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kilozombie · 12-13-2018, 04:33 AM

After the Burst,

then the dozen years of silence, of emptiness, of loneliness,

and in the vastness of the world, populated by Several Billion, but spread so thinly (and so small) that no one person knows more than a handful nearby,

the average Insect, no matter shape or size, might be desperate for accompaniment.

The notion that they could send out a message, a shout into the darkness--

--and feel a reply.

Cent Wrote:To: All Who This May Concern
I realized my purpose in the world gradually, and even then I don't know for sure. But after some test runs, I want to give this a go.

If you send me an email, I will reply.

I'll dedicate as long as it takes to give a sufficient, meaningful reply. I'm alright completely opening up and dedicating myself to each and every bug who puts something forward. I have no special interest or price. It doesn't matter to me if you already have a friend, or several friends, because I know sometimes that isn't enough.

I know the world is vast. I know my story, and the stories of the people who live close to me, but it doesn't make sense for a cockroach to travel the planet crawling underneath each and every City hoping to find people to comfort. I don't know what the world is to you. I don't know what your story is.

But I'm willing to hear it.

Cent sat back weakly in the chair as she clicked with one upper leg to send the rather vaguely-worded message out, out, out. Her home, cramped in the endless apartment complex carved into the brick-and-mortar of an apartment complex, was coated in a brownish gray tint, ugliness and emptiness. She felt some solace in the paper cup of coffee sat within her lap, within four legs which held it tight. A cockroach could manage alright without thumbs, like her ancestors before her, but she supposed they had never been caffeinated. Needed to drink and revitalize. Needed to drink and live. Legally, medically, socially, she wouldn't need a sip for another couple of hours, but with the email sent and her body desperate for comfort, she crooned her insectoid head down, prodded the lip of the cup with two mandibles, and began to drink.

Mocha, in this case, was the shadow standing over Cent, who had limbs which jittered just like her caffeinated self. It sunk down her mouth and spread throughout her body like a sickness, like a band of musicians all banging out their own rhythm-- hitting her body and limbs each individually until her whole self was back alive again, back to full. This was prevention from the Long Sleep, the one which had come for trillions before her, and which she now supposed she would never have to face head on, not like they did.

To be caffeinated meant to live as long as she could survive. To have a world full of insects living so long meant that the crawling, chittering overpopulated world, dead of Human and all else, could not exist. One day it ceased, it Burst, and now Cent was left in the remnants.

She had always wondered what else there was in the world, beyond the dispensed coffee, tea, and occasional acquaintance. The old mini-computer monitor was blaring forth a window into all else, all that she had not seen, all that she could not bear to see. She wasn't ready. But the miracle and curse in her body which was now running rampant forced her body into ready stiffness, ready action.

Here it was, Cent supposed.

Here it was.

The messages would come in, and perhaps, if she didn't give up like the hundred times she'd given up before, she would reply.

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