Arc 1: Emergence
I was drowning.
I was trapped in some thick, sticky substance. Not having time to wonder why I was submerged in an unknown liquid, I focused on trying to find air. Feeling the slight tug of gravity, I wiggled and squirmed upwards, hoping to find the surface. Instead, I hit something solid.
Was I trapped under something? I didn’t have time to think, I was going to drown if I didn’t do something fast. I punched and pounded on the ceiling above me, trying to break through. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before I shattered whatever surface was above me, and pushed myself up.
I broke through the surface of the liquid, taking deep, gasping breaths. All at once, there was a cacophony of senses that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Sound had returned to me, but I couldn’t see anything except dull green glows. Were my eyes closed?
I could think now that my life wasn’t in danger. The last thing I remembered was someone demanding my wallet and then an intense heat in my chest.
I thought to myself, ‘I think I gave it to him, but where am I? Why was I submerged in this sticky stuff?’
As I hacked and coughed my lungs clear, I started to make out the specific sounds that rose to a roar around me.
Chirping.
Buzzing.
Skittering.
My eyes shot open and the avalanche of unsettling sounds ended abruptly.
The vague green lights started to come into focus; I was in a dark room. As my eyes became more and more adjusted to the ambience, I could make out more details. I was in a large, circular cave. Bright green light seeped down from what seemed to be skylights in the ceiling, casting the cavern in a green hue. All around me were vague green blurs. The walls were made of a dull, warped black substance. It looked to me like obsidian without its sheen. The walls curved, looped, and warped in on themselves, not a straight line in sight. The very image of an alien hive.
The blurs came into focus as my eyes continued to adjust themselves; I was surrounded by sickly-green eggs.
‘Oh god, am I about to get chest-bursted?!’
Looking down, I realized that I came from an egg, too. Though, mine was a lighter green and somewhat larger than the others.
‘Oh god, am I going to chest-burst someone else? Thats….. Slightly better, but still terrifying!’
Then I noticed my own form. My arms, which I had rested upon the edge of my egg after breaking it open, did not end in hands. They were solid masses, black in color, and rigid like rock.
‘Where are my hands? W-what is on my arms?!’
I flailed and banged my arms against the egg. My efforts rewarded me when my movements rocked the egg backwards, and I fell on my back, spilling the thick, viscous clear substance out of the egg.
‘Eugh! What the fuck am I covered in?! A-and w-what is… is…’
From the neck down, I was a caterpillar. Thick white spheres, decreasing as size the lower they went, were covered in the slime that nearly drowned me.
I couldn’t see my legs. I couldn’t see my chest. In the center of my vision wasn’t a nose, but a black muzzle.
Naturally, I reacted the same way any sane man or woman would.
Broodnurse Psocid watched on as the newly hatched changling larva hissed, screeched, and flopped around erratically. She had sent Broodnurse Lethocerus off to inform the Queen that the hatching had begun, and would return soon. For now, she was alone.
“Strong set of lungs,” Psocid remarked quietly to herself, “and such fierce aggressiveness! Her Majesty will be most pleased.”
Right on cue, the sound of hoofsteps behind her caught her attention and Psocid turned to see the lings who had just entered the nursery. She bowed deeply, touching her muzzle to the ground, and greeted the two visitors.
New sounds interrupted my existential crises and I stopped screeching at the top of my tiny lungs to look over, still prone on my back, at the sources of the interruption.
I saw three figures towering over the clutches of small eggs that covered the ground of the chamber. The closest had its back to me, head down to the ground. A second, similar looking to the first, stood next to the third figure.
It was the third figure that captured my attention immediately, to the point where I only noticed the other two when they spoke. It was vaguely horse shaped, with four legs, a body, a long neck, and a roughly horse shaped head. That’s where the similarities ended, and the wrongness began.
It was charcoal black, covered in the same slightly glossy substance that my arms were coated in. It towered above the other two figures, standing heads above them. Where the other two had a torso of shades of a deep sea blue, this monumentous figure had shades of faded lime green on her torso and eyes that would make Disney villains envious. These faded into a dull teal towards her front shoulders.
But what I noticed first was the head. A thick curtain of blue matted hair surrounded her head like a veil. A tall, gnarled, twisted black horn sprouted from her forehead. Atop her head rested a cluster of antennae, resembling a crown.
Massive eyes accented with feminine eyelashes dominated the face of the creature, half-lidded, with green slitted eyes of a cat. A massive cat, at that.
And it was looking right at me.
Smiling with a fanged grin.
Her mouth moved as a series of sounds echoed their way across the chamber. With the repeated sounds, I guessed that it was a language. It was speaking to the other two figures, even as it kept its eyes on me.
I tore my eyes away from the amalgamation of chitin and ligaments to gaze at the bowed figure. It was similar to the other figure next to the giant: all three were insectoid horses. Now I noticed it had shades of a deep sea blue on its torso, and its eyes were a light teal with a white mass as pupils. There was no crown, nor any strange matted hair. Its horn was smooth, smaller, and curved backwards.
‘S-so, that, that thing must be a… a Queen? That would certainly fit with the Alien motif. And it’s speaking, which means it’s intelligent. And– oh god it’s getting closer!’
“Broodnurse Psocid, I trust that you have not failed to alert me in time to be present for the hatching,” Queen Chrysalis interrogated the bowed broodnurse while staring at the hatched changling larva.
“N-no My Queen! You are right on time for it!”
The queen never took her eyes off the larva, “then why is a larva already hatched?”
“He hatched long before the rest, My Queen! As soon as the egg stirred, I sent Lethocerus to inform you at once,” Broodnurse Psocid pleaded.
Broodnurse Lethocerus nodded, “This is true, My Queen.”
Psocid continued, “You will be most pleased to hear that it is a strong and healthy pr-”
“Do not presume to tell me what to feel, drone,” the queen belted at the cowed broodnurse. “I will make my own evaluation.”
Queen Chrysalis passed the nurse to get a closer look at the larva. Her presence already causing the nearby eggs to start twitching, she levitated the larva up to eye level. It was large for a larva, nearly twice the usual size. Still, she could hold it with a single hoof. It looked strong and healthy, as Psocid judged it to be. And to hatch so long before the rest?
The larva did not squirm or hiss, it just stared at the queen. Chrysalis looked straight into its eyes, “I expect great things from you, little one. I name you Phasmatodea, Prince of The Changling Wastes, heir of the fourth Hive Dynasty.”
The nearby eggs rocked back and forth as the giant queen approached. The eggs started to crack but I paid no notice, for a creature fifteen times my size was upon me. It stopped a foot in front of me, never taking its gaze off of me.
As it drew closer, I could see its grotesque visage in clearer detail. The black, glossy chitin that covered it was polished to perfection. Its legs were covered in holes, seemingly placed randomly. Two thin transparent blue wings, bigger than myself, lay flat on her back. She had a tail that resembled the hair coming from her head. Or would that be a mane?
Its horn glowed with the same light green hue as her eyes, and I felt myself being picked up off of the cold cavern floor. Instead of being filled with panic as the horrifying queen picked me up and stared into my eyes, I felt a sense of deep contentment. She looked me over for a moment before speaking to me in that strange horse-speak. I did not understand the words she spoke, but I understood their meaning.
Prince Phasmatodea, My new name.
The skittering and chirping I heard when I first awoke started to come back, but not to the deafening level it first was. I heard someone speak, not with my ears, but from within my own mind.
“Welcome to the Weave, Prince Phasma.”