What is a hive's nightmare?

She awoke with a start to a bell. This was not just any garden variety bell. This was the wake-up bell. She got onto her padded paws and stretched out any kinks from her sleep, then sauntered over to the massive glass barrier that showed her the world outside. The source of the bell, the bell of a bike from a boy throwing the morning papers, was a good indication to her to get the day started. At least it was for her servant.

The door to the room where her servant slept was opened and her servant was shifting through some papers he had brought in from outside. Her servant was a good sort but had recently been stingy with the food he was doling out to her. She wished that she could escape outside and get her own food, but the floors out there looked too tough to sleep on for her liking.

Her servant noticed her finally. He walked swiftly over to her on those gangly two legs of his and before she had time to move out of the way, he picked her up! Oh, how she hated being picked up! She squirmed and gave little squeaks. “Put me down” she said in so many ways but her servant simply didn’t listen.

Instead he held her up to his face and said something sycophantic. Typical.

Krykt woke up with a start. What a nightmare that had been! The face of that disgusting human lingered in his head long after his dream ended. The hive had been so far away from him in that dream and now that he awoke, he was reconnected with the feelings of his other brothers and sisters. Everything seemed normal, and while a few of his hive mates seemed to be having nightmares, this was common in the hive. The guards outside were reporting nothing unusual, just a typical summer night.

With a sigh, Krykt rubbed his antenna with his forelegs and settled down into his wall niche to go back to sleep. If any nightmares came his way again he would just have to deal with them.

She was staring out of the glass barrier at the big green expanse and imagining that she was out there, sleeping among the plants and basking in the sun.

A very important sound interrupted her reprieve. It was the sound of food going into her food bowl. She jumped up and ran from her perch across the room, under a bed, out a door and, flying, jumped all the way down the steps. She landed gracefully as usual and sprinted, her paws sliding on the wood floor, traction evading her as it usually did on this accursed surface.

She ran up to her bowl and started eating with gusto. The food was so good, she found herself making small noises while eating it. Her human servant stood off to the side, towering over her. Doing human things.

In no short time, the food had been finished, but she found herself wanting more. “Meow” she pleaded with her human. “Mreoow” she put a paw onto his leg. “Give me more food please” It was a wonder this human didn’t kill her with his neglect. He turned to the pantry and pulled out a bag she was oh-so familiar with.

He shook the bag in the air, taunting her with the sound she loved and adored. Treats rubbing on treats. Her mouth started to water with the anticipation of eating that great treat. The human leaned down to give it to her and she could see his terrifying face, smooth and alien.

Krykt awoke again from the nightmare of being that furred terror. The massive human creature’s smooth face with its simple, single pupiled eyeballs was such a terrifying thought that he barely noticed he was covered in his own saliva and he didn’t have his webbing blanket on him anymore. Had he eaten it? It would not have been the first time that he had eaten his blanket in a food obsessed dream but the saliva was worrisome. He had never had a reason to experience his mouth watering and felt that must be linked back to the cat.

He noticed a few of his other pod mates had lost their blankets as well. Exhaustion hit him then and he found he was too tired to make another blanket and with the thought that perhaps this dream was spreading to his hive, he succumbed to sleep.

She was on the hunt. In the basement of the house there were many shadows but she was born to pierce them. In the shadows lived her prey. She saw a shadow move in a way that it shouldn’t and in the split second she saw that, she had crossed the distance to the shadow. The tail of the mouse she was hunting slipped away from her grasp. It fled under the lean-to boards against the wall of the basement.

She crouched. She knew that there was no exit or entrance from the bottom of the basement. The mouse would have to climb up if it wanted to escape and that would seal its downfall.

She heard the mouse climbing the stairs before she saw it. She sprang into action and jumped from the floor to the sixth stair up. Threading the bannister and catching the startled mouse in her paws. Now she could finally have some fun. She batted the mouse around like it was one of her toys, letting it believe that it had the ability to escape, all the while knowing that it was trapped.

Finally, she had enough of playing with her food. Opening her mouth wide, she crouched down and bit down.

"CRUNCH!" Krykt awoke to pain. Blinding pain. He looked down to see his pod sister biting down into his torso carapace. Screams of other pod mates and thoughts of pain and horror woke him up fully to the reality that his entire hive had been having the same nightmare and some had been acting the hunting sequences out.

He had lost too much green sticky blood to scream and he found he couldn’t really breath. “Krykt, no! What have I done?” His pod sister’s thoughts broadcast into his mind as he lost consciousness.