We watch the ponies scream in terror as they panic in the streets of the pony capitol. We do not move though, we were told to stay in position and wait for our Queen’s orders. So we stand in formation, stretching around the entire city. The ponies never tried to approach us, they were trapped.
Suddenly, our minds buzz. All of our wings twitch in anticipation for the order. The Queen’s voice ripples through our skulls like a strong gust of wind.
“Go, feed!”
We smile. We were told to enjoy the chase. As one, we charge in hunt for our prey. While our siblings lock onto individual targets, we see a brown stallion who has not been claimed.
“Mine!” we shout out loud and in our mind, letting our siblings know not to interfere with our hunt. We chase the pony down the paved road, our wings buzzing at a furious blur. The pony sees us coming and quickens his pace until he is several meters ahead of us. We do not worry, for we have the city now. We will continue to chase until our prey tires or corners himself.
It seems the pony has chosen the latter. He takes a sharp turn down a small alley. We know this alley leads to a dead end, one of our siblings had informed us. We choose to land and walk the rest of the way. It does not matter, the pony has no escape.
As we turn the corner, we see the stallion heaving for breath in front of a brick wall blocking his path. Our hooves clip the ground as we approach. He looks up at us and whinnies in terror. We lower our head and growl, hoping to scare him into submission. We do not want this pony to attack us. If he attacked we would be forced to silence him. The Queen does not want that. She wants the ponies alive to witness her mighty rise in power when she kills the princesses in front of their own country.
We smile at the pony who cowers and trembles in the corner. We knock him onto his back with our hoof planted firmly against his throat before he could even blink. He wheezes and begins to hyperventilate. We cannot feed from him yet. We cannot consume his fear. We do not worry. He will love us soon. Our horn lights up with a green glow as we begin to fire our love spell.
Suddenly, our minds buzz. We pause, awaiting the order.
“NOOOOOOOO! AHH!”
We gasp and fall off of our prey. The Queen is hurt! Her scream grinds against our skulls. We barely notice the stallion escaping, we are too busy screaming with our Queen. A flash of bright pink magic erupts through our closed eyelids. We wail in agony as a searing bolt of static stabs our mind. We do not feel the barrier the spell had formed hit us. We do not feel the sick lurching sensation of being flung out of the city. All we feel is the high-pitched screams of our siblings and ourself in our mind.
Our ears feel as if they are going to pop and bleed. Our eyes begin to drip with tears of pain. Our breath catches in our throat. We open our eyes and see that we are soaring over a forest. That is strange. Were we not in the city a moment ago? We begin to realise that our wings are not carrying us. We are falling.
Our mind is still screeching. Still tormenting us. We wish for it to stop. It does not listen to our wish. We know that we are going to die, for this speed will never allow us to live. We shed a single tear. We then remembered somepony we had forgotten. Shaida.
All our thoughts were interrupted by unforgiving tree branches. We gasped with shock. We had forgotten about the fall, and now the trees reminded us. We flinched under the sharp stings and slaps of the branches as we continued to barrel through them at top speeds. Our fall was suddenly cut short by a large limb colliding into our flank.
Two loud cracks rang into our ears. One came from the battered tree limb, while the other came from our bones. Our eyes rolled back, and our vision blurred into a mesh of swirling colors.
We wish we were unconscious, but the world hated us. We do not know why we are still alive. The blue armour probably helped. We felt ourself spin out of control towards the ground. We saw the grass, then the sky, then the grass, then the sky. Then we saw the rock.
We have never felt pain like this before. We had felt bones break, flesh ripped, and chitin chipped, but we had never felt this kind of pain. Glowing green magic poured out where the tip of our horn used to be. The broken tip laid next to us in a puddle of blood and magic.
There was too much pain to scream, so, instead, we sat with our eyes opened wide. The screams of the hive amplified in our mind. Our breathing became difficult. We did not think it possible for the screams to get any louder, but they did any way. Our eyes squeezed shut. The Hive did not pity us. “Do not forget!” they ordered. “Do not slip away!” We wish we could obey.
Our voice was ragged as we spoke. “We are the Hive! We obey the mind our Queen has given us! We follow every command!” We shouted, hoping to stay with the Hive.”We are one with our siblings! We will live for our Queen!”
Our shouts begin to soften as we feel the Hive slip away. “We are the Hive! We are the… Hive. We...are the-” The Hive has left our mind. We- no, I am alone.
I feel dizzy. My legs give out from under me as the world goes dark.