Chrysalis

So... I mean.. It’s a little odd...

I was a human before after all. I may not have lived what people would call a ... normal life ... but hey, I went to school, a bit, I saw people, I ate human food.

Now I have a giant ant Queen staring down at me and insisting that she and my many siblings are my family now.

...

For some reason I’m surprisingly ok with that.

I had a pet ant colony as a human, I kept them contained and fed them, watched the colony grow and cleaned out their spaces for them. In some ways they were the most constant members of my household, I certainly saw them every day, which wasn’t really true of anyone else.

Perhaps that is why I don’t really mind being an ant.

If I’m going to be a member of this family then I have to do my best to save them!

I start thinking out loud.

"Ok then, Queen, I don’t think we are uh, strong enough to survive the wave. If our nest is invaded from the outside as well as the inside, we could be completely wiped out!"

The Queen looks concerned and taps me with her antennae, urging me to continue.

"I think we need to move the colony! We have to get somewhere ... else. Somewhere safer".

"Do you know where we should go child?"

Err.... No?

We live in the Dungeon, and from what I’m told the entire place is going to become a death zone for up to a week!

I don’t even know that the surface will be safe from the impending danger!

...

be safer than the

tunnels, going to the surface might actually be better. Of course that doesn’t mean running headlong into the humans, that would be suicide, but with my Tunnel Map I can clearly see where the entrance I first encountered the humans is. If we can find a way to the surface far enough away from a human settlement, we might be able to remain undetected and

...

I crazy? If I get the colony to relocate to the surface there’s definitely a chance that we all get killed by those powerful human soldiers, burnt to death, cut to

down here, will

have to take

head. My resolution firms as I see her commitment to

have to dig a new tunnel to

digests this bombshell, taking time to think

Then she responds.

the

...

she possibly

dig a new tunnel upwards, that bypasses the existing Dungeon passages

that is simple enough that she can understand

this suggestion. I wait nervously for her to puzzle out exactly what this means

my surprise

suggest child. Where should

sure how the pecking order works in a monstrous ant colony. In

it out and if they agree with the first ants opinion, they will join in, eventually when enough workers have agreed on a course of action, it will happen. It isn’t always so smooth of course, sometimes the workers don’t agree with each other and you’ll have two competing sets of workers each moving the eggs and larvae to

world though, the Queen is intelligent, not a mindless egg laying slave, and she is far from a helpless creature at the mercy of the workers. If anything, she is probably closer to what most humans think an

do to direct the workforce, it’s clear that they can understand my

my head and address

sweep clean this battlefield first, the Biomass is too valuable to the colony for us to abandon it. Once that is done I’ll start digging the tunnel, if you can help get the rest of the ... family ...

continuing to recede, just as the Sophos had predicted. The forest is going to grow even dimmer, perhaps even fading

discussion the Queen gives a few more friendly taps on the head with her antennae before retreating back to the security of the nest, leaving

workers are doing just that, continued to comb over the battlefield and collect the spoils of war. As more times goes by the number of ants showing visible signs of mutation is increasing, here and there a worker with longer antennae, or stronger looking legs, or

news! If the workforce becomes stronger then we will

is my family now and every one of these ants is my sibling. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters that