CHAPTER 36

The putrid stench of death filled the air, as the underground nursery was filled with the dead corpses of her caretakers. They had been mercilessly slaughtered, and their carcasses were decomposing at an exponential rate, leaving only a rotting corpse with the occasional chunks of meat on the exposed skeleton.

The rot had extended itself over to the mountain of food lying beside her, causing it to decompose as well. Instead of a mountain of fresh food, a mountain of rotted fungi lay beside her, emitting the putrid stench that enshrouded the whole room, causing the young ant queen’s gag reflex to kick in as she almost choked to death.

She wheezed air through her spiracles before she emptied out her stomach.

She hurried out of the room, failing to notice that she wasn’t a larva anymore. The hallway next to the nursery was filled with the same suffocating stench, and as she hurried past the other nurseries, she saw that death ruled everywhere.

Everything was decomposing. Rotting bodies of caretakers, larva, workers, and soldiers could be found throughout the tunnels. The unnatural silence and the putrid stench caused the queen’s mind to go insane, as she felt feelings of disgust and horror well up in her.

She hadn’t felt such feelings of horror for a long time, and it surprised her. She had believed to be completely estranged from these creatures, yet she felt the horror congregate in her chest, she felt the disgust fill her mind, and she felt desperation in her heart from the rotting bodies around her.

The sopping sound of her feet hitting the small puddles of blood and excrement echoed throughout the chambers, breaking the unnatural silence with enough force to wake the dead.

While the queen hurried down the halls, more and more sounds of sopping feet hitting the ground resounded through the hallways. At first they were few in number, but the more the queen ran, the more their numbers grew. The sounds finally penetrated her chaotic mind as a rotting ant body ran out from one of the rooms to her right, and smacked its head with a sickening thud against the wall just in front of her.

The queen shrieked as blood and puss was plastered against the wall from the ant’s charge, yet that wasn’t why she screamed.

The corpses of thousands upon thousands of ants littered the forest floor for kilometres on end. An unnatural tranquillity permeated the sea of corpses, as even the noise of the oncoming horde behind her was cancelled out. Only she and the carcasses of her death sisters and brothers remained, each and every one of them having long lost the life in their eyes, each and every one of them slowly decomposing from the open air exposure.

Yet their conditions seemed to differ, as every ant seemed to have a different necrosis. There seemed to be some general differences which categorized the carcasses into different groups, some had body parts torn off, some seemed to be completely ground to mush, some were almost completely decomposed, and others seemed to be almost completely intact despite a few missing chunks of flesh due to their decomposing. The only thing that seemed to thrive in this landscape of death were the fungi that nourished themselves with the cold flesh of the deceased ants, enveloping every bit of flesh in a crust of pus and dried blood.

She walked with calm steps through the corpse littered field, oblivious to the horde of ants pouring out from the entrance behind her. She weaved herself through the field of corpses with light steps, walking past the bodies of her people with a numbed mind, as the only thing that penetrated the depths of her psyche were the rotting faces of the creatures that lay beside her feet.

They once stood proud like her, trusting in the strength of their queen, trusting in the army they had created, and trusting in the strength of the group. They were never afraid to back off from a challenge if it threatened the group, yet that is exactly what had let to their end.

The young matriarch’s former resentment and apathy towards her people had disappeared, as she realized both their and her own mistakes. They had valued the group above themselves, they had valued unity more than survival, and they had believed in their queen above all, believing her to be the one that provided that unity and the one that led them to a greater future.

They were misled, they saw the queen as a being above themselves, when the only thing that she could do was birth more warriors and workers, she had no real power over her subjects except for their faith. Yet despite her powerless reign over her subjects, the warrior queen had continued her rule under the notion that she was something more than them, only to fail when they encountered something that was actually more than them.

The young matriarch looked at the result of that fateful encounter, as she stood between the two severed halves of the former matriarch’s body. The insides had already started rotting gaining a mushy crust of pus and dried blood, the outer shell of thick chitin had been cleanly cut in half as if a giant scythe had passed through the body like it was nothing but air.

She spent several more moments in silence, as she absentmindedly looked beyond the severed halves. Yet as she looked into the distance, her scrambled thoughts were slowly reforming, causing the noise around her to finally reach her.

It began soft, as only a slight hum resounded through her ears. Yet it quickly increased, taking only a few moments before the sound of the oncoming horde reached her mind once more.

Looking behind her, she saw the sea of corpses only a few dozen centimetres away from her, accelerating and quickly closing in on her. Their voracious appetite compelled them to sweep up every corpse in their path, and consume it.

