Ant Morph

<I am ready,> Ax said.

"Everyone ready?" Jake asked.

"Yep," Rachel said.

Even she sounded tense. There was a bad feeling hanging over this whole thing. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

"Okay," Jake said. "Soon as we're all morphed, we head across the grass, down along the wall, underground. We find a crack or a hole, and enter the basement."

"Yeah. Nothing to it," I said.

I concentrated on the ant I had acquired earlier. There wasn't much to think about, really.

When I'd held the ant in my hand it had just been this tiny little dot. You could see that it had a sectioned body and legs, but that was about it.

The morphing began very quickly.

"Whoa!"

Falling! Falling!

That was the first sensation. I was shrinking rapidly. The ground was rushing up at me. It was like one of those nightmares where you are falling and falling but never seem to hit the ground.

I was still maybe a foot tall when my skin seemed to turn crisp, as if it had been burned. It became hard. Harder than fingernails and glossy black.

I looked over at Cassie and nearly screamed.

She was farther along than me. Only a foot tall and hard-shelled black all over. Glistening, ridged, plastic-looking skin.

Her legs were shriveling rapidly. So were her arms, although they had become longer, to match her legs.

The third set of legs was growing out of her chest.

And her face . . .

Her face was no longer human. Her head was sort of teardrop-shaped. Wickedly-curved mandibles were growing out of her mouth - huge, slashing, deadly-looking serrated jaws.

Her eyes had gone flat and dead. Just black dots. Antennae, looking almost like another set of legs, sprouted from her forehead.

Her waist was pinched tight. Her lower body swelled till it looked as big as a watermelon.

I didn't want to watch. Because I knew that all these same changes were happening to me. I knew it. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted the changes to be done.

Suddenly, all around me, huge, raspy spears shot up out of the ground!

Grass! I was diminishing to true insect size. The rough, sharp shafts that were rising all around me were just blades of grass. They weren't growing. I was shrinking.

One exploded directly under me. I tumbled, end over end.

And then my eyesight failed. My eyes simply stopped functioning.

I was blind!

Blind, and falling, rolling, cartwheeling down the side of a blade of grass.

I was standing upright. I knew that. I had stopped falling.

But I was blind.

No, not completely blind. It was not just blackness. But my eyes saw no detail. I could see patches of light and areas of darkness. But they were misty and fragmented, and my ant brain was not interested in them.

No. The world was not about sight anymore.

It was all . . . something else. I knew I was getting something. Something . . . a sense. A feeling, almost.

Then, I could feel . . . I could feel my antennae waving. Waving back and forth, searching. Searching . . . no. They were smelling.

My antennae were smelling. I was looking for a scent. Several scents. It was not like human smell. Not like Jake had described dog scent when he'd morphed his dog Homer.

That kind of scent is full of possibilities. Subtleties.

This was different. I was looking for just a few scents. Just a few smells.

I tried to prepare myself. I had been through this before. There is usually a time, a brief few seconds, before the animal mind appears with all its fear and hunger and intensity. I needed to be prepared. Ants were tiny and weak. Surely their fear would be extreme. I would have to be -

Then, wham!

The ant's mind erupted inside my own!

There was no fear. None.

There was no hunger.

There was no . . . no self. No me.

No me.

No . . .

My antennae swept the air. Strange. Not home. Not the colony.

Enemy territory.

Smell them. Smell their droppings. Smell the acrid odors they smeared along the ground to mark their boundaries.

<How are you guys doing? It's Tobias. How are you guys doing?>

Strangers. The smell of others. They would come. There would be killing.

Killing. Soon.

Move.

<Jake. Marco. Rachel. Cassie. Answer me. It's Tobias. Talk to me.>

I began moving. My six legs picked their way nimbly. I was a nearly blind insect, picking his way through a forest of giant saw-edged grass blades.

Food. The smell of food. Find it. Take it. Return to the colony with it.

Change direction instantly. Move toward the smell of dead beetle. Others around. Us. Ours. They had the right smell. They were not enemy.

<You guys are heading the wrong way.>

Moving faster now. Feet feeling each blade of grass. Antennae sweeping the air, searching for the scent of the enemy. Searching for the scent of the dead carcass that we had to find and return to the colony.

<Listen to me! You are going the wrong way! The ant minds are controlling you!>

Close now. The scent of food was stronger.

Mandibles working. We would touch the carcass. We would judge its size. If it was too big to carry, we would hack it into smaller pieces and carry the chunks to the colony.

<You have to take control! You have to fight! You have to get a grip!>

Or enemies would come. And kill.

The smell of enemies was everywhere.

There. We had reached the dead beetle. I scented the air. I touched it with my legs, touching again and again to learn the size.

I? My legs?

Confusion.

<Fight! Fight it! You have to get control!>

It was big.

The others were with me. I opened my cutting mandibles wide and bit into the beetle, slicing tough shell, biting into meat.

<Listen to me. You are losing. You have to fight!>

Fight?

Suddenly, I realized that there had been some thing . . . a sound. Yes, not a smell. Not a smell. Not a feel.

<You are humans! You are humans. Listen to me. You are not ants. Fight it! Fight it!>

Yes, not a smell or a feel. In my head.

My.

Me.

Marco.

<AHHH!> I screamed inside my own head. Tobias said later that it scared him half to death. He thought I was being killed.

That wasn't it at all. I had been reborn.

<AHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHH!>

<What's the matter?> Tobias cried.

<I . . . I . . . I lost myself,> I said. <I was gone. I was lost. I didn't even exist.>

<Get out of that morph!> Tobias said.

But I could hear the others now, snapping back into reality. Becoming again. Crying.

<What kind of creatures are these?> It was Ax. He sounded terrified. Terrified. <They have no self! I was lost! There was nothing to hold onto. They are not whole. They are only parts, like cells. Just pieces. What kind of foul creatures are these?>

<Listen. You guys morph back,> Tobias said. <This sucks. This isn't right.>

<Hive,> Cassie said, sounding shattered. <They are social insects. Part of a colony. A hive. I should have guessed. I should have known. Ax is right. Each of us is only a part. Like a single cell within a human body.>