Ryusuta Presents: The Hive - Page 3/3 (FIXED)

Now becoming strangely accustomed to allowing her body to be moved in a response to an outside command, the new female insectoid alien formerly known as Dr. James Redmond found herself walking deeper and deeper into the hive. As she continued, feeling how incredibly different her body was and different her impulses felt, the new "voice" inside of her mind became more ubiquitous and consequentially, she began to distinguish it less and less from her normal mind until... before she realized it, it would soon become one and the same.

It wasn't as if she had no control over her new body. She wasn't being dragged along on invisible puppet strings. Rather, she felt... COMPELLED to obey these new feelings in her. As if it were as instinctive and normal as tying one's shoe when they put it on. Obeying these feelings felt... right. And more to the point, her own scientific curiosity might have compelled her further even if she were of one, single, human mind still. This was, in fact, one of the traits that made her the perfect candidate for this transformation... And the one about to occur.

Her body felt she was in the right place. She looked around curiously, now able to see with ease in the dark, or at least have a general sense of her surroundings through her antennae. She wasn't quite sure since it was entirely on reflect at this point. In this opening of the cave was a vaguely luminescent white substance... opaque; radiating in warmth. This was where she was supposed to go. She was a worker and this was her responsibility. This was what her new mind told her. The slowly-evaporating "human" side of her mind half-heartedly revolted, realizing what she was going to do. She had to drink this liquid. But... it was her job. She wanted to fulfill it. Her body cried out to obey, as if disobeying felt painful somehow. It didn't, but it was... almost as if it were a pain inside... a disappointment. A WRONGNESS. The hive knew better. Her knowledge and self was needed, but it was needed as a part of a whole, not an individual self.

She drank. And rather than disgust at the admittedly STRANGE-tasting gel, she felt... pleased. Wonderful. As if this were the most wonderful gift bestowed upon the body and her part of it. And as she drank again, she began to feel another change coming on. Her body was changing once more, though not quite so dramatically this time. Rather, she was changing from one member of the hive to another... She was...

Of course.

This was royal jelly... Or at least this species' equivalent of it. They wanted her as part of the hive, as part of the whole mind. But she was special. Just as she had been for the humans. She realized it now. And with that realization, all desire to fight; all feelings of wanting to be separate from the hive EVAPORATED. She felt more elated and wonderful than she ever could. And soon, the remaining workers of the hive would come. They would tend to her needs and feed her. not because she was above them, but because she was a PART of them and this was how the hive functioned. She needed to be protected, treated, and cared for. She was the queen.

***

Some time passed, as search parties went out and returned to no avail. The colonists decided that James Redmond must have died. The was a great deal of mourning in the small community for those couple of days.

Then one day in the midst of this, a scientist woke up early in the morning to find a crudely-scrawled note that must have been left there overnight. The note was on the back of a page torn from one of the scientists' journals. The letter was incredibly crudely scrawled, as if written by a four-year-old child that had not yet clutched a pencil and did not know how. The first text listed were a series of numeric coordinates. Below those in very carefully written child-letters was the following:

JAMES REDMOND REQUESTS COLONIAL VOLUNTEERS AT THIS LOCATION TO HELP OUR GROUP'S SURVIVAL.

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The end.

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Well... at least for now. See, that's my problem when it comes to things like this! I make all these characters I intend to use as one-off stories, then I like them so much that I want to show more of them! I guess time will tell if I ever follow this up, but for now, take the story as self-contained. I hope you all like it! Thanks, guys!

(Update: Fixed a major issue with the layers on the last panel and made some of the text more visible.)