Volume 5: Instar
Issue 3: The Party
Florian Reyes Honeywell
By Roach
“I’ve seen Shrek, like, four times in the last two weeks,” Gabriel said.
“That seems like a reasonable amount,” Jay replied.
“I don’t think it’s enough.”
“We’re not watching Shrek.”
“Come on. You’ll like it if you’re drunk.”
“In that case, I’d be going to the hospital.”
“Now you’re just antagonizing me.”
“Maybe.”
Out of the fragments of conversation around me, I didn’t necessarily intend to eavesdrop on Jay and Gabriel in particular. It was more that they were the only faces I recognized. Gabriel wore a simple ruby-colored shirt with a light pink collar which complemented his brown skin, while Jay had brightened their pale face with eyeshadow in glimmering waves of silver and blue.
The two had situated themselves on the couch opposite of me, after losing a game of freeze dance. Meaning, that every time the music stopped, the players had to freeze… with the caveat that those unable to freeze in time had to drink a shot. At least, if they intended to rejoin the dance floor. Then, for each shot someone took, it became progressively harder to keep up with the game—for perhaps obvious reasons.
I didn’t really dance, so I had already settled into an armchair by the time the game started. Shortly thereafter, the living room had been transformed into an impromptu dance floor. A couple dozen people had showed up to the party, and I hardly knew any of them. Most of them were theater kids, but some didn’t seem to come from Chapel at all. Maybe Jay’s circle was bigger than I realized, or it was the kind of party where a friend brought a friend who brought another friend… Either way, I wasn’t sure what Jay’s parents would make of the amount of jumping that was currently happening in their apartment, but apparently they were comfortable enough to have cleared out for the occasion—on a dinner date or something along those lines, according to Jay.
“Fine. If we’re not watching Shrek, I’m at least going to dance.” Gabriel poured Jägermeister into a shot glass, then tilted his head back to gulp down the drink. He slammed the glass onto the table, then gave his friend what I thought was supposed to be a challenging stare—but ended up more like a grimace. Jay rolled their eyes in turn, but proceeded to take a shot as well. They both strode past me, toward the dance floor. Neither of them looked at me.
I watched my classmates dance. But I didn’t look at anyone or anything in particular. Instead, I let my gaze wander across the mass of aimlessly moving people. I thought of my bees, which also danced—but when they danced, it had some type of meaning. Turning left, turning right, spinning around; search here, the sun falls, the bluebell tolls. It was uncomplicated. More direct. But here, at a party, I didn’t understand what any of it meant. It had nothing to do with navigation or foraging. Just aimless and senseless movement, leading to nothing.
About ten seconds after Jay and Gabriel had rejoined the dancing crowd, the loud pop music paused. Simultaneously, most of the dancers toppled over one another in their attempt to freeze.
“‘Milo, you did that on purpose!” Gabriel exclaimed as he clung onto Jay’s arm. He glared at Camilo, who had been DJing from behind the kitchen counter. The living room and kitchen were part of an open floor plan, so the counter served as both a music and drinking station. A humble station at that, where Camilo had hooked his Spotify account to an Alexa.
Camilo smiled and shrugged innocently. At the same time, half of the people abandoned the dance floor. Some gathered around the kitchen counter to collect new drinks, while others gave up on the game. Only a few dancers appeared to have survived the freeze.
I looked at my phone, checking the time. 8:33 pm. Was it okay to leave already? I should probably wait until I could give Jay the gift Amber and I got from GameStop, at the very least…
Just then, Amber appeared next to me. I wasn’t entirely sure from where, as she hadn’t been on the dance floor. She wore a silky, mint green dress with a denim jacket over it. A pink blush highlighted her tall cheekbones, while rhinestones rimmed her eyeliner. Her flaming hair seemed wavier than usual.
Meanwhile, I had ended up wearing the outfit of “our”—meaning, her—choosing. It consisted of a white-collared rugby shirt with black and beige stripes, accompanied by a pair of jeans with folded ankles, revealing a floral pattern at the cuffs. Admittedly, it was nicer than my usual choice of wear.
“Stop being such a loser,” she greeted me.
“Nice to see you, too,” I mumbled, and rested my cheek against my hand.
“Come on. Let’s play some games.”
