Swirling, spinning, churning, twisting, spiraling. I feel myself endlessly flowing through a dark murky tube. The images of a bright light flashes then darkness once more. When I awoke the pain was gone.

I'm glad that's over, that was the worst chest burn in my entire life. I couldn’t even breathe. That is something I do not want to ever experience again. 

“Where am I?” 

I asked myself, but something felt off. It didn’t feel like my usual body that I was accustomed to all my life. 

Why does my mouth feel weird? Am I in one of those situations where I’m having some out-of-body experience while being in a coma at the hospital? No... that doesn’t seem right, I can’t see anything, and I can certainly feel somehow. 

I call out to whoever might be around.

“Hello, anybody? Mom? Dad? Isa?...” 

Feeling my surroundings, a slimy substance covered the walls and pushing against the walls flexed it a little. Assuming that I wasn’t kidnapped nor was I in a morgue, which both would really be the worst case scenarios. 

I really hope I’m not where I believe this is. Oh no… It is… Am I being reborn as a baby chicken!? I don’t remember passing through Heaven’s Gates or talking to some God or Goddess and asking if he or she would let me be reborn. As cliché as all that was, were they too busy reborning other people into new lives that they just tossed me at a random life?? That’s not fair, I could have been a cool heroine with godlike skills destined to defeat some demon lord! Well... it’s not the kind of life I thought to live after I just died, but chickens... are cute. 

I remember visiting an animal farm as one of my schools’ trips last year for biology class. It was amazing because of all the adorable farm animals, I even got to watch the hatching of baby chicks. 

I do feel like I have a beak... might as well use it to break open this egg. Here we go! One..! Two! 

To pierce the wall I put my all into pushing the tip of my beak against the shell. Slowly but surely light poured in clearing my vision. Bursting open my egg being born as a baby chicken.

 Wait, wait, wait hold on, why are there ants everywhere?? And why are they almost the same size as me? What kind of world is this?! 

The ants stop their activities turning their attention to the newly hatched egg. Reluctantly, I crawl out my egg and notice all their insect eyes are on me. 

Oh no they’re looking at me… Have I just been cruelly born to die again in the worst way imaginable? This is definitely gonna play out like that scene in the zombie movie where a side character is getting eaten alive by a group of zombies, while the other side character with a secret evil agenda watches. I know I was a naturally beautiful top-of-the class student, but that shouldn’t warrant this much bad karma! I was nice to everyone, even avoided any bad aura I felt. Did someone curse me for being who I normally am? Wait…

Suddenly, an ant larger than the rest emerges from the crowd slowly approaching while bowing its head. It was the closest in size to me compared to the others around. It’s body littered with battle scars, it had a crimson coat with large curved sword-like pincers for jaws. The appearance and the way the ant presented itself, strong but humble are the first words that came to my mind. It chirped moving its abdomen and feelers to speak.

“My Queen, you have finally hatched, I shall now pledge my loyalty and protect you even if it’ll cost me my life.” 

Woah, woah, woah, hold on, did I just understand what that ant said? Wait it called me queen, that must mean... 

Looking around I noticed a reflective object buried into the wall besides me, serving as a decent mirror. Seeing the same ant in the room looking back at me, I realized why I wasn’t grinded-up chicken meat upon hatching. 

Oh no, oh no, oh no, I’m an ant! I’ve been reborn as an Ant Queen??!!

Turning back to the large ant bowing to me, the rest of the ants in the large chamber bow their heads as their antennae slightly twitch around. Picking up on how the large ant spoke to me, I communicated back chirping and twitching my butt and antennae. 

“Am I the only queen of this colony? What had happened to the last queen?” 

The large ant raises its head to look at me with stern eyes.

“Our last queen was killed along with many other comrades in a battle against those two-legs covered in shinies. Now with you born you shall give birth to more ants and create an even bigger and stronger colony!” 

As the large ant states the last bit with pride all the other ants raise their heads, chirping loudly in the glory of the large ant’s speech. 

