CHAPTER 60: CHAPTER 59: SHH! THE FOREST LISTENS

The clearing didn’t explode into violence this time.

It tightened.

The air felt thick, like two storms circling the same ground. The new human teams moved with organized precision, stepping into formation with shields already half-raised. Their armor was darker than the first group’s—reinforced, layered, prepared for something that fought back.

Zza stood in the center of the coalition, body low, silk gathering between her claws. Her breathing was steady now. Not calm. Focused.

She didn’t look powerful.

She looked like someone with nothing left to lose.

The human leader from before stepped forward. Her helmet was still on, but Zza recognized the stance. Shoulders straight. Centered. Tired, but resolved.

"We don’t wish to destroy your home," the leader said. "But the entity is destabilizing the region’s ecosystem. It will collapse under its own strain. If it collapses with your people connected to it, the damage will spread. If we can isolate it, we can preserve its core identity."

Zza’s voice came out low.

"You mean Buzz."

The leader didn’t deny it. "Yes."

The coalition reacted—not with words, but with movement.

Scarabs shifted forward, hulking and armored.

Centipedes tensed, dozens of tiny feet ready to drive their bodies like whips.

Glowbeetles brightened to a steady defensive shine.

The Elder lowered its threads from above, like a warning arc.

"You speak of protection," it said. "But you forget one thing. He does not want to leave."

"That is because he is not thinking clearly," the leader answered. "His emotional anchor is affecting his ability to stabilize. He is trapped. He needs help."

Zza stepped forward, claws curling into the earth.

"You don’t know him. You don’t know what he survived. He chose this. He chose to hold the forest together so we could live. He gave up everything so we wouldn’t die under her rule. He is not trapped. He is trying."

The leader was silent for a moment.

Then:

"I admire your loyalty. Truly. But loyalty to someone in pain can become cruelty if it keeps them there."

A quiet ripple went through the coalition.

Not agreement.

Recognition of the argument.

Zza’s jaw clenched. Her voice softened—not weak—just real.

"You think we’re keeping him in pain. But you don’t understand the cost of removing him. If you take him out now, before he finishes stabilizing, you won’t save him. You’ll wipe him clean."

The leader hesitated.

Not unsure.

But calculating.

"We’re willing to risk memory loss if it means preserving life."

Zza’s chest tightened.

Her breath caught.

Her voice cracked.

"That’s not saving him."

The leader’s shoulders dropped slightly.

"I know."

It wasn’t said with cruelty.

It was said with regret.

And that made it worse.

Because it meant the humans believed they were being merciful.

Zza realized something then:

This wasn’t a battle of force.

This was a battle of conviction.

And she was no longer speaking only to the humans.

She was speaking to the network.

To Buzz.

To the forest itself.

She closed her eyes. She knelt.

The coalition tensed—but did not interfere.

Zza placed her claws back into the soil.

Deeper this time.

Until the earth pressed back.

She didn’t call him with words.

She called with memory.

Buzz leaning into her as he bled.

Buzz shaking when he thought he was too weak to matter.

Buzz laughing, tired and reckless, because life was ridiculous and heavy but still theirs.

Buzz choosing her.

Every time.

Her breath left her in a slow exhale.

*I’m still here.*

The forest answered with a slow, steady pulse beneath her palms.

Not strong.

Not sharp.

But steady.

Zza opened her eyes.

And the roots moved.

From the ground beneath her, from the trees overhead, from the very soil the humans stood on—roots rose, not as weapons, but as a circle.

A boundary.

A line drawn cleanly between the two sides.

The leader stepped back, surprised—but not afraid.

"You’re using him to block us."

Zza shook her head.

"He is choosing to protect us."

The leader sighed softly.

"Then we are at an impasse."

The Elder drifted downward, silk trailing like slow-moving smoke.

"Not an impasse," it said. "A negotiation."

The humans stiffened.

The coalition held their ground.

Zza didn’t breathe.

The Elder continued:

"If you attempt to breach the boundary, the forest will react defensively. You know this now."

The leader nodded once.

"If we leave," she said quietly, "the phenomenon continues. The entity continues destabilizing. And the collapse becomes inevitable."

It wasn’t a threat.

It was fact.

The Elder lowered its head.

"Then we must buy him time."

The leader looked at the boundary of roots.

Looked at the coalition.

Looked at Zza.

"How long?"

The Elder didn’t answer.

Zza did.

"As long as it takes."

The leader closed her eyes behind her visor.

Painfully human.

Quiet.

Tired.

"We’ll return. Not with weapons. With specialists. And equipment designed for stabilization, not extraction."

Zza hesitated.

Her shell tightened.

"If your tools hurt him—"

"They won’t," the leader said.

"I don’t want to be your enemy. But I can’t let this spread unchecked."

Zza looked up.

The Glowbeetles dimmed.

The Scarabs lowered their claws.

The Centipedes uncoiled.

The Elder rewound its silk.

Zza nodded once.

"Then we prepare too."

The leader touched two fingers to her helmet.

A signal.

The teams began to withdraw.

Not rushed.

Not triumphant.

Just heavy.

When they disappeared into the trees, the coalition finally released the breath they had held.

Zza stayed kneeling.

The forest pulsed beneath her.

Buzz was there.

But distant.

Tired.

Fading in and out like someone slipping in and out of sleep.

She whispered:

"I’ll hold on. For both of us."

The network pulsed once.

Like a heartbeat answering her own.

---

The coalition didn’t speak for a long time after the humans disappeared.

The forest stayed strangely still, as if listening for footsteps that were already gone. The air felt thick and damp, but not heavy like before. Heavy was fear. Heavy was war. This was something else.

