Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

I awoke in my little stall. The pillow that had been in the cage has been put down on the minty leaves of the barn. A giant, floppy flower petal was laid over me like a soft, slightly fuzzy blanket. The soft light filtering in and the overall quietness of the area made me think it was dawn.

Which made sense. I had to pee so bad.

I sat up and stretched out my sore limbs. I should be feeling many things, I imagined, but satisfied in a way I had never felt before probably shouldn't be one of them. I should not have enjoyed my milking as much as I did.

I sat up to find a pail of water and a dish filled with fruit and vegetables next to my bed. There was also a white, soft egg-looking thing with it that might have been moving. Eww. Gross.

Nope. I was not eating that, whatever that was.

I could hear the soft rustling of the aphids. I stood up and looked over to them. They were all sleeping, apparently. They really did remind me of cows. On Earth, some female aphids even gave birth to live young.

Wrapping the flower petal around me like a towel, I tiptoed out of the stall to where the aphid herd slept. I highly doubted there was a toilet nearby. Ants probably didn't bother. If I remembered correctly, ants on Earth had designated chambers for their shit. But I wasn't inside the colony. I was in rural outskirts of their kingdom, I supposed. I figured there wasn't a designated bathroom around this place.

Much like a barn at my home, tools of the cattle trade were stashed in corners or handing on hooks. I found a pitchfork and poked through the leaf three times, then worked through the holes to make rooms for my arms. Once complete, I donned the leaf like I would a three-arm hospital gown. It would do.

Not really knowing much about the planet of Otherworldly Delights, I decided to take the pitchfork with me while searching for a place to relieve myself.

I passed through the threshold and stepped barefoot onto the soft pasture which, I noted, seemed to spring back beneath my feet. I wondered if that was why it did not crush under the weight of the aphid herd. Besides being soft and damp, it tickled my toes.

Did it always do that?

I must have been too out of it to notice before.

The golden glow on the horizon confirmed the transition of night to the day. I noticed that many of the tall flowers were closed.

"Where to pee, where to pee…" I muttered to myself. By the flowers? In the open pasture? Men peed on walls all the time, but it felt rude to pop a squat next to the barn.

The tall flora were like trees, I supposed.

My pitchfork became my walking stick as I made my way across the spongy grass that soon became more like clover the closer I got to the windmill-sized flowers. Standing next to one made me feel like Jack next to his giant beanstalk.

I looked up at the closed bloom, then tentatively placed a hand on the stem. It vibrated beneath my palm. It reminded me of quiet snoring. It's sleeping. If I didn't breathe, could I feel the roots pulsating beneath my feet?

With a quick look to make sure I was alone, I quickly squatted down. "Come on, come on," I urged my bladder.

Finally, sweet relief.

I had just wiggled the remaining urine off and stood when I felt movement above my head, disturbing the air. I gasped at first in fear, then in awe.

The flowers were opening to the dawning light. I had never seen anything like it in my life. The unfurling petals spread apart like opening a closed fist and extending the fingers. The stems stood tall to the sky, and leaves swept up and out. The plants then rippled, like shaking off their slumber.

Dew fell like rain upon me.

"Aw man," I grumbled.

I should probably appreciate the shower. Only the Lord knew when I'd get one again. I had yet to see a sign of plumbing.

My musing was interrupted by a loud zip tearing through the sky, followed by a moving shadow. Startled near to death, I pressed my back against the stem and clutched my pitchfork close to my chest. I held my breath and waited.

When nothing happened, I leaned out and looked up, trying to see what could have made such a racket.

…bbzzzippp…

I flattened against the flower and willed my heart to calm. Whatever it was, it obviously flew.

More silence.

A waft of green pepper.

The pitchfork held remnants of the minty leaves from the barn. Aphids loved mint. So where was the pepper smell coming from?—

My sixth sense—instinct—what it was called had me lunge forward before I was decapitated by a pair of mandibles.

I scampered back and got onto my feet and held my weapon out to the largest ladybug I'd ever seen in my life. It was larger than the aphids it hunted, just as they were on Earth.

It all suddenly made sense. Ladybugs were predators who loved eating aphids. It is why ants that farmed aphids often brought them inside the nest for their protection. And the barn! Ladybugs hated the smell of mint. It confused their sensitive olfactory system.

The spotted beetle that was a favorite of children and considered lucky by many only ate soft-bodied prey, and I could see it gearing up to launch at me. I could try to run, but the fucker flew. I didn't want to die like I was in a Jurassic Park movie.

I took a deep breath, gripped my pitchfork and readied for a fight. "Come on, asshole. Let's do this." I wish I could say that I was badass for facing my monster, but I was sure I looked ridiculous doing so while wearing a leaf.

As if recognizing the danger of the tool in my hand, rather than pouncing, it left the stem for the ground. It came forward, testing me. I jabbed the fork toward the insect.

The dark eyes of the beetle told me it was sentient on some level. I could tell it was weighing options.

"I know I look tasty, but you don't want to fuck with me." I narrowed my gaze and tried to make myself look larger. "Go on—leave. Go find something else to eat."

"No," it whispered in a weird gnashing hiss.

Was it laughing at me?

I lifted my chin, squared my jaw, and replied, "Then you will die."

It opened its massive wings and reared up, making a roar that reminded me of dragon. Between the smell and the flapping appendages, I screamed bloody murder and began poking my fork toward it, trying to keep distance between us.

But the ladybug wasn't trying to attack me, I realized. It was trying to escape— to fly off before the five ants that came out of nowhere were able to attack.

It did not succeed in getting off the ground in time.

And what they did to that thing was brutal.

Though only one third the size of the ladybird, the sheer strength and brutality of the ants was enough to make me want to vomit. They had their stingers out of their pants, and they were stabbing the creature.

The beetle tried to reflex bleed, secreting a foul liquid from its joints meant to repel the attackers and mimic death, but the ants didn't care. They kept on, stabbing and stinging, wrenching and ripping with their hands and mandibles.

On Earth, ants attacked ladybugs who tried to feast from their aphid herd. I guess in this place, on this planet, hucows fell into the same category.

The ladybug tried to close into its shell and hide, but with five ants who had the combined strength of fifty humans, it was nothing for them to turn the insect over to finish dismantling it.

It was so horrific a sight that I dropped my pitchfork and ran back to the barn.