Authors Note: While this is the beginning of the story, it takes place slightly before events mentioned in the Synopsis. I personally did not find the content of the chapter grusome, but in the interest of not suprising younger visiters to the site, I have added a content warning. Unecisary most likely, but may become much more accurate further on down the line.

This chapter is best read in the dark, while eating a brick of frozen chocolate.

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It had been along time since something new had entered my world. Amongst the ruins of our space elevator, I sat, head bowed, and payed my respects to a whole civilization lost. The rusted steel and crumbled mortar only amplified my grief. Rotating my mandibles I rose, and scuttled out into the hive proper, or what was left of it. There used to be noise, movement all accross our home, the workers furthering the goals of our Mother, the advisors contstatly planning our expansion into all of the fertile worlds of our system. Now, as I move through the entrance mound, there is only silence, and the sound of my chitin clicking harshly against the floor, echoing in a way I had once found eirie.

The vast halls and rooms of the complex held no suprises for me, the same rusted tables, livestock pens, and empty doorways that had been gathering dust for ages. Hunger drove me forward, down into the darker depths. In the past I wouldn't have been able to concieve of taking these hallowed pathways, now, its mundane. The scratches and gouges still there from long ago. 

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Soon, the air became heavy with decay, and I arrived at my destination. The Hive had held many chambers, each with a constantly changing purpose, but this room and this room alone was dedicated to something special. My first perception of the Hive, and the deliverance of a purpose long abandoned had happened here, and here was where my journey would end. 

Her corpse lounged where we had left it, so many years ago. No one had been able to move her, not in the time we had left. With bones visible from where I had come before, the Mother lay atop her dome. With no others around, and the livestock long gone, I was the only thing left to return her matter to use, to give it purpose, even if its only purpose was to prolong my penance.

It had all happened so fast.

Why did it happen at all?

I shake my head, and reach forward, gripping on of the many birthing appendages, and tear a chunk of Her off with my finger, their hard exoskeleton making easy the grusome work.

My limbs shook, but the process was necissary. Someone must remeber. I took the flesh and ground it into small chunks, before injesting Her remains.

A sound echoed around the chamber, many short exhales of air, something that never happened Before. It was okay. Someone must remember. The ritual of sustenance complete, I turned and began the treck back towards our crowing achievement, a meant to be a mere footnote in the history of the Hive. 

Rain began to fall as I knelt in the shattered remains of a planets hopes and dreams.

Someone must remember.