The large creature caught the beam of his light as it climbed up and out into the main sunken area just below the home’s foundation. Alfie had been shining the flashlight downward, trying to count the number of tunnels the Meketaten had created, when the alien scrambled into view. It was a massive thing, long as a small dog, perhaps, and wide as a baby sea tortoise. Its antennae were long and black, tensing and twitching in the depths. The shell was a solid bright gold, shiny and clean as chrome, with three bright green luminescent dots set neatly across, about midway down its shell. The creature had looked up at Alfie, as if sensing him, and immediately skittered up the sloping dirt path, as if anxious to say hello to a new friend.

Alfie panicked, suddenly very afraid of what the fully-adult creature might do to a human, given the strength and cutting ability of the pupa spawn.

He wanted to stand, to run, to regroup. He tried to get his legs under him, but the room swooned and he fell back on his ass with a grunt. Too weak, he thought in a panic. His head was pounding to raise the dead, his eye throbbed like it would burst from its socket. He groaned, nearly sobbed at the thought that he’d let himself get this bad, ignore his own needs, the needs of his body. He turned his head, looked back toward the hole.

He watched with wide bloodshot eyes, in fascination and horror, as the creature emerged, first the long antennae, then the jet-black head, its mouth wet and dripping, eyes shining like burning black suns. It had slick jaws and a monstrous beak. The beak was shaped like jagged teeth.

Alfie let out a terrified squawk and shuffled on has ass back and away from the hole, kicking wildly as he pushed himself to the far wall, his eyes never leaving the emerging creature.

The adult heaved itself easily, nimbly, onto the concrete floor and skittered straight toward Alfie, its sharp legs clicking like tiny pistol shots as it crossed the floor. Terrified, knowing the thing wanted nothing but his insides for a meal, he looked around desperately. The handle of the rock hammer jutted from over the edge of the mortician table he had pushed aside, the one still bearing the vessel these beings had inhabited on their trip through space. Adrenaline and fear fueled his movements and he reached up and snatched the hammer, fingertips brushing the black leather of the handle just as the creature scrambled onto his foot. With a pathetic cry he swung the sharp edge of the hammer down at the alien, putting all his remaining strength and terror behind the blow, hoping to spear it and keep himself alive a little longer.

The hammer hit the golden shell and clanged off without even scratching the surface. The creature didn’t, in fact, seem to notice Alfie’s effort.

The hammer clanked to the ground as the alien climbed higher, its front legs already gripping one knee like a steel clamp. Alfie tried to kick at it, in vain, he supposed, but the monster – the Meketaten – only clambered faster, its hard sharp claws poking into Alfie’s thighs and hips like spears. In trying to pull away from the thing Alfie only managed to slide his body off the wall, his torso flopping to the ground as the creature moved higher, undaunted, before settling heavily on his stomach and heaving chest. Its onyx eyes stared emptily at Alfie’s own, its antennae stroking his face with soft, wiping slashes. Alfie couldn’t believe the weight of it. Despite being no bigger than a shoebox, the creature felt like a cinderblock weighing down on him.

Alfie was about to do something – to scream, to fight – when the creature spoke to him, its audible voice an inhuman series of squeaks and clicks.

You are dying, it said.

Alfie couldn’t believe it. The thing was communicating with him… speaking in indecipherable sounds… but Alfie could understand it. Alien insect speaks English, he thought, almost laughing aloud at the idea.

Not English, Khepri, it said, reading his thoughts, its jaws working as it hissed and clicked, tendrils of warm liquids sliding from its mouth, wetting Alfie’s shirt. But you CAN understand, because we will it so. You are dying, Khepri. You must not die. It is almost time now.

The creature stared at Alfie another moment, its glassy black eyes studying him, then turned nimbly and scrambled away, off his body, across the floor, disappearing over the edge of the hole, down into the tunnels, back toward the nest.

Alfie watched it go, his body going limp with relief as it vanished from sight… at which time he promptly, and most thoroughly, passed out.

WHEN HE FINALLY came to, groggy and drained, Alfie wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He laid face-down on the cool surface of the basement floor, too weak to stand, too tired to do anything but watch the coming-and-going of the now very large quantity of adult Meketaten that clambered in and out of the hole in his basement floor. Unlike the first adult, who had made a point to visit him straightaway, the rest of the scrambling creatures seemed to be completely ignoring Alfie’s presence. So he just laid there and gawked at the amazing alien beings and their hectic building pace.

The lab itself was unrecognizable.

They had layered the walls and counters with dirt and dung, smashed through the reinforced door and created the head of an earthen tunnel leading upwards toward his home. The fluorescent lights still shone, and some counter-edges still protruded through the packed earth, but Alfie felt as if he’d been taken from his home and dropped into a faraway cave on a planet not his own.

As the Meketaten worked, Alfie passed in and out of unconsciousness, wondered absently if his wasted body would be used for food.

During a particularly cognizant moment, he noticed a massive adult emerge from the hole, twice the size of his previous visitor – my god they’re getting bigger, he thought – and walk toward him. It was long and wide as a wheelbarrow, and Alfie didn’t want to even think how heavy it must be. He prayed this one didn’t clamber onto his chest, confident it would crush his ribs like toothpicks.

As it got closer, Alfie noticed the giant creature held a large membrane, sagging from its jaws like a veined water balloon, a rubbery-looking sack that wiggled and writhed. A womb with a hundred feisty babies eager to get out.