I raised an eyebrow in skepticism. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what games she could possibly have in mind. “Do I have to?”
In response, she only gave me a sort of exasperated look—her eyebrows half-raised.
I looked around, searching for an excuse not to. But the alternative was to join the dance floor or start drinking, neither of which were very tempting.
Amber continued, “Stop worrying so much, Flory-worry.”
“What? Flory who…?” I furrowed my brows. “That doesn’t even rhyme.”
“It’s a slant rhyme,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And also not the point. Come on.” She waved for me to follow her.
Reluctantly, I rose to my feet. Amber strode through the makeshift dance floor, her heels tapping lightly to the generic pop beat. As she walked, the dancing crowd parted ways ahead of her, like the Red Sea. I trailed after her, following the path she paved. She beelined for Camilo. Once she arrived at the counter, she said something to him I couldn’t hear over the music, then he shouted for someone else to take over his DJing responsibilities.
Camilo collected a handful of other people, including Gabriel, Jay, and a couple of theater students I vaguely recognized. The party gradually formed into different factions: the Cards Against Humanity players, the dancers, the minglers… Then there was us. We situated ourselves in the kitchen, sitting in a circle on the cold, tiled flooring. Gabriel put down a half-full vodka bottle in the center of the circle.
“The birthday kid should go first,” Camilo declared.
“Kid?” Jay said, wrinkling their nose.
“Well, you just turned five years, didn’t you?”
“Very funny.” With an unamused expression, Jay reached for the bottle and gave it a spin. Still heavy with alcohol, the bottle stopped after a single rotation. It landed on Jay again. “Oh, come on,” they said, then gave it another spin—more forceful this time. The bottle surpassed its first rotation.
It pointed at Amber.
Everyone in the circle turned to stare at her.
“Truth or dare?” Jay asked.
“Truth,” Amber said.
“Why are you here?” Their voice was chilling.
A silence followed the question. Everyone’s stares remained at her like nails in a coffin—except for Camilo, who gave Jay a puzzled look. But Amber’s expression never changed. She let the silence sink in, like she was the one really controlling it. After what felt like too long, she simply said, “To celebrate your birthday.” Her tone was too ambiguous to really decipher, but somehow the implications felt more threatening than not.
Off to a great start, I thought, wishing I had stayed at home.
No one spoke as she reached for the bottle, although a discomfort seemed to spread around the circle as people shifted and looked around aimlessly. Amber spun the bottle. As its pirouettes slowed, the cap moved toward me. I bit my lip. Then, ever-so-slowly, it passed me by. The bottle pointed at Gabriel.
“Truth or dare?” Amber asked, as if Jay’s jab at her never happened.
Gabriel tilted his head slightly, then said, “Truth.”
“Let’s see…” She tapped her index finger against her chin. “Is it true…” She paused theatrically, her knowing smile revealing white teeth. “…that you have a crush on someone here?”
Gabriel was quiet for a moment. Sitting in a cross-legged position, he looked down at his hands folded in his lap. “No,” he muttered. Then, he reached for the bottle, and poured some of the vodka into a glass mixed with what I thought was some kind of soda.
“Remember, you can’t lie in spin the bottle. It’s bad luck.”
He rolled his eyes. “You don’t know if I’m lying or not.”
“Well, you’re not saying that you aren’t lying.”
He drank deeply from his glass. Then, with a sigh, he replied, “Fine. Yes. I do.”
A sly smile crossed Amber’s cherry-red lips. “Oooohh, who’s the lucky one?”
“Nu-uh.” He wagged his finger at her. “It’s not your turn.” Then he spun the bottle, which settled on a girl with a pixie haircut, who I didn’t really know.
“Dare,” she said, bobbing her head to the rhythm of the music—perhaps a bit more intoxicated than the rest of us.
“I dare you to drink from the goldfish bowl,” Gabriel said, perhaps also a bit too intoxicated.
“Hey, you can’t do that to Bubbles!” Jay immediately protested.
“Fuck no,” the girl agreed.
“Its name is Bubbles?” Amber said.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Don’t ask me why, he’s like twenty years old,” Jay said.
“Chloe, you know the rules…” Gabriel said.
“Okay, I’ll pass.”
“Pay the price.”
