The crowd’s buzz rings through my body as our unit is transported. The foragers that have managed to escape return and dance the intel that hundreds of hives are stacked taller than a pine tree, alongside our own. There must be millions of us, trapped together to be brought to who knows where. The oldest members of the colony tell that one or two springs ago, before our kind was captured, we were free to fly over fields of flowers stretching into the sunrise and to sip sweet nectar from colourful flowers that swayed in the warm breeze. Though these stories seem more like legends with every passing generation …
Bio:
Olivia Riddell is an aspiring writer and filmmaker. She is studying arts at Queen’s University. “The Hive” is her published writing debut.
[Image caption: Artwork by Xiaorou Fan]