Nectar
Our colony once happened upon an enormous fortune—all the food we could ever hope for—and yet we risked it all in the pursuit of something more.
For many months of the rainy season, we struggled to survive. Each day was a new hell—one not all of us would live to see the end of. Food was scarce, dangerously so. I remember, during the worst of that time, helping to carry the body of my fallen sister to the mountain of the dead. Oleic acid seeped from her body, putrid and suffocating for someone as close up as I. With my grief bundled in my chest like paste, I helped lift her thorax and carry her on the final march to the refuse pile. It was raining then.
As the storms gave way to snow, and the bite of frost ate away at our food rather than we, our luck changed. One of the scouts had found a house.
Vast plateaus with morsels of food as big as us were scattered across the landscape, alongside wide ravines and caverns with delectable treats stashed inside, and basins nearly the size of our old home with enough to eat that the thought of going hungry vanished from our minds instantly. After my fellow scouts and I laid a trail to this new, magical land, the entire colony made a day-long trek there. We gorged ourselves on the finest delicacies, until we were so fat we could hardly walk.
The Queen, our wise mother, announced at once that we were to relocate here. There was no whisper of protest, least of all from us workers, as we’d be the ones who’d have to bring the food back to our old hill had we stayed there. It was agreed upon: this was best decision for the colony.
The first night there was simultaneously the best and worst of my life. At last sheltered from the elements, my sister and I could breathe a sigh of relief. But we weren’t safe yet. Monsters walked among us: the terrifying Skin-Beasts spoken of only in legend. Without warning, mounds the size of a cockroach or grasshopper would come from the sky at enormous speeds and squash us, wringing the bitter scent of death from our bodies as the rest of us could only stand by and watch.
We learned to stay in the shadows during the light of day, sticking instead to known paths and food sources closest to our home. The worst of it fell upon the scouts (myself included), who were ordered to continue searching for resources and mapping the entirety of these new lands, even during daylight. Still, the colony ate like royalty. This should have been the first sign of trouble, but I was too naive to recognize it.
No sooner have we begun to get our bearings, the floods came. Without warning, massive waves of vinegar swept across the landscape as far as the eye could see. The unluckiest drowned. Those of us who survived were left disoriented, as our scent trails had been washed away. All the hard work of scavenging for food was wasted as our maps were effectively wiped clean. Perhaps it was some sort of karmic justice for our thievery, but believe me when I say it was necessary for us to survive. At least, I believed it was at first. Now, I’m not so sure.
After the first few days had passed, and we’d gathered and preserved enough food to last us well beyond a year, the Queen called a meeting. Speculation rippled through the colony like raindrops on a pond. The most popular theory seemed to be that the drones would be put to work, and that our population would expand now that we had the resources to sustain it. It was certainly a tempting thought, especially after our numbers had dwindled from the starvation that accompanied the rainy season.
Surrounded by piles of food, which the drones nibbled away at while she talked, the Queen made her decree.
The scouts were to double their efforts. Even workers who were stationed at the brood were reassigned as temporary scouts, effective immediately. We were not to rest until we’d searched the land far and wide.
“What for?” one sister bravely inquired.
The single word the Queen uttered in reply shocked me to my core.
“Nectar.”
It was only a legend, and a very old one at that. Nectar was the rarest substance known to our kind, said to be more valuable than a lifetime’s worth of food. Some said it let those who tasted it speak with the dead. Others claimed it would act as a direct link to the First Mother, our common ancestor whom we worshipped as a god. No one alive had ever found it, but we all knew of its existence from the tales passed around from colony to colony.
But along with the tales of riches and transcendence, there were also warnings of grave danger. Some said Nectar’s pull was so strong it would guide the consumer right to death herself. They said one could lose oneself, staring into the syrupy sweet orange pool until they fell in.
Regardless of whether the stories were true, one thing was certain. Nectar was a luxury, and not one the colony needed to risk our newfound safety to track down. We had it good—even now, as we met with the Queen, we stuffed ourselves with the food we’d already gathered. There was a roof over our heads. Our numbers were no longer dwindling. The search for Nectar was a fool’s quest.
But as I looked around myself, I saw that my sisters were nodding in agreement. Our colony was only able to survive if we worked as one; this was a fact instilled in us from birth. Rocking the boat meant risking all of our lives.
I knew better than to speak my mind.
The following day’s search was fruitless. The land was crawling with scouts, some of them friends and some of them strangers, but all of them family. We suffered more casualties than usual, and come lunch time several of us had been delegated to the sole task of transporting the dead. There were always deaths on the job—it was just a consequence of the kind of work we did as scouts—but that day’s were more than was typical. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if that was a sign.
Early the next morning, I left as part of the first batch of scouts. The others headed up to the plateaus to continue their search while I traversed the valleys.
There was a great rumbling through the earth, and then I saw it: a Skin-Beast. I froze in my tracks, unable to move, as something came down from the heavens. It was my time, I knew it in my heart. I just prayed it would be over quickly.