Chloe poured the vodka into the shot glass, then drank it. With a shudder, she spun the bottle. This time, it rotated back to Jay.
“Truth,” Jay said, adding, “I’m not drinking any goldfish water.”
“Is it true that you’re the real Stagehand?” Chloe giggled drunkenly as she said it. But I felt like someone had dropped ice into my stomach. Of course, Jay wasn’t in a position to give anything away—but if these were the kind of questions people were asking, this game just became a whole lot riskier. I looked at Camilo. He didn’t seem to notice me, as his stare remained on Jay.
Jay didn’t seem as amused as Chloe. Their face had hardened, and their gray eyes narrowed. “No,” they said. “Fuck those guys.”
There was another awkward silence. Me, Camilo, and Amber all looked at one another. I saw my own discomfort reflected in their expressions. Jay had said it so matter-of-factly, that I couldn’t help but think that they meant it. Then, breaking the silence, Chloe burst out laughing. “You’re so hilarious, Jay.” She threw her arms around them. Then, in a sing-songy voice, she exclaimed, “Haaaappy birthday!”
Gabriel chuckled forcefully. “Umh… Alright, next?”
Jay wriggled free of Chloe’s grasp. The bottle twirled in their grip. But the mood had shifted. The following questions and dares became more low-stakes: tell an embarrassing story, or jump up and down while drinking. Then, the dreaded moment came when the bottle landed on me.
“Truth or dare?” Gabriel asked me.
“Dare,” I said. Truth felt safer, but I didn’t want to risk another superhero question.
“Okay…” He mulled it over for a second. “I dare you to message one of the new transfer students. And confess that you’re in love with them.”
“Good one,” Amber said. Gabriel reached out for a high five—in his fragile sobriety, he seemed to have momentarily forgotten that he didn’t actually like Amber. Then, about halfway through the gesture, I thought maybe he recalled that fact as he scrunched up his face. But it was already too late to revoke it, as Amber promptly returned his high five.
“What… The transfer students?” I supposed there had been a handful of new students in the last couple of weeks, which was strange considering recent events at Chapel High. Still, I didn’t know any of them. And I told him so: “I don’t know them.”
“Didn’t Chloe speak to one of them?” Gabriel said. “Lana… Anna, something… Hannah, I think?”
Right. Hannah, from biology. I supposed I sort of knew her… At least I had spoken to her, but maybe that was more like knowing of her rather than actually knowing her. Besides, I didn’t exactly want to embarrass myself—or get tangled into whatever mischief Gabriel was plotting. As I processed what was happening, Chloe clung onto the arm of an unfazed Jay. With her eyes closed, she mumbled something about how much she loved everyone.
“I think I’ll pass,” I said.
“Aw, but it will be fun,” another person—Morgan, I had learned—encouraged.
I shook my head.
“Well, drink up then,” Gabriel said.
And there was the price. Before I could say anything, he poured a shot glass for me. I could smell the alcohol before he even handed me the glass—like my mom’s ethanol vials, preserving dozens of insects in her office. A clinical, deadly sort of smell.
I held the tiny glass with both of my hands. As everyone turned to me with expectant looks, it felt like the circle of people grew smaller, closing in on me. I peered into the beverage. I’d never had alcohol before, let alone vodka. As I brought the glass closer to my lips, the sharp smell almost made me gag. I had to do this quickly. I tipped my head back, then swallowed the drink.
The liquid burned down my throat. Instantly, bees hissed in response. Alarm pheromones thickened as the poison washed over them. Ultimately, that’s what it was. Poison. Thousands of wings sizzled within me.
What is this? the Queen snarled. The swarm evacuated from my torso, into my limbs and arms. Workers flocked to the nursery chambers, while frantic buzzing blended in with the music in the background. I hid my face in my elbow as I started to cough.
“You really don’t know how to take a shot, do you?” Gabriel said.
I cleared my throat. I felt the Queen writhing within me, her long wings beating hard. Like a pulse. Then, unexpectedly, a sense of determination overcame me.
“Then show me,” I told Gabriel.
We both got up. I avoided looking at Amber and Camilo as we approached the kitchen counter. Gabriel poured one shot for each of us. “Alright, so you kinda have to just go for it. Like…”
Stop this. I didn’t hear the rest of Gabriel’s explanation, as the smell of alcohol and pheromones overwhelmed my senses. I felt the Queen’s presence all around me, like a fog. She continued, Or you’ll regret it.
