Hello, Mom [Interstellar]

[Check out the author’s column for the new novel, I’m a Koi in a Bizarre World. It features a female lead in a supernatural, half-instance story.] The fate of Su He, a poor girl from the remote “Exile Star,” was rewritten one evening in a filthy, stinking alley behind a garbage dump, beneath the fading light of Amethyst Star. She had just fought someone over an outdated secondhand brain-computer, and taken a vicious beating. Covered in blood and on the verge of death, she lay on the ground, too weak even to crawl. Then, in that alley, she met another “woman” just as wretched and battered as she was. The difference was that when the “woman” lifted her face, the hood revealed a silver-white “face” with compound eyes on its forehead. “She” reached out to Su He with a long forelimb, cold and hard as metal. Su He nearly died at her hands. Her head was splitting with pain, but she refused to give up, fighting to stay conscious with all her strength. At last, through her fading awareness, Su He dimly heard a very halting voice speak inside her mind. “I can’t beat you, but you’re going to die too,” the voice said. “So I came to ask if you’re willing to ‘coexist’ with me.” Su He didn’t want to die, so she agreed. And from that day on, she became a half-human, half-insect monster. Only later did Su He learn that her “symbiote” was a young “Insect Queen,” who should by birthright have sat upon the sacred nest throne, watched over by the endless insect swarm among the stars. And while coexisting with Su He, the insect sent pheromone signals into the universe nonstop, twenty-four hours a day: “Hello, it’s Mom.” “Mom’s in danger, come quick.” And so, for no apparent reason, Su He gradually acquired a whole crowd of grown sons rushing to “protect” her. One insect, two insects, a myriad insects paying homage. Metal limbs and iron wings, scaled feathers and hooked claws, metallic backs spreading as far as the eye could see in the morning light. They were her army, her people. They knelt before her and called her “Mother.” Human-insect coexistence setting. Both retain their own consciousness, with the female lead, Su He, in control. [Kind reminder: This is a purely fictional setting with no connection to reality. Please do not relate it to real life.] No writing advice, please. If it’s not for you, just click away. Theme: Celebrating the meaning of personal growth