But rather than being swiftly taken to death’s door, a large, clear box was placed before me. It was large enough for much of the colony to fit inside, though only if tightly packed, and there was a smaller opening at the end facing me. A glint of orange caught my eye, and I quickly scrambled up to the entrance.
Nectar. Enough for the whole colony to have a taste and there to be some left over. The entire bottom of the clear box was filled with it, deep enough to swim in. I stood there mesmerized for some time, gazing at the pool of orange syrup. It was real.
Beneath the awe I felt, there was a flicker of doubt. The Skin-Beasts had never brought our colony anything but suffering and death. Why would they bestow such a gift upon us, and why now? Regardless of the inconceivability, the Nectar was right there in front of me. I was cautiously optimistic.
With haste, I laid a trail as I ran back to our hill to tell the others the good news.
Upon arrival, I was brought to the Queen’s quarters.
“I found it,” I said breathlessly. “Nectar.”
“Then we must all go at once,” the Queen announced.
The joy in the air was palpable as we gathered outside the hill in preparation for our journey, and it stayed as we marched along the scent trail I left behind. Rumors buzzed among us; everyone was eager to see whether I truly had found the legendary substance.
To my relief, the clear box was just where I had left it. The Queen took one sniff and declared it was, in fact, Nectar. In an instant, the colony lined up at the entrance to have a taste. We all watched with bated breath as the first of us took a long drink.
“It’s… wonderful!” she exclaimed. “I feel it coursing through every part of my body, strengthening my connection to the divine. It’s everything the legends claimed and more!” Another sister pushed her way to the front and took a drink. I watched as the line moved, and those of us who had gotten their fill wandered drunkenly off.
At first, the primary effect of Nectar appeared to be a subdued, peaceful state. Those who had drunk it moved much more slowly than those who hadn’t. But I noticed that the more one consumed, the stranger their actions became. Some began to speak to figures we could not see. Others crawled along the ground, dragging themselves in rhythmic patterns. Even those who had already drunk sluggishly shoved their way back in line for more as though addicted. Some of the others fell in as they drank heavily, but rather than fighting for their lives, they gave in and let death slowly take them. Those in line paid no mind to the bodies floating in the syrupy Nectar as they drank from it.
Disturbed, I pulled myself out of line. It was then that I smelled something familiar; something that I was chilled to recognize. Oleic acid. I tried to follow the scent, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, growing stronger and stronger.
I rushed over to one of my sisters and shook her. The scent was even stronger here. “Do you not smell that? Death is all around us!”
She wrenched herself away from me and howled as she dragged her half-paralyzed body towards the clear box of Nectar. “I need more!” she cried. Her segmented body convulsed as her crawling slowed to a stop. She was dead.
“Please, listen to me!” I begged as I ran from sister to sister. “Nectar is killing you! Don’t you see?”
The stench of death hung in the air, disguised by a sugary layer of sweetness. I dragged bodies off to the side in an attempt to create an emergency graveyard, but there were too many for me to lift on my own. It was futile.
Seeing the Queen off to the side, surrounded by the masses of dying drones, hope fluttered in my chest. If I could only get her to listen, perhaps she could stop the others before it was too late. “Your Majesty!” I cried. “Nectar is poisoning all of us! Please, put a stop to this before it kills us!”
She did not respond.
Thinking she was hallucinating from the Nectar, I took her arm. “We need you!”
Still, she did not respond. I tugged, and her body fell limply to the ground. Her eyes were glassy and empty; her limbs stiff. My heart sank like a stone. I fell to my knees and wept. All around me, my sisters’ crawling slowed to a stop. One by one, they passed on. Many of them flocked to the box of Nectar in their final moments, and now the orange liquid was thick with their bodies.
What was left? The babies in the brood were left unaffected, but I alone could not care for them. The entire colony had come to drink the Nectar, and they were all dying or dead by now. There was only me, and I could not survive by myself.
Despair turned to bitterness as I surveyed the mass of dead all around me. We had enough food to last us many months. We could have survived happily on it, but we were too blinded by greed to appreciate our good fortune. And now we all suffered.
Despite the stockpiled food, I wouldn’t survive more than a few days without the support of the colony. I was helpless on my own, and the thought infuriated me. I knew what I had to do, and I despised it.
Solemnly, I made my way to the box of Nectar. Bile rose in my throat as I caught sight of the bodies floating in it, but nevertheless I bent down to drink. It was sickeningly sweet, unaffected even by the oleic acid seeping into it. The real bite it had was from the irony that tainted the situation.
There was no one left to call my name, to warn me as spots came before my eyes. I drank more and more, until my mouth was thick with the taste. As I climbed down, dizziness overtook me and I could hardly walk straight. Every step was a struggle: a battle of concentration and will.
My body already beginning to shut down, I crawled to a patch of sun and waited. It wouldn’t be long now.
It’s here that I tell you the tale of what happened to my colony, in the hopes that it never happens to yours. You’re a strong young girl, and I hope you can bring this warning back to your own colony safely. Tell them about Nectar. Tell them about greed. Now go, while still can. Are you listening?