I nodded absently to Gabriel. This time, the drink went down easier. Maybe because of the numbness the last shot had left me with. Or, maybe because the Queen’s agony made the awful taste worth it. There was a thrill to it—that somehow, I had found a way to get back at her. It was with a sense of satisfaction that I felt her squirm from her chamber inside my liver. Her fluttering intensified, the sound reverberating through me, crawling into my head…
Then, there was pain. Searing, blinding pain.
It started from my liver. I felt her mandibles tear into the parts of me that were more flesh than honeycombs. I didn’t know what it felt like to be stabbed, but I imagined it was something like this—except, she attacked from the inside out.
Her pheromones flooded through me. The edges of my vision blurred, while the kitchen and everyone in it began to fade. At her signal, the swarm followed her example. All over my body, I felt them dig into me. The front line ate into my remaining flesh, while the workers behind them filled in the new gaps with wax. The soothing feeling of the wax disappeared in the seething pain.
Rationally, I knew the Queen wouldn’t try to kill me—it was in her best interest to keep me alive. But, as the pain crawled under my skin—burning like nettles—it sure didn’t feel like it.
If you don’t stop this, we will erase what little humanity is left of you, the Queen threatened.
There was a sound like glass shattering. As I tried to focus back in on the kitchen, it felt like opening my eyes underwater. The swarm’s retaliation was a beast on its own, but the possibility of losing control… Of everyone finding out that I was Hive… Like this, drinking, at a party… It was just so stupid. All of this, for one moment of stupidity? “Okay, I-I’m done,” I managed to stutter, holding back a moan of pain.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” I recognized Camilo’s voice, speaking softly.
I bit my tongue, suppressing another whimper. “Yes,” I managed slowly.
The swarm stopped their attack, releasing me from the hold of their mandibles and stingers. Slowly, the pain faded into an ache as apitoxins continued to drip through my waxy flesh. The kitchen came back into focus, revealing the shattered shot glass at the bottom of my feet. I didn’t remember dropping it—just the sound of shattering. I locked my gaze onto the broken glass, avoiding the stares of everyone around me. Although it had all happened in the span of a few seconds, I felt each moment draw out.
“Sorry. Umh… Guess I overestimated myself.” I tried to chuckle, but it came out more like a cough than anything else. I had known it for months, but the truth hit me the hardest at that moment: I wasn’t like them, and I couldn’t be.
I couldn’t do the same things as my peers without being reminded that the last bits of my humanity were at the mercy of a psychotic parasite.
“Is… Is there a bathroom?” I said, wishing for a hole to open up under me and swallow me whole.
“Upstairs, to the left. I can show—”
I interrupted Camilo, “No, it’s fine.” I backed out of the kitchen, still avoiding the others’ looks. I turned my back on them, scurrying past the dancing crowd—seemingly unaffected by the incident—and headed upstairs. My entire body ached as I moved.
But instead of taking a left to the bathroom, I continued straight—toward a glass door leading to a balcony, just at the end of the little hallway. I slid the door open, then walked through and closed it behind me.
The balcony had just enough space for two people to stand there comfortably—maybe three, if a potted monstera plant hadn’t been taking up the extra space. A small slice of San Francisco surrounded me, with tightly packed apartments crowding the slanted streets. Below me, I could see an abandoned hopscotch drawing on the sidewalk. A couple of people walked past it, too quiet for me to hear what they were talking about.
It had been a while since the Queen turned the swarm against my body like this. Mostly, she did in the beginning, when the hive was still restructuring my body. And after that, only when I wanted to tell someone about what was happening to me. If I thought about telling my parents, the school nurse, anyone… The swarm started to eat me from the inside out. Once they were done, the Queen would order them to rebuild me again.
And every time, I was slightly less human.
How much blood and flesh was left of me now? I wasn’t sure. Could I ever get back what I had lost? I didn’t know. There were some heroes with healing powers, though the only one in the Bay I knew about was Stitch. But even if there was some hero out there that could help me, I had long since stopped thinking about that as a possibility—the Queen made sure of that. If I ever tried to reach out, I knew she would react just like she did tonight.
