The Glimmer Note 2 – Chapter 1

Ava: The New Queen

7/17/2023 - 4:30pm

It was my 18th birthday. It was a lot of other kids’ 18th birthday as well. And tomorrow, it will be a lot other kids’ 18th birthday too. And the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that. I’m not just being facetious either. I know, of course, that this is the case for everyone on the planet. Every day is a birthday for a lot of people. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about my sisters.

My name is Ava, otherwise known as #73 to my peers and as Designation 1_073 to the adults. Well, I guess I’m an adult now too. The adultier adults then, I guess. For a lot of humans, their 18th birthday is supposed to be a special day for them. For me, it doesn’t feel that special. Not when three hundred of my sisters are celebrating the same day.

The adultier adults have been telling us that this is the day we get to leave the compound and start our own lives. For a long time, I worried what the humans would think of us. We’re not like them. We have four arms, not two. Our hands are basically mittens – no fingers. We make do, of course. Our head is egg shaped - the fronts of our faces are pushed outward instead of relatively flat like the humans are. Our eyes are large and solid black. We don’t have noses, we ‘smell’ with the thick, black antennae that sprout from under our hair. And that’s just the stuff you notice first. Supposedly, we share similarities with insects, and if the antennae wasn’t enough to hint at that, just above our butts sprouts an ‘insect’-like abdomen. Our mother lays eggs with it, though ours aren’t as big as the one she has. And none of us has laid an egg. Thankfully.

I sat at a table in a suspended hallway over the cafeteria, looking down at the sea of heads below. A sea of completely identical heads. I’ve heard humans sometimes have problems telling twins apart. I can only imagine how hard it is to tell the few hundred of us apart. I suppose that’s why we’re numbered, and that number is sown into all of our clothes. Not even mother can remember all of our names. It’s sad, sometimes, but I don’t think anyone is even capable of doing that. For as long as I’ve been alive, mother’s laid a fertile egg twice a week. Add to the three hundred children she started with, and she has over two thousand children. All of them are genetically identical to her and every other one of us. My family is as big as some rural towns. I’ve seen pictures of this compound we’re in back when it was first built. You could compare it to a particularly large mall. It’s a veritable city now. We’re not the only ones who live here either. The other families make up the other half of the compound. We don’t see them much, but all seven family groups added together barely equal our single family. Still, that’s close to five thousand people in this one system of buildings.

My sisters celebrated their first day of adulthood in a big party in the cafeteria below, but I wasn’t with them. I’m never with them. I’m different. See, there’s one thing that separates my sisters from my mother – their breasts. Mother has four, for some reason, but all of them have two. But me? I have four as well. Four large, uncomfortable breasts. I’m the only one among my two thousand sisters that has to wear two bras. It doesn’t help that my abdomen is different too. Theirs are all small and rounded. And although mine isn’t as large as Mother’s, it’s bigger than my sisters’ and it tapers to a point like Mother’s. I wouldn’t get to leave the compound like they all did, despite what the adultier adults have told us. Mother wouldn’t tell me why, even when I managed to talk to her. She’s been pretty sad lately. A few weeks ago, Mother stopped laying eggs for good, so I guess that would be why.

My stomach twisted and I grimaced. I’ve been having pains in my stomach all morning. I went to see a nurse, but she said all I had was a weird stomach bug. It wasn’t contagious, so I was free to wander. No one else was sick. But that was the weird part. Illness travels quickly when surrounded by so many people. But I suppose since it wasn’t contagious, then it wouldn’t travel at all. But, then, how did I get sick? I’ve never even been outside before.

I got up and left the hallway. I didn’t need to watch my sisters have fun without me. They never liked me anyway. They made fun of me for being different. That’s fine. Mother always liked me best anyway. I didn’t know why, but it was obvious that she did. After all, she remembered my name.

My stomach lurched again and I drooped against the wall, gripping my middle. I gasped as I noticed that my stomach was slightly swollen. I ran a hand over it and felt the small bump. That wasn’t right. Just under our skin was a thin, but sturdy layer of chitin. It acted as an exoskeleton does for bugs – we just have skin over the top of it. Our breasts grow over the top of the chitin, but that’s the only exception. Our bodies didn’t swell – anywhere. They couldn’t. The only explanation is that the chitin over my stomach had softened and was being stretched – somehow, for some reason.

