Level 276 - "The Hive"

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⚠️ Content Warnings ⤴

Info

Original concept and article written by Reddit user u/Nerdykiddo4844. Rewritten by Praetor3005 (author page) and Nikuchan (author page).

Big thanks to Abdallah Amr for the fading block css, as well as to DrAkimoto for the greenlight!

Thanks to Spectre48 and Sky3 for the generel thoughts as well!

Both music tracks have been made by the awesome music composer Dapper Husky. Make sure to check his youtube channel! He made a lot of great OSTs for the Backrooms.

CW: Overall gruesome and graphic images in the offsets. Don't unblur them if you don't want to see that.

Glossary:

Huvvat - Post-corruption Lost name for the Hive
Mundus - Lost name for the Blue Channel, and everything within it
Nihil - Lost name for the Grave
Paradeos - Pre-corruption Lost name for the Hive

Epilogue

Zephyr slowly entered the nest, shambling, before loudly slumping onto the ground.

For the first time in forever, she felt exhausted, deeply weakened. Despite regeneration being quick and easy for her, the Queen felt more frustration than ever. Now that Olivia, the first and only human to be reborn here since she merged with the level, left the Hive, her power was now halved.

With a part of her gone, could her mission even be salvaged anymore? All that planning, all that hatred that contributed to fulfilling the goal of the human she used to be— had it been all for nothing?

“I can't give up… I am the Queen, I am the Hive… This is just a setback— it has to be.., I've sacrificed everything- waited centuries!” She slammed at the wall as hard as she could, the environment echoing her rage.

“Curse him! Curse her! Curse all of them!” Her voice broke before she slumped further. “I have to… I have to do this… My children, my husband… father…”

“All those centuries didn’t do you well, did they?” A familiar voice erupted into her mind. Zephyr turned around rather quickly, witnessing a human figure below her.

"Helios?" The QUeen let out with a newfound surprise, recognizing a companion from an era long gone.

The figure did not answer, staring at her monstrous body, devoid of any expression.

“… I'm losing my mind.” Zephyr let out a broken laugh. “Have you come to taunt me for my loss? To remind me of my guilt? Is that it?” She let out a hiss, gradually backing away. “Get out of my head!”

“My stance hasn’t changed in all this time.” Helios approached the woman. “You need to move on, Zephyr— It wasn’t your fault.” The man looked at the knife wound on his chest, the blood still tainting his toga, before correcting. “Well, some of it was your fault, I can’t really deny that, but… that’s the thing. How many more people will get hurt because you cannot let the past be the past?”

As Zephyr did not respond, Helios started walking around the nest, as if he was already familiar with the place. “Look all around you. This realm was a verdant paradise, one that shaped the town we lived in and fought for, yet you ruined it. The beings born here were perfect, yet you twisted them. Paradeos was the frontier between mind and body, yet you made it a pure hell to torture humans, in hopes of one day torturing the gods who left us long ago.”

“Don’t you see you’re doing yourself more harm than good?” The former weaponsmith kept on talking. “Each human your… 'children' kill is yet another weight on your shoulder, another soul you mourn. Because after all these years, after all you went through, all you have to blame for the pain you feel… it’s you.” he concluded, putting his hand on one of her insectoid legs.

“This place was fated for ruin regardless. The real Hive Mind would never be born, don't you understand? Someone was always fated to become its host… Do you really think any other person would have made this better?” Zephyr looked away from him before staring at herself standing in the middle of a pond of blood. “I only wanted to save humanity, to make this our Home. The being we once worshipped— all they want is to kill us, control us. A few sacrifices… were necessary in the end. Were they?” She asked the apparition with a newfound doubt.

No matter how many humans she had to feast on to survive in this new form, she never managed to create her own version of paradise. Instead, it only caused death.

Did she mislead herself for centuries?

“A few sacrifices?” Helios laughed. “Zephyr, it’s been more than two thousand years. You have killed more of your kin than even Kushim did.” He marked a pause. “Your kin… Who am I fooling? You’re not even human anymore. Look at yourself, Zephyr. Your body is just as monstrous as what your soul became. Through this hatred, everything you touched became suffering, even yourself. Can’t you see it, Zephyr? Can’t you see that all you found here, all you created, is just more suffering for you?”

Helios looked away. “You lost yet another part of yourself today, didn’t you? That woman is just as much of a queen as you are, now. Quite ironic don't you thin? The corruption you created was your undoing.”

Zephyr trembled, dark tears dripping from her eyes. She opened her mouth, yet no words were spoken. She no longer recognized herself, that was true. She didn't remember her face, her voice, or even the colour of her eyes from back when she was human.

Back when she was happy.

The resentment and grief made her bear this new twisted form until she could no longer go back. She sighed. Helios was right, but she hated that he was. She'd prided herself of being the only hope of humanity, someone who defied death just to stop this cycle of suffering, but she only became the perpetrator of it all.

“I only wanted to save them.” Zephyr's voice broke. “I'm a failure of a mother, of a wife…and daughter. My people were exterminated and I couldn't do anything. I only survived by pure chance… Why? Why did it have to be me? I should have just taken their place…”

Zephyr covered her face, feeling the rotten skin all over her. “Helios… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… No amount of forgiveness will cleanse my soul. I don't know what to do anymore, I just don't…”

“The change has to come from yourself, sister.” Helios smiled despite the situation. “Cease this endless pursuit of vengeance. Only through peace will you achieve happiness. You are the Hive just as much as the Hive is you. Shape your mind into the future you wish you had, and your envelope will follow. I cannot say this will be easy. But I can say it’s necessary. For you. For us?” He concluded, looking up to the woman gently.

“I…” Zephyr lowered down her head to his height, curling close around him to hug him. “I don't know if I can. I don't know if this will be enough…” She held him close, her arms wrapped around him. “The other Queen… the reborn human. What if she come back? Does humanity really think of me as a monster, someone aiming to hurt them? What should I do, Helios?"

But no response came. Looking down where the apparition was, Zephyr realized Helios had disappeared. The woman let out a quiet sob of desperation as she laid down to rest, drowned out by the extensive landscape.

The last thing she felt was the feeling of hundreds of weights on her chest slipping away. For the first time since centuries ago, the Queen felt calmer, duller… And a flower blossomed in the fleshy expanse of wasteland in the Hive.

A forget-me-not flower.