Sometimes, I might try to pull open a door only for it to be a push door. Those moments are a bit embarrassing in the moment, but they’re pretty funny in hindsight. Same with the reverse; some doors just wanna be pulled.
However, it’s certainly possible for that moment to be annoying rather than funny. Like when a door is a pull door, so you pull on it, but then the ghostly memory of your mom slaps your head to distract you while your loud-mouthed coworker magically transforms the door into a sliding door.
You know, those sorts of moments.
“Can I please leave?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Fuck that! I had no sense of time here in memory land. I instinctively knew this door was my ticket out, but opening it was just impossible. Between the ghostly memories pushing me this way and that and the door constantly shifting to prevent passage, I had been stuck here forever. Reliving random memories, some fresh in my mind and some long ‘forgotten.’ It was actually surprising to see how many different memories I had apparently retained. I mean, some of these things were related to events from super long ago.
Some didn’t even seem familiar. Like, what was up with the one where I got eaten by a robot shark? I had only died once, I was pretty sure. Though, it did feel vaguely familiar.
Ah. It was a dream. How the hell did this memory of a dream exist? I never remembered it before, but it was, in fact, here.
Other dreams I also had occasionally appeared, adding supernatural, weird twists in between actual events. I suppose those were memories too. But why was remembering them so hard in ‘real life?’
Although those dreams were often freaky and downright terrifying, they were still more comforting than most of the real memories.
“If this is some sort of bullshit lesson, I think I’m good. I get it, work with people and stop being such a loner or something. I need to get back to the real world. Who knows what's going on with the hive? What if Beatrice erected a shrine around my motionless body and turned the whole thing into a dystopian hellscape?”
No answer from the memories. Man, this was stupid. Weren’t these my own memories? You’d think I would be able to control them since they’re my own thoughts. But they were so unruly. I had no control over them at all.
The door changed again, this time appearing like a safe with a gigantic rotating lock. What a pisser. If only Queen were here with me. If her friendly voice were here to counteract the assholes in my brain, then maybe I’d be able to focus long enough to escape.
Hollow metallic thuds rang out. Huh? Moving closer to the safe door, I could just make out some sort of pounding against the door. Was my wish coming true?
“Queen? Is that you?”
The thuds paused for a moment before speeding up. It was her! This door must have been her doing in the first place. Even now, she was saving me.
I tried tugging on the safe handle, but it just didn’t budge. The memories didn’t even need to pull me away.
“Queen, if you can hear me, wait for a second! I think I have an idea.”
My complaint was actually the answer to our problem. Queen and I needed each other. I needed her, probably more than she needed me, but we still needed each other. Here, we were separated. But if she could come to my memories…
“Can you get in here somehow? Or is this door the only way in and out?”
The pounding stopped, and this time it didn’t resume. I hoped that meant Queen had heard me and figured something out.
“Fool. You think she can help you? You’re the only one who can help you, and that will never work.”
Maybe that was true at some point, but Queen changed things. She was stronger than me, and we helped each other.
“The day will come when she cannot save you. You know that, right?”
Before I could retort, the world exploded with buzzing. A gold and black light bathed the shifty world of memory in light and shadow.
“Enno! Where is the Backdoor? We must leave here!”
“Queen! It’s over here!”
She’d done it! I hugged the… er… light as the buzzing filled my head.
“Ha! Fuck you, dicks. I’m out!”
With Queen’s power, the memories stood no chance. I could control them now, somehow, and I turned my attention to the safe. Focusing on it, the metallic doors blasted open, and I flew through them.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
As I got sucked out of my memories, I heard Kanan, my mom, and the rest bickering.
“He’ll get rid of her himself. That’s one of his goals anyways.”
“Whatever. Either way, he’s nothing without her.”
“We’ll remind him. We always do.”
_________
“Fuckyoumomyouhippobitch!”
Beck, Becky, and Beckham toppled over, eyes wide, while Beatrice yelped and reflexively flexed her Mind.
Wait, who?
Ah, I guess the new workers had hatched. It was strange to know their names and everything they had done.