Waiting.

Zza sat beneath the arch of roots that had risen to protect her. They curled above her like a ribcage, like the forest was shielding her the way Buzz once had. She rested her forehead against the bark. It was warm. It felt alive. It felt familiar.

She breathed out slowly.

"I know you’re here," she whispered.

The warmth pulsed faintly. A flicker. A heartbeat.

Buzz.

Not stable. Not clear. But there.

Close enough to know she wasn’t talking to herself.

The Elder descended on silk that draped like loose threads of moonlight. It settled beside Zza without sound, watching the curve of her shoulders, the slow movement of her breath.

"You anchored him," the Elder said.

Zza didn’t lift her head.

"I wasn’t trying to anchor anything. I was trying to keep him from disappearing."

"Intent and outcome are rarely the same," the Elder replied. "The network accepts your presence. That makes you part of it now."

Zza’s claws tightened in the roots.

"I don’t feel different."

"You do," the Elder said. "You simply haven’t named it yet."

Zza finally looked up. "And the humans? They’ll be back."

"Yes. And not with open hands this time. But not with immediate violence either. They will prepare. They will study. They will create tools designed to separate him from the network without destroying him."

Zza’s throat tightened.

"And if they succeed?"

"Then the forest loses its heart," the Elder said. "And everything he held together will fall apart."

The words landed like stones dropped into still water.

Not loud.

But impossible to ignore.

Zza let out a slow, unsteady breath.

"Then we make sure they don’t succeed."

---

The coalition wasn’t broken.

They were exhausted.

But exhaustion wasn’t defeat.

Exhaustion meant they were still alive.

The Scarabs formed the outer training circle first, dragging branches and stone to build a ring. The Centipedes slithered into wide spirals across the dirt, marking boundaries, paths, directions. Glowbeetles settled along the tree line, their light faint but constant—watch lights, signaling shifts and positions.

The Elder spread silk across the canopy. Not traps. Patterns.

Maps of movement.

Ways to anticipate direction and speed.

And Zza—

Zza stood at the center.

She did not command.

She practiced.

She tried to speak into the ground the way Buzz had.

She tried to pulse back through the network like she had touched him before.

She tried to call him.

Nothing clear.

But every now and then, a leaf fell at a rhythm that matched her heartbeat.

That was enough.

The Scarabs sparred against each other—heavy bodies slamming into heavier bodies. One misstep meant a cracked shell. They didn’t complain. They adjusted. They learned.

The Centipedes practiced coiling and uncoiling in formations—fast enough to trap, fast enough to break joints in armor.

The Glowbeetles practiced coordinated light bursts at different distances—meant to blind scanners and break line-of-sight tracking.

Everything had purpose.

Everything had weight.

Zza trained too.

She wrapped silk in patterns she had never considered before—zigzag lines for catching thrown projectiles without breaking, layered loops for binding armor joints, weighted knots for pulling.

Her claws bled.

Her silk frayed.

Her shell ached.

She didn’t stop.

She stopped only once—when she felt the pulse in the ground shift.

Not Buzz.

Not the network.

Something approaching.

Not human either.

The Glowbeetles flickered warning lights.

The Scarabs raised their claws.

Centipedes expanded into a living wall.

Zza stepped forward alone.

She listened.

The sound came slowly—like someone dragging heavy limbs through thick leaves. A shape emerged between the trees. Then another. Then six more.

They were beetles—but taller, thinner, with shells that shimmered in dull shades of silver and rust. Their eyes were clouded. Their movement unsteady. They looked half-awake, or half-alive.

Their antennae twitched at a rhythm Zza recognized.

Queen’s drones.

But stripped.

Empty.

Wandering.

Leftover fragments from the hive that dissolved.

One of them stepped forward.

Its voice scraped like dry leaves.

"We...follow...warmth."

The coalition didn’t move.

No one attacked.

No one spoke.

Zza took one step forward.

Her voice stayed soft.

She didn’t want fear to color this moment.

"You followed him."

The drone’s head jerked in a slow, broken nod.

"Warmth...became light. Light...became ground. Ground...led here."

They had tracked Buzz’s consciousness through the network.

Zza felt her chest tighten.

The drone knelt.

Slow.

Shaking.

But deliberate.

"Please. We do not remember how to live. Teach us. Or end us."

The coalition looked to Zza.

She didn’t hesitate.

"No one ends today."

The drones collapsed—not from relief, but because they had reached their limit.

The coalition moved instantly—Scarabs carrying bodies, Centipedes clearing space, Glowbeetles lighting paths. Zza wrapped what silk she had around the weakest drone, hoping the warmth of it mattered.

The Elder watched her closely.

"You have become something," it said quietly.

Zza didn’t look up. "What?"

"A path."

She didn’t know what to do with that, so she didn’t answer.

She just kept working.

---

Night came again.

The coalition slept in shifts.

The drones breathed slow and uneven.

The forest hummed faintly, a distant echo of Buzz’s presence.

Zza knelt again at the pool.

But this time, she didn’t close her eyes to call him.

She just spoke.

Soft.

Steady.

True.

"You don’t have to fight the whole forest to come back," she whispered. "You just have to find me."

The water trembled.

A tiny ripple.

But the surface remained smooth.

No vision.

No voice.

No pulse.

But then—

A leaf dropped beside her.

Just one.

Simple.

Ordinary.

But she recognized the rhythm of its fall.

Buzz.

She smiled.

Small.

Tired.

Real.

"I know," she whispered. "I’m not going anywhere."

And somewhere deep in the network,

a faint warmth pulsed back.

Not communication.

Not clarity.

But **presence.**

Enough to keep holding on.

---