The day the Queen came back

“The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished.”

The nurse feeding the brood had mentioned several rumors that she had heard from workers who had been in that part the Eastern border.

“Up, the water is going up instead of down, like a reverse waterfall, its so strange. It feels like the whole earth got turnt’ upside its head,” the nurse murmured, feeding a newly hatched baby.

I'm just a drone, a nobody, a herd of hundreds of thousands that seemingly make no real difference. I honestly paid no attention to any of these rumors. I hate rumors, honestly. They always seem to have truth to them and I'd rather ignore it. I have enough on my plate.

“So, did you see on the Westbank that the Jordan riv-”

I cut off my best friend, another drone. I always would tell him I thought he was better than a drone. He would say same back to you.

“Buzzz-shhhhh! No! I don't want to hear it.”

“But why has not one soul seen the Queen? Where has she gone?” He buzzed annoying in my face. “And honestly, how can someone that large get out of their own?”

I chuckled. “Funny.”

We went outside. I smelled such a strong, overtly sweet and sour aroma that felt drenched in every blade of grass, the dirt, the air.

My best friend danced a little, and I danced back, a small ditty we used to do together as broods that started our friendship. It made me feel so safe even as alarm bells were going off inside of me.

The flowers we passed, the plants and even a few animals looked different than usual. A stag was slamming and scraping its enormous antlers against the ground and trees, shaking the hot bit of earth it was nearby.

A strange vibration, a dark energy pervaded the atmosphere. I could feel my friend trying to tell me something with the way he was moving forward and back, the vibration in the air felt off.

“I feel it too. Look at that field of plants. It doesn't look right,” he trembled as he pointed out the weird clusters of leaves and branches.

“I wanna go to it,” I said in a mesmerized way, feeling oddly attracted to the sap on some of the plants. He blocked me, looking at me disappointedly.

“That's not natural sap.” He pointed to a bunch of flies acting like they were in pain, flying in a zig-zag, choked pattern, moaning and squeaking like a broken record.

We decided to go to the river everyone was talking about.

The whole bunch of us were already in chaos after the Queen left about a week ago. The nurses, the workers, the drones, all of us were scrambling and working even though nothing was normal. Everyone had thoughts of leaving. I wasn't going anywhere. Especially not when my only family, which was my best friend, was still considering staying.

After everything we had seen, we got lost in finding our home. The home I knew since I hatched. It was always the same smell of rosewater, sticky colors of red, yellow and caramel.

Now, it smelled muted and overrun with a strange orange aroma.

“The Queen has returned!”

We were so scared when we saw the river that we didn't want to speak the whole way home. It was something you only see in the most vibrant nightmare. This felt like an extension of that feeling.

“Time to go into the river. I found the magic inside of it. A new home. A safe home. A—-blerghhh, agghhh, place to—-”

I took my best friend away, our wings fluttering like a panicked dragonfly flying away from a bird.

A day later, our whole hive was near the upside river, festooning in a horrible, clinging mess, making an invisible nest out of zombified plants. The splash hit our wings. My antennae flicked nervously.

He nodded to me in a hesitant sag. We flew away, the glow of the dead forest trickling into a messy scramble of undead overgrowth.