All while consuming food and avoiding Papa in the tunnels, I was brainstorming how to survive the upcoming flood. It couldn't be far now. I remembered that Der died before the flood, but there was something else, something I had known I was forgetting. I couldn't put my finger on it.
"Hiisssssssssss"
Oh, yeah. The reason why I couldn't pinpoint the date of the flood correctly. I was fooling around with this idiot. A pet hissing cockroach had escaped his Big Ones and joined the colony.
"There I was in a huge cage. Books weighing it down, so I could never escape. They'd throw me some scraps sometimes, but besides that, I was barely surviving," The hissing cockroach said while leaning on a soda can.
He was talking to a few cockroach females.
"Wow, I know it's tough out here, but we never have to deal with books," one orange winged female said while twirling an antenna around an arm.
"Did they ever hit you with one?" a different orange winged female asked.
He looked at that female for a moment and then tapped an antenna on her dumb, I mean, dome.
"No, never that. If they beat me, they would lose their entertainment. That's all we are to them, you know. Playthings."
"I'm no plaything. I'd bite em! All of them. Nom Nom. That would teach them how to treat a roach. Why didn't you bite them?" a black winged female asked.
"Well, they always took me out around a group of Big Ones. Why taunt an entire group? This is would rather wait patiently to enact his greatest plan. The great escape, they call it," He replied smoothly.
The females listened silently as he continued.
"I was taken out one day and played docile pet. Did my routines. Kept them pleased and distracted. Then I did my ultimate new trick," The hissing cockroach stood on his bottom two legs and wiggled his top four legs.
He turned in 4 circles like that, hissed loudly, dropped to all 6 legs and rolled 4 times. The females backed up in awe at his astounding behavior. His mahogany body was very agile. When he stopped, He rose up and leaned on the soda can again.
"It made them run off with glee, it did, but I knew it was too early for the true escape. They came back with hard ice and waved it over at me. I did that a few times, and they gasped and choked with happiness. You see, I know the minds of Big Ones. They are easy to control. If one ever comes at you with a hard ice, it's always a good sign," He is panting as he says this, and his body lets off tiny hisses as he huffs.
"Then you bit them and ran off for our colony," the black female said.
"Then they put me in the cage without setting down any books or locking it properly. I waited for the sunny to drop low, and I pushed out the cage. I made for the outside world. Traveled around a bit, and THEN I made it to your colony," He said while he rubbed his antennae on his mahogany head.
The orange-winged females sighed in unison and rocked into each other, "Aaaah, first a pet, now an explorer."
"You ever find unusual grub?" the black winged female asked.
"I once found a pond of vomit topped with undigested meat and right beside it was a hill of ice cream," he bragged.
"Woah."
I remembered this entire exchange, and soon he would make a fool out of himself. I thought it would be merciful of me to save him. He was the reason I escaped safely in the past. The future? Whatever.
I climbed down from the wall I was clung to and went toward the soda can group.
"Once, I found...," the hissing cockroach had begun telling a new story.
"Why isn't it Vava?" I called over to the group.
The hissing cockroach, Vava, stopped his story and turned towards me. He wiggled his antennae to examine my scent.
"And who might you be?"
This was our first meeting before, but not our last. I remembered what had kept him interested in me the first time. My white tinted wings and my flying maneuvers. Hissing cockroaches can't fly, and he always loved and envied how natural I was in the air. Performing for him outside the colony tunnels had saved me from being inside and drowning like many of our friends.
"Nobody. Ya needs you in the tunnels. Says he has a deal for you. There's a good size of poo in it for you," I lied while coming up behind the macho roach.
His horned head bobbed sided to side as he considered the deal.
"Well, sorry ladies," He said before getting off the can and scurrying towards me.
"Awwww. You were getting to a good part!"
"Don't go yet."
"You didn't tell us about the time you killed a dragonfly."
The females whined and tried to talk him into staying. He hissed at them and waved goodbye. They sighed happily at the sound and sung a chorus of goodbyes.
We scurried up a wall and into a dark tunnel.
"So, who is Ya?" He asked.
"Nobody. I need you to do me a favor."
I needed him to stand guard near the Big One's pond holder and tell me when the water ran red. He would have to hide below their smaller pond holder, in a dangerous area, but it would only take one or two drops to identify red water. Then he could escape and alert the colony of the danger.
"The tub, you mean?" he corrected me.
"Yeah, whatever the Big Ones call it."
"Wait, so you want me to patrol their bathroom from below the sink area. Until the day that water turns red and overflows out of their tub? Why would the water turn red?"
"I can fly you anywhere you'd like, and drop off food nearby the smaller pond holder. It's not like you'd be alone. You and your mites can social with the dust bunny gangs in there."
The dust bunny gangs were the mites, silverfish, centipedes, and flies that lived in sight of the Big Ones. They'd rather get their grub from inside the house than outside in the real world. Dust bunny gangs never leave the Big Ones home, never.
"Food and transportation, just for sitting around. Deal," Vava, the hissing cockroach scurried up beside me and rocked against me.
"Don't explorers only like the outside world? Won't you be tortured sitting inside until I say otherwise? In agony?"
"Oh well, we all get tired of the hustle and bustle of travel every now and then," Vava remarked.
I didn't needle at him anymore. Vava wasn't a very brave roach, but he wasn't a coward either. If I poke fun at him too much he might drop the deal and try snapping one of my antennae. We've all got our lines. Vava didn't want anyone to know he was let loose by his Big Ones and struggled with the outside world. He had told me later that this colony had been his new home. Papa Roach took away just as much from him as me.
I led him to a tunnel that led to the "bathroom area". Now that I had an alarm set to warn the colony, I felt a little better. Unfortunately, I did not have the payment I needed to pay Vava.
So, I decided to go back outside and go find some extra grub.