The queen shook her head as she tried to find any shelter from the voracious horde in front of her, only to have her gaze focus on the large and armoured behind of the warrior queen.

While its insides may be rotting, its outer shell was incredibly dense. It would be able to stave such a horde off with ease, as even the soldier ants couldn’t have any hope of penetrating the thick chitin that had encased the queen’s body.

The queen quickly raced up to the wall of rotting flesh and organs that were the warrior queen’s insides, and she started cutting a way through it. She dug into the rotting flesh like the pile of food she had consumed earlier, and quickly created a hole big enough for her to fit in.

She dug for a few more centimetres until she felt a glaring pain in her side. Looking back, she saw that a small worker ant had already reached her and had started chewing on her stumpy backside. His small pincers had a surprising strength to them, cutting through the weak chitin on the small stump on her backside with ease.

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With another mighty cut of its pincers, it sliced through the stump, taking a chunk of flesh with it. It shrieked triumphantly, soliciting a chorus of berserk screeches from its fellow corpses, and turning towards the queen with renewed vigour, only to have its rotting face caved in.

The queen ignored the screaming pain that had entered her mind once again and retracted her pincers from the ant’s mushy face. She was quite surprised by the resilience of the ants skull, as she had been only able to crack it, whereas she normally would have been able to penetrate it with ease.

Yet her shock only lasted for a moment, as she was reminded of her situation by the dozens upon dozens of ferocious shrieks coming from outside her little hidey hole. She returned her attention back towards the small flesh cave in front of her, only to chitter in happiness.

The ant worker’s body had blocked most of the shaft leading to her, causing the next ant in line to take up almost all of the space that remained in the small tunnel, and causing it to get stuck between the body of its dead companion and the slimy decaying walls of the warrior queen’s behind.

The queen tried to disable to struggling ant with a quick jab to the neck, yet this one wasn’t quite as occupied with screaming victory as the last one. It used its thickened skull to shield its neck from penetration, only to have it crack under the queen’s strength. It released a horrific sounds as it started squirming, trying to worm itself free. Yet with one more quick jab to the head, its squirming ceased.

The queen sighed in relieve, as she had been granted a moment of respite from the oncoming horde. The tunnel had been almost completely filled up by the two ant corpses, and while their cracked skulls leaked pus and gore, the queen looked on in pride at her achievement. She had never been very good at close quarters combat, usually preferring to give out orders and direct her forces, yet she thought of it was a nice change of pace.

Yet despite her success in blocking the tunnel she had created, her respite lasted only for a moment, as another corpse ant burst through the roof, and latched itself on her back.

She shrieked in surprise and agony, only to have another ant pop up from the floor and grasp one of her hind legs, another one quickly followed by bursting from the side wall and ramming into her, followed by another one that latched on to her stumpy behind, another one ripped off a chunk of her underside, another one ripped out one of her eyeballs, and many more followed.

The queen was quickly devoured by the sea of corpses as they burst out from every direction through the rotting flesh she had sought refuge in. They ripped of chunks of her skin with every swing they took, they broke through her soft underbelly and eviscerated her, they ripped out her eyes, broke her legs, and cut off her antennae’s.

The queen was screaming out in pain and horror as her limbs were stripped from her one by one, yet no matter how much flesh she lost, no matter how much blood was spilled, no matter how many organs were devoured, she continued to live through this hell.

She scrambled her thoughts to find a way out of this torture, yet the screaming paint that enveloped her psyche withheld her. She could only feel the despair rise in her chest as it was dug out by one of the many corpse ants that assaulted her, images flashed by as the pain grew. She remembered her youth, her growth periods, her caretaker ants, the soldiers that had faithfully guarded her, the queen’s bodyguards that had been ordered to get her, and her last audience with the warrior queen.

That damned muscle headed matriarch had called her for an audience, only to banish her. She wasn’t giving a reason, she wasn’t giving any guards, any resources, not even a contemporary home, she was destined to die by that damned brute.

Yet despite her banishment, despite her weakness, despite everything, she had survived. She had survived the beasts that had assaulted her by luring them to the nearby nests of other forest denizens or even the ant colony, she had eaten blades of grass to gain any kind of nutrition, she had even dug out her own little cave not far from the colony. She had thrived where that damned brute had destined her to die, and she wouldn’t allow that idiot and her senseless minions to doom her from beyond the grave.

The despair that inhabited was slowly formed into a conviction, as the painful memories of her banishment hammered on it like an iron maul.

