ground with mandibles outstretched and drooling as it steered its numerous, spindly legs along our trail. Even cannibalistic ants from the rival colonies would intercept our paths, resulting in an all out brawl that would go on for hours. None of us expected the source of our great cataclysm would reside in these lands as well.

The scouts that patrolled the path ahead notified us that they picked up an unusual scent. They reported to our commander that the pheromones that they followed intensified as we travelled west. The commander followed the scouts to the origin of the scent. There, from the topmost tip of a towering blade of grass hung a thin line of silky thread, much like the kind that belong to spiders. We readied our mandibles and claws at the expectation of an arachnid ambush. Instead, one of our scouts returned to the group with something round and glistening clutched gently between his mandibles.

“What did you find?” asked the leader of our foraging group to the scout. The scout didn’t have an answer, so he placed the round, lumpy, pink object down before our commander. Then the fleshy orb slowly unraveled, revealing a tiny pair of black mandibles, a plump body covered in prickly hairs and two rows of stubby legs that looked useless. The shiny black eyes swirled at us in confusion. Then it made a chittering sound.

“I found it under the strand of thread over there, sir,” the scout told the commander. The commander approached the creature, examining it by tapping his antennae cautiously on its body. Not once did it show any aggression or distress, but it continued making those chittering sounds.

“That smell. It’s so…familar,” the commander said.

“I noticed that too, sir,” replied the scout.

“Aye. I detect it as well!” exclaimed another.

I said nothing. You see, there is a reason I am not a scout and I only remain in the center of the forager party. My senses have been dulled since I was a larva. I can only detect simple chemicals and pheromones at close range. For my entire time serving my colony, I relied on my combat expertise as an offset for my defect. The pheromones the creature gave off were faint yet sweet, with a fragile lure of nostalgia. It had no real effect on me, but to the others, it was potent and powerful. Seeing how the entire squadron encircled the creature to take turns tapping antennas on the creature’s squishy, hairy exterior, the pheromones must’ve been irresistible to them. Meanwhile, I stood aside, simply waiting for new orders.

“Sir? Orders?” I asked, only to be met by a delayed response. The other foragers continued shuffling around the plump worm with uninterrupted curiosity…like a spell.

The commander snapped from his daze for a brief moment and said,”We must take her to the colony.”

“…Her? To the colony, sir?” I asked.

Before I could request further clarity on the order, the commander and the rest of the troops were already locked in step in a single file line, with the chittering worm being held by the commander in the forefront. I quickly tagged close to avoid being left behind in the wilderness, but I felt as though an error was being made. The creature didn’t look appetizing, but maybe the commander deemed it to be a delicacy fit enough to abandon the expedition and return to the nest.

The more I paid attention to the creature, the more unease I felt in its presence. I was certain that it was a larva. It behaved like a hopeless hatchling and it lacked any defenses.

When we arrived at the colony, the sorcery from the chittering worm had already taken its effects on the other colonists. Heads from the other foragers turned just as my commander and our squadron set foot on the coarse ground that made up the exterior of our fortress. Even the hunters who arrived with hornet heads tucked between their mandibles and grasshopper thoraxes held above their heads dropped their kills to the ground to rush over towards us. By the time we climbed to the entrance at the top of our cone-shaped fortress, our squadron of a dozen foragers had morphed into a crowd of curious onlookers. Many of them tried stretching their antennas to touch the larva. If it weren’t for me and my comrades who barricaded them, we would’ve been overrun. Each of them were in a hypnotic frenzy, begging to see the “princess”, or so they all called it.

I didn’t realize where our destination was until we were in the lowest hanger of our structure. There were two chambers: one being the storage chamber where foods and fresh kills were brought to. Instead of heading there, we made a detour to the second chamber, which was the nursery. There, the children of the colony are born and nurtured by the keepers of the chamber.

I watched and said nothing as the commander approached with the creature still tucked between his mandibles. The nurses started to address the commander, but they all froze when they saw the hideous worm.

“What did you bring us, forage commander?” asked one of the eldest nurses of the chamber.

“How can you not tell, nurse? It is a princess. We’ve recovered her in the outlands. We are returning her with hopes you know what your duties to future royalty entails.”

“I’ve witnessed the birth of over half of this colony during the past generation, and we have never misplaced a single larva, let alone one of royalty. And that…creature is not one of us. We’re not rearing that thing. Either kill it and drop it into the storage pile or toss it back into the outlands.”

