Chapter 3 – The Meeting

 Startled by the loud sound of a large insect buzzing by her ear and gusting her hair with its powerful wings, Beatrice jolted upright. With a sharp inhale, she spun her head all around her to search for the source of the sound. Her eyes fixated on her coffee, which she had barely even taken a sip from. It was now on the ground, its contents flowing through the grout of the rough tile beneath her. "Dammit, I must've fallen asleep… I wonder how long I was out for," she thought to herself.

 She had resolved not even 2 hours ago to stay awake all day long and reset her circadian rhythm, but it appears that her resolve was not stronger than the heavy weight of her drooping eyelids.

 "So much for 'The Defibrillator,'" she thought.

Tired from hours of nonstop studying for her bar exam, she must've dosed off while listening to the soft, bubbling flow of water trickling down the artificial waterfall. Just before sleep began to take her unconscious mind on wild, fantastical journeys through her subconscious, something woke her. She heard that furious buzzing sound again, along with a higher-pitched and softer buzz that sounded almost like a whine. When turned her head toward its source, she screamed in shock and had to do a double-take.

On the ground beneath her, between two rivers of hot brown coffee, a large bee and a gigantic orange hornet were fighting. What she first noticed was the hornet, and she was shocked by its size. It had to be at least an inch and a half long, and its long stinger looked extremely painful. She had never seen a hornet like that before, but one look at its fierce mandibles and gigantic stinger told her all that she needed to know. Getting stung by that thing would hurt!

She didn't know where it came from or if it was even native to this area as she had never seen it before, but what she did know was that she didn't want to be anywhere near that thing. Her adrenaline kicked in and she immediately jolted upright to run… but then her eyes then fixed on the hornet's prey: a strange-looking golden-yellow bee with a long, yellow abdomen and almost equally long velvet wings. It had large, golden eyes that stood out from its jet-black face, and a pair of long, flailing antennae. Its legs seemed slightly longer than they should be, and they appeared to be wrapped around a long, silver object that it was pressing against its attacker. The noise of its furious wings sounded almost like a desperate scream, and Beatrice for some reason couldn't look away. For whatever reason, perhaps her fatigued brain or her good nature, she took pity on the poor creature. She had never seen a honeybee like this before, but just by looking at it she had a very sudden sensation that she didn't want it to die. She couldn't just leave it all alone to fend for itself against such a fearsome predator. 

Acting quickly, she dropped to her knees and trapped the hornet between her the fingernails of her thumb and index finger. Having been preoccupied by its prey, the insect couldn't see her until it was already too late. It squirmed only for a moment before her guillotine-like fingernails relieved it of its thorax and abdomen. She swiftly caught its head as it fell, seeing that its prey was still trapped between its two mandibles. She broke off one of its mandibles to allow the honeybee to escape, but instead of escaping it just lay there with the dead hornet. Its abdomen pulsed furiously as though it was her heart beating rapidly after a traumatic situation. Beatrice took a closer look at it and saw that its left wings were damaged, and it looked like it had a large wound on its furry, golden-brown thorax. The wound seemed to be stained a deep black color. Resting her sunglasses atop her forehead, she examined it more closely and noticed that its legs appeared to have appendages at their ends almost like claws, and they were clutching an ornate spear.

"How strange… do bees have fingers? That hornet doesn't have fingers," she said, looking between the bee and the hornet's body. "And who made that spear? The craftmanship is extremely fine… it must be part of some model made by a very talented artist. How did it end up here?" she further pondered.

Looking back at the bee, it was clearly not an ordinary honeybee. Its fur color wasn't right, and it was too big even to be a queen. But it did have a long abdomen characteristic of a queen bee. Still, it couldn't be a queen bee because queens only leave the hive alone once in their lives, and the chance of her seeing one here and now is astronomically small. "Maybe it's some kind of mutant... like, maybe the disasters did this?" Beatrice thought aloud.

Suddenly, it moved. For a brief moment, its large, golden eyes met her gaze. In that moment, it felt almost as though she could understand it – as if it had a human soul that was reaching out to her. It seemed more than just frightened… it was more like it was devoid of hope. Then as quickly as it came, the moment passed. The insect tried to turn on its side as its own movements slowed. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that the bee was dying.

"Well, that sucks. But there's nothing I can do, I suppose," Beatrice said to herself as she moved closer to the bee to pick it up and examine what it was clutching so tightly. "Hey, shhh, it's okay…" she gently whispered. "Whatcha got there?" she asked as she reached her hand closer to the wounded insect.

It barely even acknowledged her at this point, and just clutched the spear closer to its body, its 6 spindly limbs wrapped around it tightly like a mother's arms around her infant child. Before she could reach her hand any closer, though, something caught her eye.

"The ground beneath it is red… and its fuzzy body is stained," she thought to herself. "Wait, is that blood!?" she gasped. She looked closer and saw that the golden-brown fur around its wound was stained a deep red. "Very strange… I thought bees didn't have red blood?" she thought aloud. She reached her hand, which was now hovering a mere inch away from its body, closer and picked up the now barely-moving creature. She gently moved her fingers in an attempt to grab its spear, but it wouldn't budge. This insect seemed intent on not letting go of the spear even as it was dying.

Before she could ponder what she should do next, though, the golden tip of the spear flashed with a light so blinding that its brilliance mirrored that of the sun. Beatrice couldn't see what was around her anymore or even feel the insect in the palm of her hand anymore.

"AAAAH!!! Wha-!?" she screamed as she fell backward and landed on her back. But contrary to the hardness of the stone brick tiles she had been kneeling on mere moments ago, what she landed on was soft like pillows. It didn't hurt her at all.

 Suddenly, she heard a voice. It seemed disjointed, like it was simultaneously trying to speak through sleep paralysis and speak a foreign language. She felt like she wasn't supposed to be able to hear it or understand it… and yet that it was intended only to be heard by her.

 "…Sisterrr… hurt… fix… help… seasons…" was all she could understand. The voice was quiet, almost like a whisper. It was so quiet that she wasn't even sure if she was hearing it through her ears or if it was just her brain playing tricks on her. Somehow, though, she could understand the intent behind those words. It was as if they were spoken to her very soul.

 "I need your help," was what it seemed to be conveying.

 "…I'm sorry? What was that? And wait, who are you? What happened!?" was what she wanted to say, but before she could open her own mouth to speak these words, she heard her own voice answer.

 "Yes, I want to help you. I can't bear to see you hurt. I love you," was what her voice said. She hadn't even opened her own mouth, yet her words were still heard. She didn't know who or what was speaking with her own voice, but for some reason she didn't feel unnerved. It's as if, even though she had wanted to ask a barrage of questions to the quiet voice she heard earlier, what she had just heard now was what she truly meant to say. Despite having never heard this voice before and not knowing who it belonged to, she felt a deep sense of love for it. She wanted to help it, give everything to it, no matter what. And she didn't know why.

 "Dying…" the voice said, this time a little quieter. "Need… body."

 "Use mine!" her voice said again, so loud and firm that it was as though every cell in her body had shouted it at once – fully resolute in the commitment behind those words.

 "Wait! What's happening!?" she tried to shout, but she suddenly felt a huge shock to the back of her head as though she had been shot by a mortar shell, and then everything faded to black.