“Mother!” The four workers clamored around me, fussing.
“I’m fine, guys. I’m fine. It's nice to meet you two.”
The two youngest bees present seemed to remember themselves and bashfully backed off, letting Beatrice buzz around me like a maniac.
“Oh, Mother, I was so worried! What dastardly enemy could have prompted you to enter such a vulnerable state? Why, perhaps I myself should give them a piece of my Mind….”
Er. I didn’t realize how embarrassing it would be to reveal I had accidentally trapped myself with my memories and had spent this whole time being made fun of by myself.
So, Beck had been the one to help me get free? Beck had created a back door they creatively coined 'The Backdoor,' which would allow me to escape in theory, but I hadn't been able to do so until Queen helped me. Something to do with my lack of control, it seemed.
“I can’t thank you enough, Queen. You saved me again.”
She responded with a tired buzz. It seems she had taken a huge risk. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to extract me from my memory B-box herself, but she had been able to enter it by making a memory B-box of her own, connecting it to mine, and putting her own memories in it.
Thank fuck for Beck’s talent with Links. If a bee with skill in that sort of thing had never been born or had just recently been born like Becky and Beckham, then I might’ve been screwed. Actually…
Ah. I had been wondering how Queen managed to communicate our plight to Beck, but it seems like she took advantage of some of the stranger aspects of her existence. Bedivere… I suppose I’d have to thank him. It could probably wait. The new warriors were hatching, after all.
Wait.
“Oh crap! I’ve been gone for way too long! I’m going to the nursery. Beatrice, get to work helping Bess; she’s still struggling with the drones for some reason. I can get the gist of the situation through the Link.
With that, I left the group behind to speed toward the nursery. I felt a vague sense of confusion from them, my long silence suddenly interrupted by the exclamation catching them off guard. Oh well. They got the idea.
I wasn’t usually this frantic when it came to new hatchlings. Well, not anymore. It felt weird not being present for a clutch’s hatching for the first time with the most recent workers, but these four warriors were a bit…special.
Namely, they had been modified by Bedivere’s weird Ability. These four would be the most unpredictable bunch; who knew what they would have in store? I had to be there just in case.
The nursery was packed. Belle was there as usual, along with a small crowd of young workers. So these were Belle’s new underlings, huh? The only one not present was the sort of googly-eyed one who was, I knew, fiddling around with the electric crystals in the miscellaneous storage room.
It warmed my heart to see Belle’s minions running around, making wax or fussing over the warrior eggs. She had been doing a huge amount of work all by herself until now, so seeing her have dedicated help was nice.
Some of the young workers noticed me and stared, garnering a growl from Belle, who fell silent once she saw me. I returned her smile, but the calm didn’t last long.
“Stop standing around! Those four eggs are highly unstable!”
Belle resumed her shouting, and the three workers frantically got back to their duties as Belle turned to the eggs.
“Sorry, Mother. We were surprised to see you recovered. I’m glad. In fact, your timing is impeccable; these four eggs are-“
Even as she spoke, the four eggs exploded in unison, spraying greenish goop all over the place.
“GRAHAHAHA! I SMELL TERRIBLE!”
One of the green blobs laughed as it shook around, tossing goop onto the three other blobs that had popped out of the eggs nearby. As the gunk dripped away, I was entirely surprised to see that these bees were weird as hell.
Well, not that surprised. Honestly, I was more amazed by the fact that they had popped out of the eggs fully grown. That Ability of Bedivere’s was terrifying!
Of course, their appearances were no less odd. The loud one that had laughed was the smallest of the four by far, With darkly shaded wings and a skinny frame. She (for she was definitely a she) had long antennae that ended in pointed tips and a short but wickedly sharp stinger perfect for stabbing. The little bee claws on her ‘hands’ were unusually hard compared to most of the bees I had seen so far, and something in her eyes seemed… sinister.
Oh, and there was the fact that she colored only in pitch black and crimson red. No yellow in sight.
In short, this little warrior girl seemed more like a demon than a bee.