I felt relieved that someone would state the obvious. Due to an oath of allegiance and servitude, I refused to confront my commander, but I knew something was wrong about him and the others as soon as they came in contact with the worm. Our commanders are trained to be wise and diligent. But I feared that the strange worm had disrupted my commander’s mind.

I expected the nurse to speak to my commander. She approached him, narrowing her focus on the worm. With a cautious extension of her antenna, she tapped gently and thoroughly along the creature. All the while, it made the same chittering sound as it did before. Suddenly, her antennas began to move finicky, as though they were addicted to the sensation of the worm’s lumpy flesh. I noticed her demeanor shifted and her head swayed as though she was under some hypnosis.

‘The pheromones,’ I realized. I haven’t gotten a whiff or a taste of the sorcery like everyone else, but I recognized the patterns by now.

The nurse slowly withdrew her antenna and said,”She’s…She’s beautiful. My apologies, commander, I will summon my underlings and we’ll tend to her needs at once.” I was stunned by the head nurse’s sudden change of disposition. I then decided that the creature was dangerous. Even with my abnormally weak senses, it could possibly alter my mind and pose its evil sorcery on me too if I got too close.

“Very good, madam. Go on,” the commander said, handing the worm to her. With that, she and the other nurse ants took the hairy worm to the far end of the nursing chamber. They bypassed the columns of screeching ant larvae who were the future drones, foragers, nurses, constructors and hunters. They entered another corridor that only they have access to: The princess chamber. This was where larvae with markers of a predestined queen are raised, separate from the others to be given special care and nourishment. And I watched in disbelief and bafflement as the foreign creature was brought there with haste.

My worst fears arose like a ravenous mole tearing out from the earth. The colony has completely turned against itself. My commander had long passed, leaving me to take up the mantle to lead my own squadron of foragers. In another life, I would be proud to be given the position, but due to the current state of our society and the corruptive rot that had taken hold, this title had only disheartened me.

I’ve led multiple expeditions into the outlands in search of cricket carcasses and fallen fruit from the tree that stood hundreds of worlds above us. Before the change, all of the food we gathered was hauled to the colony and straight to the storage chamber, or rather, it used to be. Now, I watched as a large sum of our offerings were taken to the far corridor in the nursery after each of our ventures. I’ve watched my fellow foragers lose limbs, and some even their lives, only for our winnings to be tossed off to the…thing.

The monster is no longer a small, chittering worm. It grew into a furry leviathan! It has grown in length, almost as long as a juvenile millipede, but has the girth of an overfed slug. Its chitters became more frequent and louder, and it made grotesque cries whenever it was hungry, and its hunger was NEVER satiated no matter how much the nurses fed it. I’ve watched as the leviathan nearly devoured a nurse whole just as she tried feeding it a pre-chewed meal. Its gaping maw was revealed as wet, black, twitching mandibles reached towards the nurse’s head. I was the only one who dared to pull her away from the beast’s mandibles at the last second, but guess what I received in return for my bravery. I was ridiculed!

“Commander! How could you?!” cried one of my underlings.

“You’re starving the princess!” accused a nurse.

“He’s disrupting the princess's feeding time!” claimed some moron in the back of the chamber.

By then, the leviathan writhed and made a disgusting hissing sound like boiling water or acid dissolving flesh. Its cries attracted the rest of the colony, who hurried to the creature’s side just to push me away and barricade me from it, as though I was the threat.

I snarled, “Get off of me, imbeciles! Do you know who I am? Did you forget who helped bring this food here? I’m a commander and you’ll show me the respect I deserve!”

“You’re not our commander anymore, sir!” I turned and was shocked to find that the response came from one of my troops. It was one of the younger ants whom I trained personally since he left the nursery and entered adulthood. I protected him when we were raided by rival colonies, hunted by termites and I hid him from the monstrous sparrows that swooped at us from above—yet he turned on me?!

It wasn’t just him either. One by one, each of my troops departed from my group, until I was left alone. In front of me, stood a mob of my relatives, former comrades and friends, who all regarded me as a trader. Even the nurse whom I just saved turned her back against me, as though my act of bravery was an egregious sin.

“Shame on you,” I scolded the nurse. “I just saved your life!”

The nurse turned back to me with outright fury in her tone and her mandibles flexed to match her anger. Then she said,”Save me? You fool! Our princess is growing because of the sacrifices we offer her. All of our offerings count, especially if it costs our own lives. I love this child as though it is my own, so even if it chooses to take my body and soul as nourishment, I will do so with honor. Yet, you chose to disrupt that? You chose to deny nourishment for our future queen! You’re a negligent traitor filth!”

