Mother of Wasps (1)
The head of a massive insect resembling an ant clamped its serrated mandibles firmly around my skull. At first I thought it meant to devour me, to slice my head clean off and turn me into a motionless source of nourishment for its larvae—a corpse. Terror seized me and I tried to shake my head, though the poison had left my neck so stiff that even that small motion came only once every five seconds, if at all.
Fortunately, that did not seem to be its intention. If it had wanted to kill me, it would have done so already. A wasp needs living prey for its young, not a body that would rot the moment it died.
Instead, something emerged from its mouth. It was not exactly foul, but neither was it pleasant—a sharp, acrid scent carried on a long, tubular organ. The creature’s proboscis, I supposed.
‘But this smell… I’ve never encountered it before, so why does it feel… strangely alluring?’
The thought drifted through my mind even as my lips parted slightly. I caught myself at once.
“Hah?!”
Any creature capable of synthesizing a poison that could shatter a person’s mind so thoroughly would surely use that same scent to force compliance. It wanted me to open my mouth so it could pump something inside. Whatever its plan, I must not open my lips. I tried to close my mouth—
—but the wasp’s eyes missed nothing. The moment I moved, the long, repulsive tube shot forward.
“Mmph…!!”
The straw-like organ forced its way between my lips. What had begun as a slender filament swelled instantly, prying my jaws apart and lodging itself deep inside my mouth so I could no longer close it.
“Nngh… mmmph…”
I knew at once what would follow. Something poisonous would flood my mouth, and if I swallowed it, I was finished. Panic drove me to thrash my head, yet the paralyzed muscles could not overcome the insect’s brutal strength.
Then a thick, grotesquely scented fluid began pouring down my throat. Viscous, liquid, nauseating—something that made my stomach heave.
“Glk…! Urgh… hrrk…!”
Revulsion and the urge to vomit surged upward. I tried desperately to spit the substance out, to retch, but the muscles of my mouth and throat were utterly spent. I could do nothing.
‘No… no, no… If I’m poisoned like this, if my brain is ruined… will I go mad…?’
Yet the quantity was far too great for ordinary poison. I remembered what had happened earlier: a single prick to the neck had turned me into a mindless female beast consumed by lust. A creature that lethal would never waste so much of its venom on prey meant to stay alive. Producing toxin was costly; flooding me with a fatal dose would only harm the wasp’s own interests.
‘Then… is it laying eggs…?’
The eggs already scattered inside my womb, waiting to hatch and devour me from within—perhaps it intended to plant more in my stomach so its young could feast on me from the inside as well.
But the fluid lacked the solid, lumpy feel of eggs. Given the wasp’s size, any eggs it laid should have been substantial. Besides, I had never heard of an insect that laid eggs through its mouth.
While these thoughts flickered through my mind, the sticky liquid kept surging in, filling my stomach until it far exceeded its natural capacity.
“Ugh…”
‘It… it hurts… I can’t breathe…’
Even with the lingering analgesic effect of the poison, pain still registered. I rolled my eyes downward.
‘Hrk… What… what is this?!’
My abdomen had swollen until it looked ready to burst. The pain should have been unbearable, yet the numbing toxin reduced it to a dull, crushing ache.
‘How much did it force into me…? What even is this substance…?’
“Pwah…! Hah, hnn…”
The wasp’s mouthparts finally withdrew. Its grotesquely distended abdomen—once swollen to the size of a human torso—had collapsed back to its original shape. My own belly, by contrast, now looked as though I had been force-fed enough food for five people.
‘Just like a honeypot ant… Wait—honeypot ant?!’
Those ants stored food in their swollen abdomens to regurgitate later for the colony. Wasps and ants were related, and this parasite resembled an ant far more than a bee. It was not strange that it possessed a similar ability.
‘So… it was feeding me? To keep me alive…?’
I had become a living lunchbox—required to survive until the eggs in my womb hatched and matured. The realization left me too hollow even for proper despair.
The insect’s head pulled away. I struggled to steady my breathing, my stomach so painfully distended that every breath was shallow.
“Ugh… hah… hnn… haah…”
‘Is it leaving now? Please, just leave me alone. I can’t move anyway…’
The wasp did not retreat. It dipped its head, mandibles working, and picked something up—a pale, writhing mass slightly larger than my fist. Even without thinking, I recognized it.
A parasitic wasp larva.
‘Why… why the grub…?’
The squirming larva looked almost cute, as wasp larvae often did—provided one ignored its monstrous size. I watched it warily, trying to guess the adult’s intent.
Then something sprayed into my open mouth.
“Mmph?!”
‘What—what is this…? Silk…? Spider silk or something like it?’
The substance was far stickier and finer than the fluid from before. It flooded my mouth, then spilled over my lips, cheeks, and chin.
“Nngh…? Mmph…!”
I tried to open my mouth, but my lips were already glued shut. The sticky threads had spread across my entire face.
“Hnn…! Mmph…!”
Terror widened my eyes. I stared at the wasp and the larva it must have brought from some other host. If those threads sealed my nose as well, I would suffocate. That was the only future left to me. I shook my head—the last, futile resistance I could manage.
‘So this is it. This is when I die. Why was I even born…? What have I been living for…?’
Tears welled as regret flooded me. Then my vision went dark.
“Mmph…! Hnn…!”
The larva’s silk poured over my eyes, sealing my entire face in a rigid mask. Even the freedom to blink, to show fear, to weep had been stolen. Sticky, hardening threads plastered my forehead, cheeks, and the bridge of my nose. I could feel them tangling through the precious, bread-colored hair my parents had given me. The threads also caught the hair at the nape of my neck where it met the backpack still strapped to my back, pinning my head in place. I could no longer move it at all.
Yet even as the silk covered everything else, the tip of my nose—the final airway—remained untouched. The creature was determined to keep me alive.
‘Can instinct alone produce something this precise…?’
It was a marvel of biology. Naixon would have been ecstatic, babbling about the wonders of life. From my position, however, there was nothing wondrous about it. I could only manage a weak, muffled groan—the last sound I was able to make.
“Nngh… hnn…”
I felt my limp arms being pressed against my torso, my hands and thighs, my sides—all sealed together beneath layers of pale, sticky silk. The chill of the burrow that had seeped through the gaps in my robe and dress gradually disappeared.
The unpleasant sensation of the threads crept lower. Over the faint remnants of my once-smooth chest, over the grotesquely swollen belly still packed with the wasp’s nutrient fluid, over the lower abdomen that now held both the stag’s seed and the wasp eggs. Beneath my skirt, the silk touched the bare skin of my thighs. My body twitched on reflex, but the lingering poison allowed no further movement. My legs were forced together and locked straight, cutting them off from the air.
I tried to wiggle my feet, still encased in boots. The toes moved sluggishly, as though frozen by frostbite, but that was the extent of my rebellion. My ankles were sealed together. The silk continued downward until even my feet were completely cocooned.
Anyone who saw me now would see nothing but a white, human-shaped chrysalis.
Eyes, ears, and mouth sealed. Fingers and toes immobilized. A living lunchbox for the wasps—that was what I had become.
‘So this really is the end…’
The thought lasted only a few seconds before I realized how wrong I was. The wasp had no intention of killing me quickly.
“Mmph! Mmm! Nngh!!”
Something sharp pierced the silk between my tightly bound thighs, driving straight toward the precious gap that led to my womb. The aim was so precise it was almost insulting.
I did not need to wonder what it was.
‘An ovipositor…’
“Hnn…”
I let out a hollow, broken laugh through the immovable silk. It sounded like nothing more than a muffled whimper, but it was the only laugh I had left.