Chrysalis

I have to wonder what the minders are doing whilst Sarah and I engage in a mental conversation. I mean, are they listening in? I suppose it's possible. I can't sense them at all, but I suppose that isn't any sort of guarantee, considering their higher Skill levels. Perhaps this is all just part of their research, learning about people like me and our monstrous transformations. I can't afford to care too much about it, since this is such a rare opportunity.

Perhaps I've been away from the colony for too long. It's nice to have a conversation with someone who is able to reciprocate my human culture. I've still spent longer as a human than as an ant after all, and the humans I've met here on Pangera have been … a bit odd, let's put it that way. Sarah on the other hand, seems quite normal, all things considered. Despite freely acknowledging being a bit unbalanced, she comes across as well spoken and measured.

[I wasn't always this steady,] she confides, [in the first few years it was rough, as I'm sure you know. After my … death … on Earth, and being reborn here… It's hard at the start. You know what I mean.]

[You're referring to the terror and existential dread of having to fight for survival in a strange world of death?]

[Exactly that.]

[Yes, I recall. I mean, I was a tiny little ant monster. Just about every monster I saw was able to rip me apart. You started out as a bear! It can't have been that bad.]

It's odd to think of a bear giving you the stink eye, especially a giant, elephant sized bear with a distended maw that housed teeth as long as a human forearm, but here we are.

[Look, Anthony, I didn't start this size. I didn't even start as a fully grown bear. I was a cub! A little harmless bear cub!]

I'm immediately suspicious.

[Just a cub eh? A harmless little fuzzy ball of fluff, with the claws, and the fangs. How large were you exactly? Somehow I don't think you were just an average, Earth sized cub…]

[I … might have been a touch larger than normal.]

[Just a touch, huh?]

were a normal

I was a regular sized ant?! Not to mention, I was born outside of

that so?

never turn down the chance to

One ant is not

[So… ants are weak?]

sophisticated social creatures who

on its own can't

[Not the point!]

Anthony,] Sarah laughed

heard such a relaxed, earnest laugh. Something about it just helped the tension to unwind a few notches in my non-existent shoulders. It helps a lot that Sarah is such a friendly, sociable

such weird pets. No

not another insect is

no competition for

don't want to ruin the surprise. They'll probably bring him out to meet you next time. They tend

into the

that they've nurtured. It doesn't seem like they're

irritation, sending a cloud of dust

strata. I was lonely, blood crazed and starving. The isolation and constant fighting starts to chip away at

was curious to

I went completely mental. I thrashed around, trying to find them but they just backed off and waited until I calmed down before they tried again. It took them three days before I was able to talk back to them, then another three before I agreed to meet them. After that I decided to take them up on their offer and came back here with them. They put me up, feed me, converse with me, taught me all sorts of stuff. It's been

now? Seems like there has been a clear shift

of the 'selection' but that they still consider me a