The others chimed in agreement with her accusations and logic, while I stood dumbfounded. My body tensed from the sudden betrayal and all I could say was,”You’re mad. Y-you’re all mad! That thing isn’t a queen! Look at it. It isn’t even an ant! It’s a parasite! Some massive, pink, slimy demon comes along and whines and now you’re willing to let the colony fall to bits so it can be fed.”

“Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” The rest of the ants cried in unison. I tried protesting and explaining to them that they were commiting suicide by feeding the leviathan. I tried telling them that they were being deceived by its pheromones and trickery. But none of them listened. Instead, they gathered together, descended upon me in a wave of mandibles and hooked claws as they picked me up and tossed me out of the chamber. After ensuring I was out, they all scurried back into the chamber to attend to the leviathan.

If anyone could correct this malfunction, the queen would be the one to go to. Only her wisdom and her pheromones could possibly break whatever curse they were under. That was what I thought, but to my horror, I found the queen’s chamber unguarded. The entrance which was always monitored by soldiers and drones was left abandoned. The inside was a cavern occupied by the echoes of my footsteps—and a motionless exoskeleton of her Majesty!

I gawked at the hollowed husk. Her compound eyes were lifeless, leaving each lens with a dull, grey hue that focused on nothing. The mandibles were dirt dry and left agape, and the rest of the husk had been destroyed. Parts of the legs were ripped off, an antennae was torn away while the other looked to be nibbled into a boney nub, and the thorax had bits snatched away.

I left like a coward, no longer able to stomach the truth about what happened to our queen. The heathens left her to starve to death and when her demise arrived, they scavenged parts of her body and used them to feed the leviathan.

I realized then that my colony was long gone. The other chambers remained empty! The storage was constantly filled to the brim, yet the columns of larvae in the nursery were shortening drastically, since there is no mother to birth the next generation. Bodies upon bodies of starved ants littered throughout the nest, due to the unavailability of anyone willing to remove them. Others would come around to bring the corpse to the lower corridor to offer to the leviathan. Apparently, when it comes to eating ants, the leviathan prefers to eat us alive. I wanted no part of this, so I hid in the darkest corners of the nest, out of sight from the brainwashed society until the inevitable arrived.

I’ve watched as many full moons and suns hovered across the sky during my time in exile. I’ve long abandoned the colony, and decided to reside along the outskirts, where the edge of the fortress kissed the outlands.

Today is my final day in this life. I’ve hoped that my time would come long before the colony’s demise, but before today, I haven't seen any parties of foragers or hunters leaving the hill. It had been many sunsets since I saw a grain enter the fortress or even a patrolling soldier emerge from the top. I detected less noise from the colony, with an exception of whispers or an occasional agonized cry for a swift death.

I wanted to be far from that place, but something still tethers me to where I laid. Maybe it was the memory of the golden age of my colony. Or maybe it was the slight sliver of hope that the colonists would snap back to their senses and cast the leviathan out. But as time progressed, I knew that wasn’t the case.

The leviathan had lost interest in the colony. I wasn’t sure how or when the next beautiful, yet horrific thing happened—perhaps something it had planned all along.

I felt a tremble down below the coarse earth, followed by a faint scraping and tapping that echoed throughout the tunnels under me. At my expired age, I came to terms with my inability to hunt or forage for myself, so I was resting like a stone as everything occurred.

The tapping and scraping maneuvered across the tunnels below and towards the tip of the fortress where a massive shape started to push upward into the sunlight. It was a grey orb covered in fluff with two long appendages flickering about.

‘It was a head,’ I realized after seeing large disk shaped compound eyes shimmer in the sunlight.

The head twisted as the rest of the body emerged, dragging six long, segmented legs that were ten times longer than my own. A slender body covered in grey and blue hairs pushed out until the entire creature fully emerged. When the creature realized it was free, it stretched and unleashed four massive wings that were as crystal blue as the afternoon sky. The creature looked down at me, and for a moment I recognized its indifferent expression from when it was a wriggling, pink, hideous thing.

The devilish angel retreated into the air, leaving behind a civilization in ruin as it flapped its mighty wings. I watched it fly beyond the outlands, all while I savored my last breaths. In a few more wing-beats, both I and the empire that raised me will be merely a memory.