Oh okay, so they had a recent fight and lost a lot of ants to some ‘two-legs’? And the queen died and now they hatched me as their new queen. Pretty simple explanation… wait did it say, ‘give birth’? Oh no, no, no, if I remember correctly I’m gonna have to mate with a lot of males to make more ants. I hardly even dated in high school, now I’m forced into a role where I casually mate and birth ants?! I did have a huge crush on this guy in the same grade as me, and I would spend shameless nights thinking about him in those ‘ways’, but still this is way too much for a girl like me! I’m still a virgin!

Shivers shoot down my insect body. I chirped as loudly as I could to quiet down the colony. 

“A-as the new queen of this colony all of you obey my orders! And my first order is I choose whom I mate with and when I mate! No exceptions!” 

The large ant simply bows again with the others following suit. 

“As you wish my queen, as the remaining soldier I shall enforce your orders throughout the whole colony.” 

That was surprising, looking around I don’t really see any male ants at the moment, just this large soldier ant and a bunch of workers. Still, ants really don’t care who mates with who long as their colonies continue to grow. 

 After their acknowledgement of me as the new queen, the worker ants resume their activities. Carefully bustling around the eggs pushing past me and the large ant. Still standing where I hatched I chirp at the large soldier ant.

“Uh so do you have a name?”

“I do not have a name.” 

That’s rather sad, I hoped that ants had some sort of naming system, even something as simple as ‘Suki’ would have sufficed. Hahaha Suki would have been a cute name for a big ant like her. 

“Well that won’t do.. as the new queen's order, I shall name you, Tsuwo!” 

Tsuwamono, meaning warrior - is where I made up her name from, she gives off a very strong warrior aura. It’s not a cute name per say, but I feel like it fits better. The way she conducts herself and speaks reminds me of a friend in my class. Despite being the same age as me she became like an older sister to me. She was always the leader, tough-loving, diligent, and had looks that can kill. I had always admired her because of all that. She stood up for others, because she had a virtue of being strong to protect others who couldn't defend themselves. Hmm… Tsuwo seems bigger than the average soldier ant… soo a major, major soldier ant maybe? 

“Tsuwo… I shall gladly accept this name, my queen.”

She bows her head, her antenna doing some sort of celebration dance. I finally move from my spot using the reflective object in the wall to look at my new ant features.  

I have quite a large bottom now, I can feel the heft of my butt. As a girl, I’d deal with my two large hanging fruits, but now I got this big baby back. Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this... although I should really be freaking out right now... seeing this new form of myself this close. Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet? Or maybe ants don’t have any emotions..? Dang, those movies lied to me. 

I am accustomed to the outside world and the wilderness, so much so that not much bothered me when it came to things like insects. 

Thinking back on it now, I'm quite the fearless beauty. Let’s see… Yep, I got my wings which obviously states that I’m a virgin… not for long though, and a bigger thorax. All things required to be the ant queen. Sort of wished I was a butterfly instead, at least then I’d have beautiful wings… although I’d be a caterpillar first which doesn’t sound too bad, even some caterpillars are cute. Most of the ants including me are like a dark-ish red color… so I’m an ant queen to a fire ant colony? That’s pretty neat, least us fire ants are tough! Cool, I still have my beauty dot below the outer end of my left eye, even my slight eyeshadow (baggy eyes) remains! Heh, I wonder if I’m beautiful in ant queen standards?  

Attempting a few poses in front of the mirror I notice that Tsuwo still hasn’t left and has been watching me the entire time. I instinctively scratch my face with my front leg as I turn to face her.

Can I even blush as an ant? Even being a ‘fire’ ant we can’t really produce heat to our faces hmm...

“Ahem… well uh it seems that this is the egg chambers could you lead me to my own chambers, Tsuwo?” 

“Yes, it is this way my queen.” Tsuwo bows. 

Okay as much as I kinda like being called that I’m still, at heart, a high school girl who just graduated. But died.

“Also, as your queen I command you to call me, Ariki” 

“Okay, my queen, Ariki.” 

“No, just Ariki!”