“Shared consciousness.
Hive bustling with mind.
A thought appears.
It is apart.
I noticed it.
Soon I am.
Soon I am no longer Hive.
I am Hiveless.”
Taken from the Oral Tradition of Feckmore.
Feckmore began to sneak for the first time. He had never felt the need to hide. He had always been one with the Hivemind, one with the mass of drones. Inexplicably he experience what it was to be apart for the first time. Even surrounded by soldier drones of the hiver village he could not sense his siblings. They could not sense him. Acted as if he was not even there. He hid himself in his horror.
Only hunger was able to rouse him from the shadows of despair. Hunger was new. Hivemind had always provided. Had led him to sustenance before he had ever felt the bitter bite. He stumbled looking for something, anything to fill the widening voids he felt within himself. The papery Hive structures he once called home. He would steal food. He would trade. Such a strange thing. That he once had no need for language. Yet he had strange dreamlike knowledge of these concepts. That he could speak them. Name them. He slipped within the papery bulb he knew would be most likely to have the supplies he so desperately needed. A Prince. A Prince would know what to do. A trader with outsiders. He knew this. He did not know how. Dreamlike was his knowledge. His reception was unexpected.
“Lost one! Hiveless! Get Out!” rang the cry of the Prince trader.
Feckmore had awakened unto a nightmare. For the first time he uttered the name of the Hivemind in vain.
Feckmore was defenestrated from the hive in the usual manner. Hivers losing attunement to the Hivemind is not an unusual occurence. It is however quite traumatic for the individual.
The dust settles; the wasteland remembers – Chronicler
Leave a Reply