Genres: Drama / Adventure / Xenofiction
Warning: This novel features scenes and themes that may be deemed sensitive or disturbing to some readers. Nature is beautiful, but can also be cruel. Please be aware of this before proceeding. I hope you enjoy the story, have a good read!
PTBR: https://tapas.io/series/Fuga-do-Oasis
ENG: https://tapas.io/series/Oasis-Escape-
Chapter 04: With Savages You don't Talk
Something leaps from the petals, flying over Relva like a winged beast. The ant braces herself, covering her eyes with her antennae and preparing for the worst. But nothing happens. She peeks from under one of the appendages. All six of her precious limbs are still intact.
Behind her, she hears a dry thud against the grass and immediately turns around to avoid a surprise attack. But again, nothing happens. The other insect remains motionless, perched on the edge of a single blade.
Its body is long and rounded, covered by an exoskeleton as dark as night itself. Its delicate, thin antennae quiver and bend, picking up the scents emitted by the harvester. Below them, two large compound eyes stare at her, reflecting Bitú's dim light like white quartz at the bottom of a murky lake.
Relva stares back, carefully scrutinizing the unfamiliar creature for any signs of hostile intent. It lacks the robust mandibles of an ant, hiding them beneath chitinous facial plates. Its long hind legs, perhaps as long as the animal itself, are coiled against the abdomen. Both are taking a defensive stance, ready to spring at the slightest sudden movement, but neither seems willing to be the first one to act.
The anticipation is overwhelming, as if the thick fog that looms over the trees had engulfed them.
“Don’t even think about getting any closer! If you take any more steps, I’ll tear you to pieces!”, Relva violently grits her jaws, breaking the silence once and for all.
The stranger, however, just keeps watching her, going neither back nor forward.
“You’re not a soldier, are ya?”, his voice is soft and melodic, like the whispering breeze blowing through the old jabuticaba branches. A mix of mild confusion and hesitation. “Just a worker.”
“Just a worker that can still hurt you real bad, okay!?”
“Do you want to hurt me?”
“I dunno!”, Relva answers, her jaws still wide open. “If you don’t want to, then I don’t want to.”
“Deal!”, he hops down from the foliage to the ground, his dark eyes exploring the surroundings, on the lookout for anyone who might be watching them from the shadows. “Are you alone?”
“Did you see anyone who looks like me around here?”
The insect’s eyes shift away from the bushes and back to Relva.
“Also, didn't see anyone, or also not my business?”
“You ants sure are a thick-headed bunch…”, he remarks somewhat impatiently.
And despite being overcome by fear, Relva finds herself unable to hide her outrage:
“I just asked some basic questions, no need to treat me like I tried to eat all the eggs from your colony,” he jumps over the worker once again. This time, she is quicker to react and rushes behind the nearest rock.
“I don’t trust you!”, Relva hisses from her hiding place, panting as if she is about to have a heart attack. Good thing ants lack this organ in a conventional sense.
“I don’t need you to trust me,” he counters, munching on a few petals like there is nothing left to discuss.
The harvester squeezes her tiny body against the rocky surface. Time goes by, maybe minutes or even an hour, before she finally decides to interrogate that annoying little creature.
The other insect looks up and swallows what he has in his mouth, surprised that the ant is still around.
“What kind of bug are you?”
“Well, take a guess,” he chuckles, a soft chirp slipping out from between his wings.
“You’re the cricket,” she says without stepping out or looking at his face.
“So it was you making all that noise!”
“Hahaha! Ya know, some might call that singing, but I like your definition much more.”
“And…?”, Relva presses, finally feeling comfortable enough to expose part of her body to watch the cricket’s reaction.
“And what? Don’t they teach in the anthill that it’s rude to talk to someone who’s trying to eat?”, he burrows under the fallen petals, putting an end to the matter. Relva’s antennae twitch with annoyance, but she cannot blame him, since her own earlier behavior certainly has not contributed to a civilized conversation.
“They do,” she moves closer with caution. “They also teach us that the tree is our territory, that the leaves cannot be eaten by unwanted insects… And that we must always warn the soldiers if that happens.”
“Isn’t the organization of colonial insects just lovely? Hmph!”, scoffs the cricket, his voice still mellow even when infused with sarcasm. “I bet they’ve also got something to say about workers who sneak out alone during the night.”
“Then what are ya doing here?”
“Well, your little friend’s alleged singing woke me up, a few soldiers also noticed, by the wa—”
“He’s not my friend!”, the black-colored insect interrupts with a piercing screech, his head emerging from the rotting vegetation now with its chitinous facial plates lifted, revealing a terrifying pair of serrated mandibles.