She gathered her will behind her newly shaped conviction, and shrieked in agony and defiance. No sound escaped her throat, as there was nothing left of it, yet the scream didn’t go unnoticed.

The large skeleton of the warrior queen shook as energy streamed out form the ground, coursing its way through the sea of corpses towards her. The energy bound through the sea of corpses along a previously unnoticed connection. Its route towards the queen was very peculiar, as it seemed to stream along the connection, yet it branched out along almost every part of the way, being more reminiscent of a patch of branches than a coursing river.

Yet the queen didn’t notice this, as she only noticed the revitalizing energy that it supplied her with. She felt the control over her body strengthen, allowing her to gain some semblance of control over her bony limbs and the energy that coursed through her body. She directed both her limbs and the energy outward in an desperate attempt to stave off the horde of corpse ants bashing against her body, only to succeed beyond her wildest imagination.

Across her skeleton, small stubbles appeared, only to grow into long and thick spikes. They impaled every corpse around the queen, and pushed the horde back. The screaming pain in her mind finally subsided, as there were no more ants to chew on her, yet there also wasn’t anything to chew on anymore.

Her body had been stripped of all of its flesh, leaving her bare boned in the most literal sense of the word. She tried to move her limbs, only to find that they were close to immovable. It felt like her body was covered in a layer of hard stone as even the smallest movement caused her limbs to creak under the pressure, making it feel more like she was trying to bend hardened chitin instead of moving one of her own limbs.

Yet despite their weight, she could move her limbs. Her desperate attempts at movement were met with support from the revitalizing energy. She felt the revitalizing energy converge around her skeleton, creating a large amount of small strings running along her bones, connecting at her joints, and creating a layer of magical power that covered her entire body. She seized control over the energy that covered her body, and directed it.

She didn’t move her limbs, she commanded them to be moved. The layer of magic covering her entire body obeyed, and started lifting the dense and heavy leg with difficulty, only to drop it down as soon as it had completed its order. She felt that she had lost a great deal of energy by that simple movement, yet she wasn’t discouraged, she was elated.

The energies converged on the queen’s head as she formed a phantom smirk, causing her ethereal muscles to morph into a horrifying smile.

Yet her smile began to waver, as she felt the revitalizing energy continue to stream in. Her newly found muscles bloated, her tendons stretched, and her bones started creaking under the pressure her expanding muscle mass released.

It encroached on her mind, slowly grinding away at her psyche. It grew and grew, becoming an ever larger threat to her sanity. It kept expanding and expanding, putting more and more pressure on her mind. Agony enveloped her mind once more, as she was dragged back to the jagged torture chamber she had just escaped from.

Her skeleton creaked under her bloated muscles and her mind was slowly being ground down by the increasing pressure of the revitalizing energy. Yet despite all of this, her phantom smiled reformed.

Her bloated muscles made her head seem like a puff pastry, yet her wicked smile extended even beyond the stretched limits of her bloated face. Her teeth filled grin opened up, only to release a laugh which was fitting for her slowly disappearing sanity.

Her phantom maw quickly snapped shut, yet the wicked smile remained.

It remained as she directed the now agonizing energy to her behind. It remained as she pushed the energy through her stump, and burst through it with another wave of agony accompanying the explosion of energy. It remained as the bones of her stumpy behind grew to monstrous proportions, creating a new, deformed, and more spiky behind.

It only wavered as she found her limits once again. She had recreated her lost behind, yet the agonizing energy still continued to stream in, filling her up once more, and causing both her mind and her bones to bend under the pressure it released.

Just as she was about to fall back into the jagged ravine that was her personal hell, she felt a sneering pain in her side. Turning her head, she found a corpse ant had broken through the dense forest of spikes, and had dug its claws in her body.

The sneering pain came with a moment of clarity, and a realisation. She saw something in the ant which she couldn’t have noticed before, yet it seemed all too clear now. She looked up, only to find that the small ant reflected the horde crowding around her. While each of them had their own individual differences, they all seemed to share one thing, one thing that connected them.

The queen quickly set to work as her phantom smirk once more grew beyond its physical limitations, and reformed as the most wicked and unnerving smile she had conjured up until now.

She would use the corpses of those that had rejected and banished her in both life and death to fuel her progress, to fuel the creation of a new colony, a colony which would rise above its predecessor, and she would take her rightful place as uncontested ruler.

She shrieked in delight as she thought of the future, only to clamp down on the small ant biting her side, and consume him with one large gulp.