Alfie’s eyes fell closed once more, his exhaustion complete. He watched through a blurred haze as the sack hit the floor, saw the bundle of fresh larvae spill out. The giant creature angled its face down to look directly into Alfie’s own, its mouth hissing and clicking, its breath surprising clean and earthy, like the inside of a cave, or the bottom of a new grave.

There is good news, Alfie heard, his mind somehow translating the language. We have begun mating, Khepri, it said, all squeals and wet clicks. The time is near, and you must eat.

Alfie tried to respond, to question… but could only moan and drool into the dirt-smattered concrete beneath his head. His eyes rolled up into his head, something deep in his brain popped, and Alfie’s dimming consciousness was only slightly awake to the sensation of a strong, stick-like object entering his mouth and pulling his jaw open. His tongue lolled, rubbed against the coarse hairs of the creature’s limb.

Something moist and wiggling was shoved into his mouth. The taste was bitter and the mushy, twisting body pressed against his cheeks. Warm juice ran down his throat. He tried to gag, to spit it out, but instead his mouth was gently – but firmly – closed, and it took hardly any effort at all to compliantly swallow the thing down.

A hard claw opened his mouth once more and another larva was pushed inside. This time Alfie swallowed greedily, then, like a blind baby bird, opened his mouth for more.

With the patience of a mother caring for her young, the creature continued the feeding.

5

ALFIE SLEPT, AND dreamed of great things. A boundless golden army that could attack by air, by ground, from beneath the ground. Millions strong. A raging storm cloud of creatures, nearly indestructible. Flying sun-fueled warriors the size of tanks – swarms of them.

He was shown visions of destroyed cities, of nations, of every people. The extinction of entire civilizations.

In a state of semi-consciousness that lasted an indefinable period of time, Alfie felt the bustling legs of the creatures – so many creatures – upon him, ripping and stripping away his clothing, tugging at his hair, his face, feeding him, whispering to him, teaching him. Their voices filled his mind, spilled their history, and the history of mankind, into his own memories, and he took it all in… he listened.

As his mind continued to be bombarded with images, it was as if he were reliving his own memories. Alfie could see vast sand-filled plains, vistas of wild green forest, vegetative planets with flora beyond his ability to fathom, burning landscapes where creatures of fire were laid waste, mountainous horizons, cities of blue metal populated by giant men.

There are others, they said.

In his own world, thousands of years ago, a leader was chosen by Earth’s Meketatent, the army of Aten, the Sun God. That leader united civilization, demanded their worship, their compliance. It was a new world order. One of peace, of intelligence. One God for all humankind. An end to wars, to tyranny, to terror. He saw a species of giant Meketaten working side-by-side with Earthmen, building impossible structures, beacons to their brethren’s own home planet, billions of light years away, where the true Aten resided, the creator of suns, the creator of life. The One God.

These Meketaten, these travelers, had built civilizations before, but man and Earth had failed. And now the time had come to try again, begin the rebirth, start the world over, hope mankind could survive and build, carry the light of the supreme being that humans called Aten, Itzamna, Yahweh, Amun, Shiva, Nugua... too many to count, too many to name.

As the thoughts persisted, some distant part of Alfie could feel the larvae bursting apart inside him, the fluids and alien bacteria from the creatures rushing into his bloodstream, expanding his heart, reshaping his delicate, intricate brain.

His body was lifted, placed by sharp legs onto the back of a giant creature. He could sense more than see being carried down, down into the depths, toward the nest. His world lifted up and away as he went lower and lower, his fingers dragging in soft dirt as darkness encompassed him completely.

He was set down inside a chamber as vast as Solomon’s palace, an entryway to the massive honeycomb of caverns and tunnels already reaching beyond the city, spiraling downward and outward; new catacombs being even now created and traveled, reaching even further. His eyes prickled, sharp needling pains shooting through them. He opened them, blinking, and was surprised he could now see clearly within the depths – a duotone yellow showed every crevice of the cavernous fulcrum.

The vast walls crawled with countless golden shells.

He was no longer fed. He was so full now, and he could digest no more. He defecated, his body emptying itself, and the creatures methodically combined it with their own waste, spread out in great piles throughout the cavern. The Meketaten covered Alfie with the waste, then rolled his bloated body – his stomach a giant flexed womb of nutrients pumping through his system – into a great pile of dung. They continued to roll him into a massive ball of dirt and shit, inside which he laid, dormant, at the center of a chrysalis, awaiting transformation.

In the quiet, warm dark, Alfie curled into himself like an unborn child; could hear his heart beat faster, faster. Visions and information translated into his mind like a hurricane, expanded his brain, physically reshaping his human skull into an oblong cranium, the parietal plate breaking and pushed backward, stretching new skin. His mind reformed into an antenna which could communicate with the One God as well as the other Meketaten; to receive and provide information, relay the will of the great one.

Lead them.

As the transformation slowly continued, he felt – numbly, with awareness but no pain – his limbs crack, reshape, lengthen, then quickly heal. Stronger than before. Stronger than bone, than steel.

A thick secretion spilled from his pores, hardened around him, over him. His back broadened, shoulders separated and extended, muscle ripped apart and regrew, sinew sprouting like weeds inside as his skin became shell.

His new mind started to finalize its ultimate form, and the part of him still human wondered if he would fly, if he would swarm with his brothers, his children, and watch the destruction of what mankind had built from high above, caressed by the cool mist of clouds, the warmth of the One God spread across his impenetrable carapace like a guiding hand, the hand of a father.

They will call him Ateuchus, and when he emerged the new world would begin. His creatures, having created this new man, will scream like locusts, “See him! See the great one, uniting the earth!”