something i wrote correct me on inaccuracies if you want capitalization may be off on some things RECOVERED FROM A REEF ARCHIVE I had been cursed since the beginning. My wizard had hatched me with as much love as she could muster, but I struggled to breathe. Death, it felt warm. My hunger consumed me, and I could do nothing but scream and slash and claw at the walls of my chamber of echoes, and myself. All around me, my brethren tore into one another and ate. It was visceral. It was beautiful. Of this time, I most distinctly remember the screams. At the beginning of life, all one can really do is scream; wildly, hungrily, and lonely, screams are the poetry of all things, or so I thought. I remember a conversation, only whispered, between Aniax—a knight—and a wizard whose name has long been expunged from the World’s Grave. They were huddled close together, the fabric of the wizard’s robe shivering in the wind of the cold moon’s chasm. “Aniax.” She said, “does the worm ever quiet?” Aniax, the larger, and oldest of our chambers let out a noise. Though his teeth whistled, there was no melody. “No. It does not. It only gets louder. Greedier.” “Would we ever be able to remove ourselves from this hunger?” “No. If we were not hungry, then we would be weak. If we were not hungry, we would not be strong. We would die screaming, just as we were born.” Aniax raised his sword, to slay the wizard for her heresy. I remember nothing else, as my hunger at that point had become disquieted, and sent me into a frenzy. Perhaps it was saying something to me. My worm was weak. It spoke to me, and I heard it not demand, but beg for me to eat. It was desperate, like how a human would be when it starved. It was weak. I was hungry. So I ate the chitin off the walls, and the bones off the ground. I ate the children of the sky and deep alike, and I rose an acolyte of the Hidden Swarm. My kin did not favor me. I asked questions, and looked up at the stars. I saw the Traveler hang low in the skies above Earth, and wondered if those million winking bits in the murky abyss of emptiness was a message from the deep, telling me there are treasures yet to behold in the sky. The hive were meant to claim the stars, were they not? We were supposedly meant to extinguish light, so why do we not just consume their Sun? Or did we have it wrong? The worm commented on my heresy relentlessly. I kept it to myself, held it close like a knight would his sword. The worm was audacious, it began to make demands of me. I cursed its existence. I grew to hate it. My hatred became the source of my actions. Alone, I would venture out at night, until I saw the jade flags of the House of Exiles. From afar, and with envy, I would watch them move to curious sounds. I wallowed in their lack of order, their music, their rich and mournful dances. They looked at what they called The Great Machine with fear, wonder, and mystery. I saw their mandibles open and their fingers move, reciting their poetry and oral tradition of old. To the Hive, stories are nothing but cautionary tales, or lessons. To the Fallen, stories are proof that they were once alive, thriving, and hopeful. They were proof that they weren’t starving, or hungry. In silence, I practiced my dancing. I attempted to sing, not like that of the Deathsingers but like that of those restless and leaderless Fallen. Nothing came from me but a single-pitched scream. Hopelessness began to fracture me, and I simply wished for my worm to consume me, as I stared at the Fallen in the distance. They were celebrating some sort of holiday, and drinking their ether until they were dizzy. I was enraged. I was foolish. As they slept I slaughtered them all, my worm buzzing inside of my chest with joy. Amongst the corpses, there was a single hatchling. It was screaming, it was hungry. Next to me, the painful light of the servitor flickered, then died. The hatchling wept, I think, and I picked it up. I am not kind. I am a Hive, born of the Logic of the Sword and I resolved, at that moment, I shall die by it. But this hatchling, perhaps, will become a poet or dancer, maybe an artist or musician. If I have learned anything from this ephemeral and weak race of beings, it is that they do not abide by such logic. My rage settled as the hatchling fell silent, and I set it down to bask in the ether of the dying servitor. Hope filled me and my worm churned as skiffs, reinforcements, appeared in the distance. I returned to my chamber, filled with my brethren who still looked at me with scorn. My knight, whose name I do not care to recite, asked me where I was. I took out a blade, one that I stole from a Vandal, and arc energy danced. I drove it into the neck of my knight before he could react, and for the first time since I discovered the glory of life, I danced. All around my brothers and sisters, I danced, leaving no survivors. From their screaming corpses, I arose and finally found a name for myself: Errox, the Dancer of Swords. Within me, my worm surged. The heresy in me only grew stronger. To the Hive, the only thing sacred is strength, and the Logic of the Sword. What then do I say to the hatchling of the Fallen who I slaughtered? It is the will of the Sword. No. I would reject that logic, as I do now. As I always have. I looked down at my hands. They were large. The Vandal’s blade, once slightly cumbersome, was nothing more than a shard of bone. I threw the sword into the deepest pit in the chamber. I looked to the stars, and they looked back at me. My eyes grew tired, but my soul raged. I only wished the passion in me was great enough to burn the worm from the inside out, to make the worm suffer for forcing its power on me. “To be remembered,” I say to the sky and deep and whatever is listening, “Is the triumph of life.” “I will play your game,” I say to the worm, “but know that you are doomed.” I let out a roar, one terrible scream, as the worm inside me shivered at my resolve. One day, soon, I will be rid of this worm. It was the desire of a species long-extinct. Though, that is a story for another day. Know that I have seen the garden. I have seen the end of all things at the edge of the universe. I have experienced cosmic wonders that cannot be transcribed in any spoken word or language. I summited mountains and swam through rivers. I fought against the Logic of the Sword and emerged victorious against hunger itself. But the greatest thing I ever saw was the light in the eyes of that hatchling. A curious, beautiful little light, that paled even in comparison to that of the Traveler, the stars. It gave me a warmth that even death could not bestow. It gave me hope. [spoiler]Moderator edit: This thread has been updated with tags that are more appropriate. Feel free to private message the moderator who moved your post, link to topic, for further clarification about why this topic was moved.[/spoiler]