The other three weren’t much better.
“I must concur. Your stench is detestable.”
Another of the warriors spoke up. That one… the only word I could find was that she had a dump truck. Completely serious. Her head and thorax were only slightly larger than the small warrior, but her abdomen was gigantic. Bulbous even. Compared to the small warrior, this bulbous bee immediately lay down on the floor in what could only be called a regal pose. Her color scheme was thankfully more normal, though her stripes were… wavy.
A shadow passed over the room. A glance revealed that the third of the four newborn warriors had begun growing, despite seeming to be at full size already. I hurriedly tore open the wall and nudged this one outside 'cause her growth wasn’t stopping any time soon. I could only stare up in awe; this one was bigger than freaking Bedivere! And Bedivere was a veritable giant!
“HA! Big lug. Apologize to Mom for makin’ her break the hive!” It was comical, seeing the gigantic warrior timidly cover their face in embarrassment as the comparatively tiny warrior shouted in her face.
“…Sor…ry…” Her voice was squeaky and quiet, everything about her seeming to contradict her titanic stature. Of the three warriors that had managed to shake off the green goo, she had the smallest stinger. How was her stinger smaller than the small warrior’s? It was tiny!
Despite that apparent weakness, she was by no means lacking in warrior-type features. Just from looking at her exoskeleton, it seemed more like black steel than anything else. Even her hair seemed sturdier than normal.
But man, her size was really the defining feature. She might’ve even been bigger than the vultures! Who were 5-meter-tall giants the size of trees!
I never expected a bee to rival Bedivere in sheer size, but here we were. But what about the last one?
Right on cue, the fourth and final of the modified warriors hovered out of the nursery, kindly eyes twinkling along with a dashing smile.
“I apologize for the antics of my siblings, Mom. I’m sure their rowdiness will subside once they get some energy out.”
Apparently, this was the only dude of the four warriors, and he seemed to retain a bit more of Bedivere’s knightly personality if a bit more on the princely, charming side of things. He was twice the size of the small warrior, with the only unique features really being a tuft of yellow fur on top of his head and his black coloring being more on the gray side of things.
“Ho! Great idea!”
Then the small warrior punched the charming boy in the face.
A boom resounded as the charming boy was launched into the depths of the forest, and the small warrior laughed her ass off.
Oh.
Before I could even comment on the insanity, the gigantic warrior smashed their leg on top of the small warrior, crushing her into the ground.
“Th... That was… mean!”
“Ho! GRAHA! BWAHAHA!”
The small warrior’s manic laughter could still be heard from beneath the gigantic foot as a furious charming warrior boy angrily stormed back to the clearing.
“Get off her! I’m going the beat the shit out of her for that!”
Well, he wasn’t acting so cool now. His formerly gentle face had twisted into an ugly, menacing snarl, and to my surprise, he didn’t have a scratch on him. I think his pride had been hurt more than anything.
“Enough. I’ll deal with her. If you please?”
As usual, my word was law. The boy went right back to smiling cheerfully, though he did seem a bit more creepy than before, and the giant girl lifted her foot off the crazy one.
What the heck was up with these four weirdos?! At least the crazy girl had enough sense to look embarrassed when I gave her the stink eye.
I turned back to the boy, “Are you alright, um…?”
Their names immediately came to mind. Bedivere had already come up with a host of options for them, after all, and it was easy to match name choices to certain features. Wait. Oh god. Bedivere! What the hell were these names you thought up?! You knew these four would turn out messed up, didn’t you?!
Yup, it was official. I should have known when I saw the four of them. Like the small warrior, the other three had long, thick, sharp antennae crowning their heads. Though their shapes varied between the three, they gave the distinct feeling of a certain feature.
Horns.
These four monsters were named after some serious problems.
The boy was Belial. The huge chick was called Behemoth. The bulbous girl would be named Belphegora.
And the crazy one was none other than Beelzebub.
Of fucking course. Bedivere had turned the warriors into a team of insane demons.
Beemons.
Goddamit.