//------------------------------//
// Day 7 
// Story: Unfamiliar Skin 
// by darf 
//------------------------------//

Log, Entry 10:

If it is the hive’s intention to test me, I am not sure I am worthy.

I was struck by a truly upsetting vision today. I am not sure if it was a transmission, a more focused result of the poor level of energy I am being forced to sustain myself on, or another factor entirely. Today, at work, my eyes grew wide of their own accord. A pony I was serving at the counter began to wriggle in front of me. I was frozen as I watched them. Watched them shiver, and shake, and then at last as they shed the whole of their skin.

There was not one of us underneath. There were bugs. Millions of them.

While I am not averse to the hive structures of the smaller insects which we mimic, I am led to believe the processing center of the brain in this body was triggered into an innate response. Before I knew what I was doing, I had lept from the floor onto a table in the back. Noises came out of my mouth like the nervous chittering of a fresh larva. I wanted so badly to change, to flee, to fly home to the hive and to Mother.

But I kept together. I have been chosen.

It took a great deal of work to negotiate the situation. When I looked back, the pony had returned to normal, and the insects were gone. I explained it as nervousness, lack of sleep, having a bad day. I was sent home, where I have been hiding under the bed for most of the evening. It is damper here, and with none of the awful scratchiness of the fabrics used on everything in pony ‘comfort’. I believe I may rest here tonight. I will bring the blankets. When I wrap them around tight, they remind me of home.

I was sick on myself when I arrived from my early dismissal. Green. Please, take note if I do not return that this must be changed. A moment of weakness could spell disaster if insides were let out in such a fashion in public.

I have made no further breakthroughs in regards to Lyra. She smiles at me a lot. I am not sure what this means.

Rest now.