This wasn’t a simple illness. I needed to see the nurse again, immediately. I hurried my walk down the hall and made a right. Pain erupted in my abdomen again, and I was forced to stop. I breathed heavily, trying to lessen the pain, but then I could feel the swelling in my abdomen get worse. I cupped the mound my middle was developing into. My heart raced. There was something very wrong with me.

I needed to keep moving. Still in pain, I kept walking. With my bottom set of arms, I clutched my middle and I steadied myself against the wall with my upper right hand. Tears stained my eyes, more from fear than the pain itself. But after a few minutes of hobbling, I made it to the nurse’s office for this portion of the building… only to find her not in her office. I groaned and fell to my knees as my stomach burned again. This was getting ridiculous. I could see the shape of my belly under my shirt now. This had never happened to any of my sisters before – why me!?

Despite my mental complaints and frantic groans, my belly kept swelling. I could feel it push against my hand, inflating slowly like some kind of balloon. I couldn’t stay here. But where do I go? I pulled myself to my feet, despite the fact that my belly was still growing. My abdomen bobbed awkwardly as I righted myself. It didn’t used to do that. I turned to look at it only to find that it, too, was growing. It was starting to resemble my mother’s more and more by the second. My eyes went wide and my heart leapt to my throat. No, I couldn’t be… could I? I hoped against hope that I was wrong.

But maybe Mother did have the answer. I continued my hobbling down the hall. Thankfully, her room wasn’t far, but my dress was already riding up from the size of my belly. Then I groaned as my bras started to feel tight. Now my boobs were growing!? They were big enough as it was! Sure enough, they were D-cups already, having started at Cs. By the time I made it my mother’s room, my dress appeared to hide a basketball instead of my stomach. My breath caught in my throat as the sides of my dress began to tear under the strain. Tears slid down my cheeks. Even though the pain had gone, my belly still stretched. I struggled to hit the buzzer next to the door as my belly passed the size of a beach ball. I shivered as my abdomen swelled enough for the sensitive tip to scrape the floor. A chime rang from the other side of the door and there was shuffling inside.

As the door opened, I yelled out in a strained cry, “M-mother! Help me! S-something’s happening to me!”

Mother opened her eyes wide as she saw me, then her expression grew sympathetic. With a small smile, she reached out to help me up from the floor I had sunken to. Before saying anything, she awkwardly led me to center of the room. Then she said with a cheerful voice, “You’re going to be a mommy, Ava! Just like me!”

A chill went through me, and I relied more on Mother’s support to stay standing as my belly grew even more. “M-mommy!? Then these…” I looked down at my belly then back up to Mother’s sympathetic gaze. “They’re… B-but I don’t wanna be a mommy! W-why me –ah!” I was interrupted as my bras snapped and my breasts flopped free. They approached the size of my head and were uncomfortably stacked above my exercise ball of a belly.

Mother frowned. “I had anticipated that this would be the case since you hatched. You were different. Now I know why I stopped laying. A new queen had developed. None of your sisters can ever have kids of their own. You, as the new mother, will lay the next generation for them.” She calmly lowered my belly to the floor, leaving me and my breasts draped over it. As my budges relaxed, my dress completely tore down each side, and Mother helped pull it off of me.

I looked up to her frantically. “B-but that’s not fair! I d-don’t want to do that! I want to live my life, not be stuck laying eggs forever! I-” I groaned as the track that connected my belly and abdomen swelled, presumably with eggs. My abdomen was still swelling and lengthening. It was as long as my body and twice as thick. The opening at the end began to leak fluids. I blushed and looked away from it, embarrassed. And yet, just as the pain of it all had stopped a while ago, the feeling of her breasts growing, my belly swelling beneath her, my abdomen stretching across the carpet – it felt good. It shouldn’t feel good! This was bad! But I couldn’t deny that some primal part of me wanted this.

Mother frowned at my fear. “Look, I know it’s scary, trust me. But you’ll come to enjoy it, I think. Just as I did. And then, someday in the future when the next queen is chosen, you can do whatever you want. For now though, just go along with it. There’s no use fighting it. You were destined for this since you were born, and there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid. One of your children, probably one that’s already growing inside of you, will be in the same spot when they become an adult too.”

