The entity sat alone on a hill.
She had always been viewed rather strangely by the rest of the local populace. Her thoughts weren't always connected to the others of her race that enjoyed the hivemind connectivity of technology. Sometimes, she'd come out here from her settlement and stare out over the golden waves of wild grain. It was nice being able to enjoy the soft breeze and gentle drops of rain that poured out over the Earth. She had been theorized after the Reclamation. Maybe that was why she felt little kinship to the cause of her kind. To take, to plunder. In their minds, liberation. In hers, genocide.
They had come in their gilded starships and rained down fire upon the cities below. The Formers had struck back with weapons nuclear, slaughtering millions of her own kind. But even for all their technological prowess, man had been driven underneath the earth into deep caverns. Every once in a while, they'd still find a shelter or two. They'd always slaughter the contents without learning anything.
What had they been like? She wondered.
They clearly understood mathematics and had created a base ten system to explain the cosmos. They understood much of the way their world worked. She was absolutely fascinated by the Formers. She had even gone so far as to shape her physical form in theirs. Her egg sac was internalized to the center of her abdomen, her second pair of arm-like appendages had been withdrawn. She had even grown the long strands of protein that the Formers had hanging from their head.
It's just a phase. Her makers claimed. She thought otherwise.
“Ah!” She exclaimed as a portion of her body was forcibly removed. She glanced down and swatted at the fly biting her crimson skin. Evidently they had been biting pests in the days of the Formers too. These thoughts made her feel nostalgia for a culture that she had never experienced.
With a feeling of deep longing within her core, she reached into the hovering container nearby and pulled it out. Her makers would literally strike her from existence if they knew she had it.
Walden. She thought as she examined the script on the front of the manuscript. Such an inconvenient form of data storage! As she cracked it open, the smell of ancient pages and dust overcame her and she lay back with a smile. As much of a smile that she could muster.
Something's wrong. Came the thought into her mind. It came from the Central Database, the only distribution center that she couldn't block out. The cause of the severity of the message made her jolt upright. She glanced back over her shoulder at the rusting starship hovering over the distant settlement. She could see nothing from here, but-
“Ah!” She cried out again as another insect bit her. She swatted at the wasp that had stung her, but she missed and it struck again. As it attacked incessantly, she leapt to her feet and covered her scarlet skin with scales too deep to penetrate. Amusement. She giggled as the insect furiously struck at her without results. Turning towards the settlement, she began to formulate her plans for her upcoming Centralization and how to get out of it for another cycle.
Then she saw it. A cloud of black, swarming from the East towards the settlement. Insects of every kind and shape. Her spectral analysis of the surface molecules told her.
“Ah!” She exclaimed again. The finch struck at her eyes and so she covered them with her tertiary eyelids, masking the land in a deep gray.
Confusion! She experienced as a sparrow joined in the assault. Their small beaks bit past the layer of protective scaling that she created and she swatted at them to drive them away. The peregrine falcon came so quickly that her sense barely had time to remedy it before its hooklike talons dug into her neck.
Anger! She experienced as she drew the shotgun from her hover-pack and sent a cloud of plasma at the swarming birds. They dropped.
Horror! She experienced as the Streptococcus pyogenes introduced to her flesh began to multiply relentlessly, each individual cell multiplying hundreds of times a second, far beyond any known rate.
Confusion! Lack of Understanding! She experienced as she shed the flesh afflicted with the microorganism. Within moments, the entire flesh was consumed by a white mass feeding on her own cellular constructs.
AROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Came the call from the woods and she glanced at the distant tree line. It all came to her as she magnified her vision to see the pack emerging from the forest. There were three brown bears. Six gray wolves. A golden retriever? The receptors in her eyes were overwhelmed with the spectral analysis of all the creatures before her. Mountain lions and domesticated cats were even present.
Understanding. She experienced as she saw the horse at the head of the herd, a naked man upon its back. In his hands, a spear with a sharpened rock at the tip. In his eyes- sheer hatred. They saw the settlement and loathed its presence.
She sprouted her wings and darted away as fast as she could, away from the starship and settlement, away from the horde. Barely evading the swarm of birds of prey, she experienced another thought as the Earth itself began to shake and contort to ease the horde's passage. Fuck.