It isn't long before my tails and legs are completely regrown. The cold female and strong male have eradicated my bugs, but more are being produced as I stalk through the mist. The silencing effect of the most means that no one hears the bugs bursting out of my back and landing on the road. I continue to churn out creatures and have them lie still, waiting for the command to attack.

Submerging myself into the road, I move toward the rock dome. My ability to become intangible does not make me invisible; it only makes me slightly translucent. I stay beneath the three humans who are clearly on edge, circling them. These ones aren't strong or Worthy. They are weak and only suitable for food. I float up through the ground, revealing a portion of my body a few feet at a time. Their eyes go wide at the sight of me, and the gun wielders shoot at me. The bullets pass through my ghostly body, hitting the dome behind me. The dome isn't large enough for me to fit inside, so I try something new. My front leg turns solid as I swipe at the humans. The force and speed of the swipe cut through them so cleanly they aren't aware they've died. Seconds later, slabs of meat separate as the realization of their deaths hits them: four down and only three to go.

I collapse the rock structure and have my insects move into a few of the nearby buildings. I begin dispersing the mist, waiting for the humans to see me. The cold female attacks first, sending eight ice spears flying at me. They curve through the air as they come toward me, hitting each of my legs, my tails, and two in my side. The cold hurts as the frost spreads from the spears. The feeling of cold stirs another memory that is just out of reach within my mind. I shake my limbs to dislodge the weapons, but they've penetrated too deeply.

"Tagged him, end this, McCaffrey," the cold one shouted.

The strong male jumps on top of my back. McCaffrey. The Worthy deserve for me to remember their names. I need to discover the cold one's name, too. The striped one isn't Worthy; he is food. McCaffrey punches down into my back, and the hit buries my legs in the ground. He rears back and punches me even harder. Pain blossoms from the hit, and the force crushes the stone beneath me, creating a crater around us. Pain is how you know you're alive. The thought wasn't my own, but I'm unsure where I heard it before. The frost is still spreading, and it's getting harder to move the affected limbs.

I roll over in the crater, throwing him off before he can get hold of my fur. My tails whip out, wrapping around both of his ankles and throwing him into the sky as hard as I can. He goes flying far, very far, and it gives me time to go after the cold one. My frigid limbs are going to stop working soon, so I bound out of the crater after her. She's created several ice cones that spin in place, hovering above her. I let loose a challenging roar that reverberates around the abandoned town.

She sends her cones at me, but I've learned my lesson. They phase through me harmlessly, my intangibility making her attack fail. She tries to jump out of the way of my charge, assuming my size makes turning difficult, but I rise off the ground and pivot toward her. She didn't expect me to be able to become intangible, and she definitely didn't expect me to be able to fly. My head partially materializes, allowing me to take a chomp at her. It's over. She may not have been Worthy. My mouth opens ready to devour her, and she jumps off an ice block she creates at her feet. She avoids my bite, relief evident on her face. But relief turns to fear as my neck extends just a little bit and snaps shut around her outstretched left arm.

The inside of my mouth is cold. So cold. I can't close it, there's something in the way. My tongue touches it, tasting the ice. Frozen spikes pierce into the inside of my mouth, freezing the blood from the punctures instantly. It hurts so much, but I am a predator that does not fear death. I press down harder, ignoring the pain and chill to bite her arm and crush the ice. She screams in pain, blood pouring out of the severed limb. It tastes delicious.

"God fucking damn it," she screamed.

"WORTHY," I said.

It's the first word I've spoken. My voice is a low rumbling sound, a mix of a chesty purr and a sharp hiss. The female's face pales as the realization of my intelligence hits her. She holds her right arm to the wound on her shoulder and freezes it over. As soon as I stop being intangible, the frost is going to continue to freeze my limbs slowly. The female turns away from me and runs away, aiming for a nearby building. The hunt is back on, making my decision for me. I become fully physical and chase after her. That's when the cowardly striped one attacks. The bright blast of heat vaporizes a chunk of my back and midsection. It hurts. It hurts so much.

My legs give out on me, and I can't feel them anymore. I start to crawl toward her, using my six insectoid legs to scuttle along. The striped one appears next to the cold one, putting his hand on her back. He's holding his heat cannon, and something is wrong with it. Sparks are coming out of it, and it's emitting smoke.

"Time to go, Winters," he said to her.

Winters is her name.

"No, we can't. It can talk; it's sapient," Winters argued.

"You are in critical condition, the lab is lost, four Special Agents are dead, and I don't know where McCaffrey is. This mission is a monumental failure. So I'm getting us out of here, we can regroup and let Command come up with a plan," he said.

"We can't just leave this monster to roam," Winters shouted.

"I never said we were. I'm giving it a parting gift," he said, smiling.

He throws the cannon at me, and then he and Winters' forms become blurry and then disappear. The sparking, smoking weapon is now emitting a high-pitched whine. The metal begins to glow orange, then red, and finally bright white as it melts. What has he done? Everywhere I look is bathed in white light as I, my bugs, the town, and everything else within a mile are annihilated in a blast of superheated energy.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

How much time has passed? The striped one, Andrews, is crafty. He might be worth hunting after all. I'm covered in sand and surrounded by rubble. I could've turned intangible to avoid the blast. But I was enjoying the hunt too much. Winters and McCaffrey gave me my first exciting fight. I will get stronger, and eventually I'll get another chance at them.