I couldn’t respond. My voice didn’t work. All I could do is breathe as the feelings of growth washed over me. My belly was just as tall as I was, and I was still growing. Mild tension grew on the underside of my abdomen and belly as my feet were lifted from the ground by my egg sac. “W-w-why s-so m-much!?” I managed to struggle out.

“I don’t know, really. I was the same way. I guess we’re programmed to start with a big batch before we started laying on schedule,” Mother said idly as she scrolled a wheel on a watch she had on her upper right wrist. “Emily?” she said into it.

Emily’s voice sounded through a speaker in the watch. “Oh, Juni, what’s up? Not at the party with your daughters?”

Mother shook her head. “No, I had to stay in my room and look after Ava. Speaking of, you mind coming up here?”

“Oh! Is it time? I’ll get Sam and we’ll head up!”

Mother nodded. “Thank you.” She pressed a button on her watch and started moving furniture out of the way.

I was panting at this point. “D-d-did everyone know about this but me!? Wh-why didn’t you tell me!?” I groaned again as a way of pleasure ran through me. I shouldn’t be enjoying this, I can’t be enjoying this!

“Well, I thought it best not to. I felt you should grow up like everyone else. That you didn’t think yourself too different than the others. Maybe I shouldn’t have. In any case, Ava, I’m sorry. I just… I do hope you accept your role. It’s going to be a lot better on you if you do.” Mother walked over and rubbed her four hands against the side of my belly.

I shivered as she touched my tight skin. I couldn’t think when she did that. She had to stop. No, she shouldn’t stop. It felt too good. No one else had to do this, to lay eggs for the whole of their young adulthood. But no one else could feel what I felt. Never had I felt so much pleasure. The skin around my abdomen and my belly and my breasts began to feel tighter and tighter. I had to look down at mother now, as my belly beneath me had grown six feet across. I could see the shapes of the round eggs beneath my taut skin. My eggs. I wanted them. Why did I want them? I shivered again as my abdomen brushed against the far wall and was forced to curve to keep growing. It had lost its rounded, egg-like shape. It resembled more of slug stuffed with round shapes inside. When would it end? I was going to run of space to grow!

I ducked my head as my antennae brushed against the roof. It was a small room – the roof was only eight feet from the ground. My breasts pulled heavily on my torso. Surely each weighed more than I had before all this. My four nipples were fat and throbbing. Milk began to bead at the tips. And for what!? My children wouldn’t need breastmilk! They were hatched from eggs!

I draped my arms across my belly as it finally stopped swelling. Even hunched over like this, the roof was only a few inches from the top of my head. I could feel the liquid oozing from the opening at the tip of my abdomen. Surely it wouldn’t be long now. Would it hurt? I had hundreds of eggs inside me; if it hurt to lay them, how am I going to handle them all?

Suddenly, I felt the eggs inside shift and clack inside of me as one brushed against the opening. I squirmed as pressure began to build against it.

“Its okay, Ava! Just breathe, and you’ll be fine! Let them come,” Mother reassured.

Easy for her to say! I wanted nothing more than to get them out of me! But the pressure built and built. They needed out! Out! I struggled and pushed and then I cried out as my opening stretched and the first egg crowned. It didn’t hurt so much as take a lot of effort. The egg slipped harmlessly onto the carpet floor. Soon came the second and I was already tired.

“Keep it up!” Mother called out as she went to retrieve the egg and move it somewhere safer. I was five eggs in by the time Emily and Sam showed up to help. Emily stood back and jotted numbers on a clipboard while Sam helped Mother move the eggs around.

-~-~-~-

Later that night

I laid atop my piles of breast flesh, gasping as the last of the eggs vacated my abdomen. Though my abdomen had shrunken to be only half again as big as it used to be, my belly was still swollen, as if hiding an egg. Emily assured me that I was done, though. I guess my belly is stuck like this forever now, like my mother’s is. Hopefully it didn’t take my breasts too long to shrink.

So this is my life for the foreseeable future. Emily and Sam call me ‘Ava’ now, instead of just Designation 1_073 so at least I finally mean something. And… I’m a mother. That’s not… so bad, right? I look forward to meeting my children. All of 573 of them. And more, I know, will be on the way.