The Colony seeks

The Colony does not find.

Confusion. Concern.

The prey-animals were nowhere to be found. The Colony moved silently through the jungle, its sensory organs locked onto the fading trail of strange prints that led from the dead forest sweeper towards–and it was certain of it now–the lair of the prey animals.

Had another hunter attacked the prey? Was there a new rival in this part of the jungle? The questions were not thought, not in the same way as a human might think them, but they occurred to the Colony all the same.

They Colony did not like these thoughts. The prey-animals were theirs. Not for rivals. Not for competitors.

The Colony buzzed within itself, rage and frenzy building within it at the thought of a rival.

But it calmed itself. Maybe something else had happened to the prey-animals. Maybe they had simply relocated their lair. It had been known to happen.

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The Colony moved silently, on invisible wings, until it reached the lair of the prey-animals.

And there it found death.

Its sensory organs had no trouble picking out the corpses of the prey-animals. They had been slain almost a full day ago, but their heat still lingered. The Colony did not even need to deploy their sensory proboscis.

But the bodies were in the ground. Freshly moved earth covered them. From the heat, the Colony could tell that nothing had been consumed from the prey-animals' flesh. They were whole.

They had merely been destroyed.

Rage anew flooded the Colony, even greeted than before. The buzzing within its carapace reached a fever pitch. Not a Rival, but an interloper.

And there they were.

It saw their heat signatures burning like stars against the blackness of the Over. They were clustered around one of the prey-animals' small lairs.

It allowed them to see it. It allowed them to know that their death was at hand. It would claim their flesh, feed upon their marrow, devour until all was consumed.

The interlopers turned. The interlopers saw it.

The Colony rages.

The Colony hungers.

The Colony attacks.

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