I shake the dust, dirt, and sand off myself and begin tunneling upward to the surface. It doesn't take long before I can see light peeking through a crack between a bunch of rocks. It could be a trap. I become incorporeal and carefully float up through the remaining wreckage. Popping just the top of my head out, I see the effect that the explosion had. The town is gone, the battle's traces are gone, everything is gone. The crater where the actual weapon exploded was transformed into a glassy surface. There are crackles from a few fires still burning, but other than that, there is no sound. The sun is high above me, so it's been at least a day since I died. That might be the first time I've been completely eradicated and had to regenerate from nothing. The hunger is back and worse than ever. I need to feed, and there's nothing left here. It's time to move on.

Flying through the clouds is an experience unlike anything else. Granted, I don't have more than foggy recollections from before waking up in the lab. The exhilaration I feel flying is making me question my past even more. The words I hear in that voice that isn't mine gnaw at my brain. Was I a human before? Is my name actually Six? The urge to feed, to hunt, and to kill aren't human urges; they're bestial ones.

My hunger is worsening the longer I go without eating. My entire body vaporizing means my stomach is completely empty. As soon as I spot food, I'll drop down and devour it. Then the hunt can resume. More Worthy are out there for me to hunt. With every death, I grow stronger; it isn't just my body becoming tougher or faster. My thinking is clearer and faster. Even my powers are slowly growing. What was a measly hover with little speed is now a full-blown flight. The intangibility can now be controlled with some effort. I will only continue to improve and evolve with time.

My flight takes me away from the destroyed town and out of the desert. My hunger pangs have become so painful that it feels like razor wire is being dragged through my stomach. I haven't gone this long without eating except when I've been dead. Every minute feels like an hour, and every hour feels like a day as I soar through the sky. My hunger is reaching a point where it hurts more than any injury I've ever received. I try to think of other things to distract myself, but it doesn't work. My thoughts keep circling back to eating. Time drags by, and hours pass before I finally spot signs of civilization in the distance.

I'm high above large swaths of farmland, acres of crops grown in perfect rows. Farms mean livestock, and I'll be able to feed. A horse farm is the first sign of animals I've seen. Twenty-four of the creatures are galloping across their large enclosure, which is comprised of hilly terrain and grasslands. FOOD. I cease my flight, dropping out of the sky like a hawk diving for its aquatic prey. Wind whistles in my ears as I plummet at the center of the group. Turning incorporeal, I go through them and the ground like a diver. Most of my speed has bled off, and I gradually rise through the ground, materializing just my head to swallow a horse whole. The horses scatter, terrified of the predator in their midst.

What follows is a complete and utter slaughter as I devour them. By the fifteenth one, I realize I'm running low on space in my stomach. The urge to rip and tear, to shred and swallow is too strong to resist. The only way I can free up space is to start creating my bugs, so I do. The meat and bones in my stomach swirl, breaking down into usable material for the birthing process. While that starts, I chase down the remaining horses. Despite being mostly made of dense muscle, they fall to me easily. Forget a bite or claw swipe, whipping one of my tails at them is enough to strike them dead. Feed on the weak.

______________________________________________________________________

The fluttering beats of my sixty bugs' wings fill the air. Claw marks score the ground that's dyed red with the dead farm animals. Besides the blood, there are no traces of the animals left. My feasting wasn't quiet, but since no one came to check on the noise, I can only assume the farm's owners aren't home.

My hunger has returned to a manageable level, and I can resume hunting. It's like an itch that I can't scratch; I want to feel the exhilaration of a battle. There's something appealing about fighting superpowered people; it feels like it must be a remnant of my past that survived whatever happened to me. That desert was an anomaly; there aren't going to be people to fight in farms or abandoned towns. They'll be in the places with high populations.

With a goal in mind and a way forward, I step over the fence that only reaches my knees. The swarm flies high above me as I start running, picking up speed as I get into a rhythm. Faster. I can't help but let my tongue hang out as I sprint along the pavement. The rush of going so fast is addictive, and the feeling of wind blowing through my fur feels so good. I have so many questions, and more keep popping up, but I can worry about those some other time. Right now, I'm focused on the moment and not worrying about much else.

"You've been quite the busy little beasty, haven't you?"

My eyes have every angle around me covered, and there's no one near me. That means there's a voice inside my head, not an internal monologue or my own thoughts, but a different voice entirely. I almost stumble and trip as it breaks my concentration. The voice is masculine and sounds so familiar. It's on the tip of my tongue. Where have I heard him before? It hits me and I can't help but growl. It's the dark silhouette from my memories, the man who ingrained those words in my brain—the one who caused me so much pain.

"Six, I know you can hear me. Answer me, Six."

"WHO ARE YOU?"

"I am the Father of all. Your Lord and Savior. I who created you, who freed you, who raised you above humanity."

"WHO WAS I BEFORE? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"

"Quite an interesting tone you're taking with me. Do not question your maker. I saved you, made you better."

"YOU MADE ME A MONSTER."

"I made you matter. I gave your life meaning. It was my divine intervention that elevated you into such an instrument of my will. A sacred beast to signal the coming rapture. A harbinger to announce the apocalypse. It was my gifts that gave you a purpose. The hunt, the desire to fight, kill, and devour."

"I HAVE A NEW PURPOSE: I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN, KILL YOU AND DEVOUR YOUR CORPSE!"

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