I leaned against the velvet-covered headboard of my royal bed, my head throbbing like a drum set in a hurricane.
"Okay, before I go out and pretend to be 'His Royal Highness,' I need to actually feel the hardware. Sera, let's do a quick sync. I want to feel the inside of an aunt....ant"
I closed my eyes. "Be right back..."
The world shifted.
And it shifted again and I snapped back into my human body a second later, gasping for air, clutching my skull as if it were about to leak out of my ears. My vision was swimming with static, and my skin felt like a thousand tiny needles were vibrating at a frequency only a psychopath could enjoy.
"Holy mother of sweet, merciful... everything," Alex wheezed, falling off the bed and hitting the rug. "No wonder our dear departed Lion Prince's mind turned into a pile of mashed potatoes. That's total freaking brain-melting experience right there. And I've had my brain actually melted in my past life! This was still worse. It's like being trapped inside a subwoofer at a rave hosted by demons."
I wiped a bit of drool from my chin. "Sera? You there? Please tell me you were monitoring my brain functioning so you can fix that 'being-inside-a-blender' sensation."
[Negative,] Sera's voice echoed, cool and unbothered by the fact that I was currently eating carpet. [I was also transported with you. Based on the bio-rhythmic feedback, I conclude our consciousness moves as a singular unit.]
"Oh, wonderful," I muttered, dragging myself back up. "So you were in the blender too? Then why didn't you do something? Why was I left to experience the majestic beauty of 'Total Sensory Chaos'?"
[I was processing the data and calculating the necessary procedural actions to stabilize your perception,] she replied.
"Great. So what data did you get, oh wise one?"
[You were in a high-density ant nest. Your senses were overloaded by three primary factors: a cocktail of overlapping pheromones, the vibrations of thousands of siblings moving through the soil, and your own biological limitations. Your vision as an ant is fundamentally weak. What you perceived as a blurry, vibrating nightmare was simply a tunnel.]
"Right. A tunnel. Cool. Any solution before I dive back in and lose my lunch?"
[I will implement an Augmented Reality overlay onto your visual field,] Sera stated. [I will filter the pheromonal 'noise' into color-coded trails and outline the blurry geometry of your surroundings to give you something to focus on. It should keep you... relatively sane.]
"Oh, well. At least you can do something since you don't pay rent. Fine. Round two. Don't let me bite my tongue."
Alex dove again.
The overload hit—that screaming buzz of a thousand lives—but this time, the world snapped into focus. Glowing neon-blue lines traced the edges of the dirt tunnels. Red and yellow pheromone trails snaked across the floor like a high-stakes game of Tron. The blurry shapes of other ants suddenly had sharp, white outlines. It was still a six-legged hellhole, but at least now it was a navigable six-legged hellhole.
"Look at me," I clicked my mandibles, watching a worker scuttle past me in high-definition. "I'm a Prince of the Leovaris Empire, and my current career path is 'Underground Garbage Man.' If my father could see me now, he'd probably step on me himself just to save the family name the embarrassment."
I shook my tiny, chitinous head. "Let's get moving towards an exit. I don't want to stay in this hole any longer than I have to. Before I start killing these... my brothers, sisters, uncles, and my dear mother queen who's currently shooting kids out of her ass like arrows from a high-speed ballista."
I started walking, my six legs moving in a rhythmic, Sera-assisted sync.
"Hey Sera, analyze the body structure. Give me the tactical breakdown. What can I actually use to kill beasts in this world without dying in 0.5 seconds?"
[Analyzing...] A technical diagram flashed in the corner of my vision. [You possess mandibles for crushing and an acid gland for ranged chemical attacks. Your skin is a natural exoskeleton.]
"And what can I kill with this masterpiece of evolution? A god? A dragon? A very small, very depressed lizard?"
[Current projections suggest you can successfully engage other ants, termites, and perhaps smaller beetles.]
" Sera, it'll take hundreds of years at that speed! I have a palace to rule and people to annoy. I don't have 'centuries-of-ant-grinding' time."
[Correct. And based on average ant biology, your lifespan shouldn't be that long anyway.]
"Encouraging as always."
I kept walking, following a blue line Sera highlighted, until I noticed a thick, pulsating red line cutting across the path. My ant-body suddenly felt a strange, magnetic pull.
"Uh, Sera? Why am I moving towards that red line? My legs are doing that 'auto-pilot' thing again."
[That seems like a concentrated pheromone trail,] Sera explained. [It must be the 'Royal Call.' It leads to the mating chamber. Male ants in ant colony are primarily utilized for mating.]
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back the truck up. I am not taking part in any kinky ant stuff!"
I dug my six legs into the dirt, fighting the biological urge to join the orgy. I stopped just at the edge of a massive, open cavern. Inside, hundreds of male ants were tearing into each other, a literal mosh-pit of death and pheromones, all fighting for the 'honor' of a one-time date with a new queen.
"This is the worst day of my new life," I whispered, watching a male ant get his head snapped off by a rival. "Is this it? Is this the grand design? I was given a second chance just to get stuck in a bug-themed 'Bachelor' episode? Or is there some god up there just eating popcorn and watching ant porn at my expense?"
I turned 180 degrees and scuttled the other way.
"New plan, Sera. We find something to kill that isn't a relative, and we do it fast. I am not ending my reincarnation as an 'after sex snack.'"