Relva instinctively tries to step back, losing her balance from the sudden fright and stumbling against the dry soil. She wheezes, her bulging eyes locked onto the other animal, who could easily rip her head off at that very moment.
“He’s not my friend…,” he repeats faintly, laboring for breath as if his own reaction had terrified him just as much. Slowly, he retracts his mandibles, hiding them under the natural mask once more, as he turns his back on Relva with antennae hanging low. For a second, he looked as withered as those old white petals. “Sorry, I just… Change the subject or go away if you don’t have anything better to say. Don’t want to talk about this.”
“Okay, okay…”, Relva takes a deep breath to recompose herself, standing on her six legs and wondering if she should back away from that insect that was clearly more impulsive than the ones she is used to. “Well, I… I also wanted an excuse to have a look around, you know? See the outside world for the first time.”
“See the outside world for the first time? Were you born yesterday or something?”
“Kinda? Not really, I just left my pupa.”
“And the first thing you do is walk out alone?”, the cricket’s disbelief forces him to face the worker head-on, who simply replies with a nod of her antennae. “Damn! That’s the opposite of having survival instincts. You’re not a very smart ant.”
“Don’t you take risks?”, Relva asks impatiently, strolling around the larger insect with a defiant stance. “Don’t you have a single drop of curiosity beneath those wings?”
“Sometimes, sure,” he agrees, grumbling, lifting his long antennae so the ant would not touch them. “And then I remember that I don’t like the idea of being dead.”
Relva keeps walking, distancing herself from the cricket and stopping near a thin twig, where she cleans her front legs with her mandibles, licking them gently to remove the dust.
“So you’re a coward,” she concludes with disdain.
“Coward?!”, he lunges toward Relva, digging his tiny claws into the dry bark of the twig, shaking it with the impact. “You don’t know me, you shouldn’t assume I’m a coward!”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t assume I’m stupid.”
“Kinda hard when you look like a dumbass.”
“Kinda hard when you look like a wimp.”
“All right, that’s enough!”, the cricket buzzes and kicks the air with one of his long hind legs before jumping off the twig and landing on the ground. The two insects have tested each other's patience enough for tonight. But still, no real hostility is in the air, and that, for some reason, bothers him. “Shouldn't ya be using those weird pheromone thingies to snitch me out to your big sisters or something? I'm not supposed to be here, right?”
“No, you’re not,” answers the ant in a serious tone, before wiggling her antennae and closing her mandibles playfully. “But you don’t seem dangerous, all things considered, so I don’t see a reason for that.”
“I don’t need you to trust me.”
The cricket tilts one of his antennae, taken aback by his own words. Even in the midst of the darkness, Relva can see his bewildered gaze gradually soften. By contrast, she feels the tiny hairs along her legs prickle. Even if she really wanted to get the soldiers' attention, her efforts would most likely come to nothing.
“Besides, I… Actually, I don’t know where they are,” she adds, remembering her inability to locate them when she emerged from the tunnel. “That’s what I was going to tell you before… you know. There should be at least two more ants here, but I can’t sense them.”
In no time, the other insect’s sense of security gives way to the usual mistrust upon hearing the harvester’s words. He climbs up the twig with quick, clumsy steps, pointing his antennae to every direction allowed by his anatomy. And then he stops, frozen in place. Relva’s apprehension increases as he remains like this for several long seconds, flinching when she hears him utter in fear:
“I can’t hear him either…”
But she can hear something. A muffled rustling in the distance, beyond the edge of the jabuticaba tree, where the tall grass grows. Her antennae tremble, primal instincts screaming about something terrible in the air. And a distress call. A sour, acrid smell floods her senses. There is no need to see the soldiers to know they are in danger.
The rustling grows louder. Even the cricket notices it and crouches down, as if trying to hide from a possible threat. Relva wonders if he too can sense the warning signals being sent out.
“He… Whoever he is… Can he hurt our soldiers?”, the ant asks to no avail. The other insect is not even bothered to turn his antennae towards her when she speaks, keeping them and his eyes locked on the undergrowth.
The two tiny creatures squirm like cornered prey when a large figure flies from the bushes and disappears into the mist. In the dark, Relva fails to recognize what it might be, but it surely was bigger than an ant and bigger than the cricket beside her.
On impulse, she rushes forward to search for her sisters, but halts before venturing into the dense vegetation. She peers back, hoping that perhaps her potential new friend would follow her, only to find out that he is already gone.
Alone again and with no good options, nor a plan in case she has to fight for the colony, Relva keeps running. Not even the deepest fear can stop an ant from helping another in need. Neither the realization that, once this is all over, she will owe her superiors some serious explanations.
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Finally, we have the introduction of a character who isn't an ant! But who is this cricket? Could he be a potential new friend? It's hard to say, their first encounter was quite intense.
