CHAPTER 15: CHAPTER 15: THE END IS NEAR

They left before dawn.

The warren emptied in silence, silk threads swaying as bodies filed through the tunnels. No one spoke. Even the Scarab Sisters muted their drums, carrying them on their backs without a sound.

Buzz walked at the front with the Elder. His legs ached. His wing burned. He didn’t show it. Zza walked beside him, head high though her hands still shook from the hours of work she had poured into others.

The Glowbeetles lit the path. Soft pulses, steady, guiding. Their rhythm said only one thing. Forward.

The Centipedes spread wide, coils brushing the walls, bodies moving with slow exactness. They looked like a single creature made of hundreds. A wall that breathed.

Above them, the Weaverworms clung to the ceiling. They did not crawl. They drifted. Each one hung like a lantern that had forgotten how to burn, threads sliding down in slow arcs. Watching. Waiting.

The air changed as they left the warren. The forest was still, too still, every leaf caught in the same held breath.

Buzz felt it first. A hum in the soil. A vibration not from feet, not from wings. A deeper pulse.

The Queen.

His antennae twitched. He wanted to stop. He didn’t. If he stopped, they all would.

Behind him, Zza whispered. "She knows."

"I know."

The path opened to a clearing. Trees bent outward, bark stripped clean, roots blackened as if life itself had been pulled out of them. No birds or insects. Not a single sound except their own steps.

The Glowbeetles flickered. The signal was sharp like a warning.

Buzz stepped forward. His eyes caught movement at the far edge of the clearing. Small shapes. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.

Drones.

Their bodies swayed as if caught between sleep and prayer. Their eyes were blank, but their jaws moved. Slow. Silent. Words without sound.

Zza gripped his arm. "They’re not fighting."

Buzz’s chest tightened. "No. They’re welcoming her."

The Elder lowered itself, silk threads brushing the dirt. "This is the cost of hesitation."

Buzz kept staring. Each drone moved the same way. As if a single thought was driving all of them. Their silence pressed into the air, heavy, invasive, pulling at the edges of his mind.

He clenched his jaw until it hurt. "Keep moving."

The Centipedes tightened their spirals. The Scarabs struck their drums once. Loud. Heavy. It shook the clearing like a heartbeat.

The drones didn’t react.

Buzz led them past, every step louder than it should have been. Zza stayed close, her breath quick, her hand brushing his.

The Queen’s presence lingered. Not here. Not yet. But near enough to taste.

When they cleared the far side of the clearing, Buzz let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

The Elder’s voice followed. "The first test is passed."

Buzz didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see their faces again.

The march continued.

The forest was waiting.

---

The march slowed as the forest thickened. Roots rose like ribs from the ground, forcing the Centipedes to break formation. Glowbeetles dimmed their light so they would not be seen from afar. Scarabs muttered against their drums, frustrated at silence.

It did not take long for the first arguments to surface.

A Centipede envoy hissed at the Glowbeetles. "Your light will betray us."

The beetles pulsed back. "Without us you will trip over your own legs."

The Scarabs struck their shells in sharp retort. "Both of you will be blind when the Queen arrives. Argue after we live through her."

Buzz listened, jaw tight. He felt Zza’s eyes on him. She wanted him to speak. He didn’t. Not yet.

The Weaver Elder finally cut through, voice flat. "The Queen will not need light to find us. You insult yourselves by thinking otherwise."

The silence that followed was heavier than the noise.

—

That night they stopped in a hollow between two fallen trunks. The Centipedes coiled at the perimeter, bodies twitching with restless energy. Glowbeetles perched on branches above, dim and watchful. The Scarabs set their drums down but kept their claws near.

Buzz sat with Zza by the roots. She was quiet, hands folded, eyes fixed on nothing.

"You’re thinking too loud," he said.

Her antennae twitched. "I’m thinking about tomorrow."

"So is everyone else."

"They’re not ready."

Buzz exhaled. "Neither am I."

She turned toward him, eyes sharp. "Then why do they follow you?"

He didn’t answer right away. His wing ached. His scars burned. He remembered the Queen’s laughter, the way silence used to feel safe before she claimed it.

Finally he said, "Because I keep crawling."

Zza’s gaze softened, only for a moment. Then she looked back at the fireless dark.

Later, the Centipede leader approached. Its eyes were narrow, unblinking.

"You claim to lead," it said. "But you are small and you seem quite weak"

Buzz stood. His legs trembled but he didn’t show it. "And yet you’re speaking to me."

The envoy’s body coiled tighter. "When the Queen strikes, if you fail, we will not die with you."

Buzz’s mandibles clicked once. Not from anger or fear. "If I fail, you’ll die anyway."

The centipede stared. Then withdrew, body dragging against the dirt with slow, deliberate menace.

Zza stepped up beside him. "You’re making enemies inside the army."

"They were enemies already. I just said it out loud."

The night dragged on. No one slept. The Scarabs tapped soft rhythms to keep their claws from shaking. The Glowbeetles pulsed faint glimmers, not for sight but for comfort. The Centipedes twitched in their coils, every muscle ready to spring.

Buzz lay on his back against the root, eyes fixed on the canopy. Zza sat beside him, silent but close enough that he felt her warmth.

He whispered, barely more than breath. "Tomorrow she tests us. The day after, she breaks us."

Zza’s hand brushed his. Not for healing or duty.

Just touch.A touch filled with warmth and unspoken uncertainties.

Buzz didn’t pull away.

The forest held still. The Queen was near.

And the line was already cracking.