CH 04 : Floating on cloud nine.
Far above earth, a colony of handsome men were fulfilling every single request of their beloved queen. Miss Antonella was elevated on a throne, The burliest two among her servants were prostrated on all four, serving as her footstool.
She had always been a control freak, restlessly seeking positions of prestige and power. Such are her reasons for pursuing a career in education, but she never intended to be stuck in the thankless endeavor of disciplining lacking students. No, that role was forced on her after she was suspected of having an affair with the dean of the school.
She was denoted from vice principal to a mere professor at the request of his disconcerted wife. From having authority over teachers to being tested daily by impetuous students seeking to undermine her person, getting downgraded in such a brusque fashion had serious repercussions for a martinet such as Antonella.
The reasons that her contract was not fully terminated were to avoid scandal to the establishment and to shield the dean from embarrassment. Yet she had to live with her own shame after being taken advantage of in the crudest of ways.
After having sacrificed countless suitors and wasting away her years of youth in the embrace of a haggard old man, she was made to bear the consequences of their union, penalised for her unswerving dedication to one man.
When she confronted the principal about their secret liaison, he reacted in a way that was unforeseen to her, staring at his estranged mistress with a cold glance, he kept a noticeable distance between them, deep loathing apparent in his dark eyes.
When she pushed him further on the subject, refusing to be intimidated by his aversion, he pinned her wrists tenaciously atop the office table, the same hardy desk on which she had willingly laid on top of numerous times, all for the sake of a stable career, now shook with palpable hatred beneath her contorted frame.
He ended his display of strength with a whisper, a singular clear threat that was enough to secure her silence for the remainder of the semester.
Insulted and broken, she rushed to the streets to escape from his grip, almost losing balance on the slippery road. Each fast paced step she took amplified her paranoia, causing her to constantly glance over her shoulder with darting eyes.
The fear that her anguish would be noticed by the passerby further strained her already jangled nerves, for if they were to lock eyes with her, they'd gaze at an injured expression, accentuated by a tangle of damp auburn hair. Her sad lips were repressing a scream, akin to nylon snapping under friction with horsehair each time the archet is drawn across the strings.
People stared, people whispered, her bedraggled clothes were suggestive of an incident, a terrible confrontation that left her devoid of all dignity. People are unhinged, unpredictable, she thought, and It's always the ones closest to you that seem to be most intent on scraping hurt to feed their ego.
A sudden bout of lightning whipped the grey skies, severing her trail of thoughts with such a fright that her descent into madness was complete.
She ran away to hide in the corner of an alley, cowering behind a huge dustbin. As she dared to lift her eyes towards the opened heavens, particles of a strange color penetrated her sight, searing into her vision. She screamed as an animal, her hands instinctively reaching for her eyes, frantically exploring the alien texture of the thick, brown coating that encased them.
New limbs burgeoned from her sides, starting off as grotesque tumors, but soon they outgrew their boundaries, forcing her ribs to break outwards as they fought to sprout forth from her tormented body. She has become an abomination.
Too big to hide from the world, her mangled exterior was exposed in all its repulsive glory to shocked onlookers. All of her twisted fears were coming true in the most exaggerated sense, and her reaction? She laughed shamelessly.
The thin membranes on her back started vibrating of her resonant laughter, they were covered in a mucous substance and sensitive to the winds, with a curious glimpse at her backrear, she saw a mosaic of wingcells, glued together by pulsating veins. Upon further agitation, she managed to beat them fast enough to propel her giant figure in the air.
Her immediate thought was to head back to the school and take revenge for her mistreatment. She hovered above the building, looking for an open window. Once she has identified an entry point, she whizzed inside and came face to face with a student.
He froze in place, in a suspended act of shutting his locker, and he couldn't get his eyes off of her. But to her surprise he was not frightened, nor even stunned about her transformation, she traced to where his sight was fixed, and it was, to her chest?
She came closer to the stupefied eighteen year old, curious of his reaction and realised he was in fact fixated on her arms, upon further inspection, she noticed sweat running down her side, followed by his dilated pupils. It seemed to be the source of his fascination. Was it her scent that captivated him?
She became frustrated by his idiotic staring and ordered him to lower his eyes. He immediatly deferred his gaze, avoiding her glowering eyes as she prodded his face with her slick fingers. "Kneel" she ordered him, and he obeyed.
She held absolute control over the boy, and her heart swelled in satisfaction. It was then that she developed her plan. Now that her students have come of age, they harbored servile ambitions towards all that is feminine, at the mercy of their firing hormones, she will find a fitting role for each and every one of them. They needed to be guided and she needed a private army at her disposal.
It is thus that the idea of an ant colony was born. Miss Antonella ruled supreme above the idyllic clouds. She relaxed on her throne, her eyes wide shut, for their every movement was dependant on her command.and yet her spirit was not content. She desired more, she always desires more.
The Alates stood stock-still in an erect position, armed with spears and groomed to perfection. Their wings glistened a golden shimmer in the light, some meshes of their hairs started losing their pigment because of their proximity to the sun and turned a lighter color, Miss Antonella greatly reveled in such details.
No rebel could rise, no voice could be raised above her own. Men were born to serve the queen, their lives meant nothing if not laid in her name.
She watched as one of her beautiful servants came forth, an opulent vine swirling around his arm, the plumpness of its fruits against his pure skin turned her desirous, she traced the creases of his palm towards the wrist, where the most succulent of beads hung as a bracelet.
She came close with a sensuous dive, rubbing her tanned cheek on his lower arm before biting deep into the purple protrusions. He fell lightly on the permeating white, droplets of his blood seeping through the mist and landing on the forehead of a girl innocently staring at the clouds.