"Keep up, Bug!"

Marlene's father, just a few yards ahead of her. They had hiked this trail for as long as she could remember, but this year she was bigger. They were going much further, deeper into the woods until the sun couldn't reach the ground, not even in the faintest dapple. She jogged ahead.

Dad. Dad is here! Dad is okay! The thoughts swirled through her mind and suddenly she was right there with him, side-by-side. Dad was okay.

No. No, he couldn't be.

"Dad, Dad, stop," Marlene called. She tugged at his shirt, tried to grab his backpack, but her arms weighed a hundred pounds and she pawed at the backpack like her hands were mittens. She begged him to stop. The area grew darker. Was this mist always here? Fog hid the trees until only a few feet of trail remained visible.

It was foggy that day, even for Washington.

"Dad, stop!"

Why won't he look back? Why can't she see his face? Marlene screamed for him to stop.

She heard the screech, the scream that cut through the air and echoed. She couldn't pinpoint where it came from. The cry was around them. Finally, her father stopped.

"Dad?" Marlene asked.

He looked down at her.

"Marlene. It's okay."

Yanked from the air, there one moment and then gone. He vanished into the canopy above them. Gone, taken, she would never see him again. Marlene screamed, her rage felt like ti was ripping away the lining of her throat.

"DAD!"

Marlene gasped. She opened her eyes and sat up. She was in the bedroom. She refused to call it her bedroom. Around her, the piles of toys and dollhouses, clothes and shoes, all created shapes, surrounding her like a council of nightmares.

"You had a bad dream."

Each word it spoke was slow and overenunciated. It could speak her language, but took its time. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. She felt so much younger now. She was eleven, soon to be twelve. She was older than crying, she thought.

But no one is.

Marlene didn't want to look at it. She knew where it was. Huddled in the upper corner of her room, almost on the ceiling, watching her. Marlene heard the loud thump as it dropped to the ground and crawled over the toys and stuffies. The creature stood and leaned down to her. An arm, with outreached fingers like skeletal snakes, reached to her. She could see a barb, bright white contrasted to the dark green of the creature's hand.

"I can make the bad dreams go away."

She sniffed again. "Like Mr. Meeks?"

The barb retracted. The creature pulled its arm away.

"Of course not! You are my child, not a drone. Not like Meeks."

"It's wrong," Marlene said. "Keeping him like that."

"But you get mad when I dispose of the drones. Which would you prefer?"

The creature leaned closer. It sat on the bed. She rarely caught glimpses of its true face, it found a white face mask that had been discarded, probably part of a Halloween costume. It wore it so it looked more human, to make her comfortable.

Marlene preferred it's true face, the face of a monster. The monster who took everything from her.

"You have been unhappy. I can tell." The creature shook, as it did some time, the portions of its exoskeleton clacking together. The creature resembled a tall, thin praying mantis, with a face like a spider, large dark pools for eyes and a mouth of small clawed appendages. It kept its multiple arms at its side, and wore its wings like a cloak. In silhouette, you could almost confuse it for a person.

"Let me go then," Marlene said.

"I cannot. I have a duty."

"To who?"

"Your father, of course."

Tears flooded her eyes. She wanted to lash out. She could. It would never hurt her. But the rest of the world? Whoever was foolish enough to take her in? The creature would have no mercy. Its arms would erupt, its wings outstretched, as it enveloped them in claws and mandibles.

"It's my birthday. Do you know what that is?"

"It marks your age? We mark our age too."

"In years?" Marlene asked.

"In millennia. I have to prepare myself for how little your kind lives. To lose a child..."

The creature placed its hand on Marlene's and squeezed. The digits felt rough, like holding hands with a massive seashell. She pulled her hand away. She creature curled its fingers into a fist and brought the hand to its chest, like she wounded it.

"I will see to your birthday. I know our family will change after the big sleep. It will grow. But what you mean to me will never change."

"I'll always be your prisoner?"

"You are truly a child. No, you are my own now. Here."

One of the other arms, the ones typically curled against its body, unfurled and dropped something on her bed, something soft. Marlene reached forward. It was a doll, plastic with soft hair and a blue dress.

"A gift."

"From where?" Marlene asked.

"From a new part of our hive."