The hollow hive

The moment the team crossed into Sector Delta-7, everything changed.

The sky above them was darker than ink, veiled not by clouds, but by a strange mass that pulsed like a living shadow — the swarm’s great migration had begun. Beneath this suffocating black shroud was the Hollow Hive — an abandoned nest once home to the Monarch Scarabs, now eerily silent.

Dr. Rhea checked her scanner. “Energy readings are off the charts. This place was drained... and replaced with something else.” She looked up. “Something not from this world.”

Their guide, an armored mantis named Vix-Thorn, clicked his mandibles. “This land remembers. The Hive was not merely evacuated. It was hollowed — from within and below. The Queen’s spirit never left.”

Kai stepped forward, shining a UV light on the tunnel walls. Strange symbols shimmered — mathematical sigils, spiraling in fractal patterns. “These aren’t insect markings,” he murmured. “This is... theoretical physics?”

Dark matter.

They had heard whispers of it in the forbidden tomes — a silent, invisible force once thought to merely shape galaxies. But here, in the Hollow Hive, it was being weaponized. Burrowing deep into the sub-dimensional veins of the Earth, the insects had learned to tap into the void between matter, siphoning unseen energy from beyond the Chitin Age’s own reality.

“Something is building here,” said Rhea, voice tight. “Something intelligent. Maybe even... synthetic.”

That was when they heard it. A low hum. Mechanical, yet organic. The tunnel ahead flickered with motes of anti-light, and from the shadows, emerged a figure unlike anything they’d faced — a construct made of obsidian plates, powered by tendrils of humming dark matter, with a glowing sigil in place of a face.

“Designate: Inquizzar,” it said. “Function: Memory extraction. Threat assessment: Human anomaly — purge sequence initiated.”

The team scattered as beams of negalight burst through the walls, evaporating stone and insect alike. Vix-Thorn leapt in front of Rhea, shielding her with his exoskeleton, cracking under the strain. “You must run! The Hive wasn’t abandoned — it was consumed!”

As they fled into the deeper hive chambers, Inquizzar gave chase, dragging behind it trails of un-gravity that tore the Hive’s foundations apart. But the farther they descended, the more the walls glowed with those same fractal symbols.

Kai skidded to a halt. “This isn’t just a hive. This is a tomb. And dark matter… is the lock.”

In the final chamber, surrounded by cocoons of time-frozen Monarchs, the team found a sphere — pulsating with unreadable code and dark energy. Rhea’s eyes widened.

“It’s not just power. It’s a seed. Something ancient. Something older than the insects.”

And above them, the hum returned — louder, deeper, and full of intent. The void had a voice. And it had chosen this world as its own.

To be continued...