The air was still. Too still. It wasn't the kind of stillness that came with peace, but the silence of something lying in wait. A predator.
The bark above us had always felt unbreakable, a dome of protection that sealed us away from the chaos of the world beyond. But now it felt thinner, frailer. The very weight of the sky seemed to press down harder, and every sound—every tremble in the earth—set my legs twitching with unease.
It had been a single day since my escape. I could still feel the mantis's gaze piercing me, its alien eyes cutting through the shadows where I had hidden. I had made it back, but I hadn't truly escaped. None of us had. It knew we were here. The colony knew it, too.
Old Grain hadn't moved from his usual hollow in the bark. He sat like a monument, his battered shell gleaming faintly in the dim light. He didn't need to speak again; his warning from the night before was enough. "It won't stop until it has its fill." The words clung to us like the scent of decay, impossible to ignore.
I stayed close to the others, pretending to busy myself with the tasks of the day. We worked in tight clusters now, our movements erratic and cautious. No one ventured far from the safety of the bark. Even the boldest among us, who once dared to graze at the edges, stayed tucked beneath the rotting wood, their antennae flicking nervously at the slightest disturbance.
But the safety was an illusion. Deep down, we all knew it.
Morning turned into afternoon, though the light barely shifted in our world of filtered shadows. I was helping a younger sibling dig a new hollow in the soil when the vibrations began. Faint at first—just a distant tremor, like the echo of a heartbeat. I froze, my antennae rigid, and the sibling beside me recoiled, scuttling back into the depths of the colony.
The tremor grew stronger, a series of thudding pulses that shook the ground beneath my legs. It wasn't heavy, like the steps of a giant, but sharp and precise. A calculated movement.
The colony erupted in chaos.
Siblings scrambled in every direction, their bodies colliding as they fled deeper into the bark's shadow. Mandibles clicked in panic, and the soft hiss of bodies dragging against the soil filled the air. I flattened myself against the ground, my shell pressed tightly to the earth as if it might swallow me whole.
The tremor stopped.
The silence that followed was suffocating. I dared to lift my antennae, tasting the air. It was there—a scent I had only just begun to recognize. Metallic, sharp, and cold. The scent of hunger.
And then I saw it.
The mantis didn't stalk like I had expected. It moved with an eerie grace, its long, spindly legs bending at impossible angles as it slid into view. Its head turned slowly, mechanically, scanning the bark with its vast black eyes. It didn't blink—it didn't need to. It was a creature of pure focus, and that focus was fixed on us.
The first strike came without warning.
A sibling near the edge of the bark let out a shrill chirp—a sound I had never heard before and hoped never to hear again. The mantis's forelegs struck like scythes, snatching my sibling from the ground with such speed that it was over before I could process what had happened.
The mantis held them aloft, its legs pinning their struggling body. For a brief moment, I locked eyes with my sibling. Their movements were frantic, desperate, but there was no escape. The mantis tilted its head, almost curiously, and then its mandibles began to work.
I turned away, my body trembling violently. But the sound… the sound followed me. A wet, crunching noise that burrowed into my mind and refused to leave. I felt the vibrations of my sibling's struggles fade, replaced only by the mantis's methodical chewing.
The colony was silent. We were frozen, paralyzed by fear, as the predator consumed its prize just beyond the bark.
Old Grain broke the silence.
"We must move," he rasped, his voice a low, uneven scrape. "Now."
"No!" one of the others hissed, their voice trembling. "We can't! The open ground—it's worse than staying here. We'll be picked off one by one!"
"We'll be picked off if we stay," Old Grain countered. His words were sharp, but his antennae trembled. "This is not the first time we've faced shadows with hunger. They're patient. We cannot wait for it to come back."
The debate spiraled into chaos, voices rising in fear and panic. I stayed silent, my mind spinning. Move? To where? The grasslands were vast, and predators weren't the only danger out there. The open world offered no shelter, no guarantees. And yet, as I looked at the dark hollow of the bark that had always been our sanctuary, I saw it differently. It wasn't a fortress anymore. It was a trap.
The mantis returned at dusk.
We heard it first—the low hum of its wings cutting through the still air. It didn't creep this time. It didn't need to. It knew exactly where we were, and it came with the confidence of a creature that had never failed.
The colony scattered, each of us moving instinctively, trying to vanish into the soil, the bark, anywhere that might shield us. I pressed myself against a jagged edge of the bark, watching as the mantis slid into view again. It paused at the edge, its head tilting sharply as it peered into the darkness.
It didn't attack immediately. It lingered, letting its presence soak into us. Fear radiated through the colony, and I could feel it in every vibration of the ground. The mantis was patient. It didn't need to rush. It had all the time in the world to dismantle us, one by one.
It struck again, its forelegs lashing out with impossible speed. Another sibling gone, dragged into the fading light as their cries echoed through the hollow.
I couldn't stay. I knew that now. Whether the others followed or not, it didn't matter. The bark was no longer safe, and if I remained, I would share the same fate as my siblings. My legs trembled as I prepared to move, to break away from the only home I had ever known.
A shadow fell over me.
I looked up, and for a moment, the world stopped. The mantis's head was inches from mine, its vast black eyes reflecting my trembling form. It didn't move. Neither did I. The silence was unbearable, a stillness so complete that I could hear the faint rustle of the grass beyond.
And then it struck.
I darted forward, my legs moving faster than they ever had before. The mantis's forelegs grazed my shell, a searing pain slicing across my back as I tumbled into the open. I didn't stop. I didn't think. I just ran, the world around me a blur as the sound of the mantis's pursuit filled my ears.
I broke through the grass, the colony disappearing behind me. The ground was hard and unfamiliar beneath my legs, and the shadows stretched endlessly ahead. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't care.
All I knew was that I couldn't stop.