The Dream

The rain had finally come to purge the forest of its fiery assault. The flickering flames puttered out in the downpour. Thick clouds of smoke still wreathed through the trees all the same, slowly rising through the sky where it blotted out the moon’s faint light. At once, the trees went from lit on all sides by an orange glow to almost entirely dark, save for a few quickly dying embers. Amidst the darkness was a giant hornet, looking frantically from left to right. She searched the air through sight and scent, every part of her twitching as she tried to find what she was looking for in the foul, smoggy air.

She was partly searching for friends, but also foes. Who knew how many enemies had survived the fire? And who knew how many allies? Fire was loyal to nothing.

A cold wind blew down from the nearby mountain top. The stark contrast to the ember-warmed air and the icy rain made its chill piercing.

I need to leave, it is not safe where I can barely see. The hornet took a moment to douse herself in the wet, muddy ash and began creeping across the forest floor against the wind. The smoke would be blown down into the valley and away from high ground. Soon enough, the moon peeked through the smog, and the heat of the fire began to fade. She would need make herself a burrow, else the cold might kill her—

“You think I can’t see you, groveling in the mud like the worm you are?”

The wasp froze. She twitched her antennae ever so slightly, but she couldn’t pick up the scent of her enemy.

Was the unknown bug calling her bluff?

A sharp whistle pierced the silence as a spear flew through the air towards her.

No, she was not.

The hornet dodged just a moment too late—her wing was caught in the sharpened, wooden tip, and was ripped open. A thin, almost clear fluid dripped from the wound onto the still-warm floors. Panicked, she pulled the spear from the ground and held it in her midlegs. I never knew you to be so cocky, perhaps I should have seen it earlier, she thought.

“I thought we fought with honor, face to face!”

“An honorable fight? With a backstabbing gnat like you?” A huge bug burst from the darkness, another spear in her claws. She was a wasp as well, but an impressive ruff of fur covered her back and abdomen. Her stripes were jagged like lightning bolts.

The other hornet stood on her hindlegs and blocked, locking their weapons together. Both bugs beat their wings furiously, attempting to push the other back. “I did what I had to!” the injured wasp spat, “There is no point in all this if the forest suffers for the hive’s misdeeds.”

“At least you don’t deny it,” the hairy wasp replied. She backed away and leapt in again, sweeping her spear at her enemy’s legs.

With a thud, the other wasp pitched forwards into the soaked, ash-covered ground. As she tried to stand, her spear was wrenched from her claws. The hairy wasp flung her weapon away, then stabbed her own spear through her armored chest. A crack echoed through the air as the spear’s barbed end hooked onto her bone from the inside.

The hairy wasp hissed, lifted her enemy up over her head, and slammed her down onto her back.

Neither moved for a while, too winded to act.

Then, as the other hornet desperately tried to get up, or at least get the spear out of her chest, the furrier wasp approached, wings spread wide to either side of her so that she looked twice as big.

“It does not have to end this way,” the injured hornet coughed weakly.

The hairy wasp raised her spear. “I think it does.”