I opened my mouth, drawing in the night air. I checked my surroundings. Aside from the occasional passerby below, it was fairly quiet. Quiet enough. In the cover of darkness, I gave my bees permission to leave. They left through my ears, only a few at a time. They had mostly calmed since the Queen released her command of them, but I still felt a sort of relief as they disbanded. I would have preferred to expel the entire swarm from my body—but I didn’t want to be too obvious about it while I knew that my classmates were still partying downstairs. So, I only sent a part of the swarm, scattering them down the streets…
Then, I stood there, searching the hazy sky for stars. But it seemed that they had eroded away in the city’s light pollution, as if all the traffic and streetlights and lit-up buildings ate away at the universe itself. Sometimes, that was how I felt about powers—my powers could be a light in the dark. I really could help people. I had helped people. And I had to believe that there was still more I could do, that I could do something good with the bad that happened to me. But… what if it was all just too much? That one day, it would eat me up, like city lights eating away the stars.
I couldn’t help but think about Jay’s comment in response to the Stagehand question. Fuck those guys, they had said. Why? Maybe not everyone was as excited about us as I had initially thought.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I heard the door open behind me. Music trickled through the opening, then became muffled again as the door shut. It was Camilo.
“Hey.” He rested his forearms on the railing, leaning forward as he looked over the street.
“Hi,” I said.
We were both quiet, until he said, “You doing okay?”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Umh… Do you wanna talk about it? It seemed like it was more than just… You know…” I wasn’t entirely sure what Camilo was trying to say, except that he was hinting toward my powers.
Did I want to talk about it? I wasn’t sure. The swarm, the Queen, it was all just too much to get into… I wasn’t even sure if she would let me. But still, I felt like I needed to explain something, to make sense of it all. That a part of me was glad he went through the trouble of asking.
“You know, my mom does research… And…” My gaze traced a stray bee crawling across the railing. “One time, she said that when you experiment with insects, you can give them an input and they will pretty much always have the same output. Like, you flash a light, and a moth will always be drawn to it. That sort of thing.” The lone bee adjusted her wings with a slight buzz. “They’re just not complex in the same way as vertebrates. They don’t have personalities or emotions…” I paused, and sighed. “But sometimes I wonder how true that is.” Maybe I could apply my mom’s reasoning to the swarm at large—if I emitted a pheromone signal, all of them would respond in the same way. One input would always yield the same output. But the Queen was different. She was a rational being, with her own agenda. An agenda that I didn’t always understand, but I could definitively sense. I almost expected her to comment, but—if she listened—her only response was quiet anger. “I don’t know if I’m making any sense…”
Camilo waited patiently for me to finish speaking, watching me intently. For a moment, I thought maybe he had no response for me. But then he spoke up, “I’m not going to pretend I know what your experience is like. But I understand… how difficult it is, what we are, I mean. What we can do. And I think it’s okay to be hurt by that sometimes… Normal, even. I just want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to, you have me.”
I smiled faintly. “That goes for you, too,” I said.
“Thank you.” He returned the smile. “I suppose…”
Before he could finish his sentence, the door opened again. I tensed, and turned to see Amber. She squeezed her way onto the balcony, in between us. “There you guys are,” she said, looking back and forth between us. “Gabriel thinks he can beat me at Mario Kart. You in?”
Camilo and I exchanged a glance. He looked somewhat amused by her proposal. I didn’t feel as humored by it, but I felt a sense of relief that it seemed like the party had moved on from my failure to drink, at least.
“Maybe it’s better if I just go home…” I said.
“Why?” Amber replied.
“This isn’t really my sort of thing. I’ve embarrassed myself enough as it is.”
“So? Everyone already thinks you’re weird. It doesn’t make any difference.”
Camilo pushed his elbow into her side. She shot him a warning glance in return.
I lingered on her words. It doesn’t make any difference. In spite of all my doubts, maybe there was some truth to that. I couldn’t change who or… what I was. So what if Jay or Gabriel or anyone else thought I was weird? I didn’t have anything left to lose.
As my hand rested on the railing of the balcony, the lone bee crawled over my skin. I watched her as she took off, joining her sisters in the night.
“Okay,” I finally said. “Okay. I’ll go in.”