My Life with the Centipedes
My current reconnaissance estimates their numbers at somewhere around 5,000 strong with more babies being born every day. They are raised to be unfeeling killers – myriad-legged monsters with a taste for Flesh. What a fool I was to think I could defeat them with anything less than biological weaponry. Indeed not. They reproduce too quickly, and soon enough, the entire house will be overrun with these things. You can hear them scuttling underneath the floorboards, squeaking orders to the children, preparing them for their rise to military dominance. I have never seen such ruthless efficiency, and I am convinced that they are evolving. Even the spies are beginning to look like beheamoths as they cling to the walls motionless and entirely unafraid of the Giants cohabitating their would-be kingdom. I know that when the final onslaught comes, we will all be goners – the cats, the dog, the humans. The other animals having a fighting chance, though. They feed off of insects, and in the tortoise’s case, he has a nigh impenetrable shield.
But this didn’t have to be a war. I was ready to make my peace. As long as these bastards stayed in the kitchen or the den – as long as they kept within their walls, I was prepared to let them live (without paying rent, mind you) in harmony with the rest of us.
All hope for Peace is gone now. It has evaporated like rain on hot asphalt, but I have waited too long to wage this war. In letting my guard down, I allowed them to bolster their ranks and produce enough soldiers to sack the City of York. They will squirm and crawl and chew my eyeballs out of my sockets, but I don’t care. The minute one of their sentries decided to invade my bedroom, I knew it was time to fight back. I will not be a prisoner in my own home, nor will I play slave to an insect that is but 1/1000th of my size. Nay. It is down to Death or Victory now, and I’m afraid there is no going back. My compatriot and I have been slaying centipedes for weeks now – he the adults, and I the children. It cannot be folly to think they will attack soon. After all, they have suffered significant losses. We managed to assassinate one of their colonels who was perched above the toilet waiting to pounce on one of us while our pants were down. The Centipedal Horde demands satisfaction. They demand retaliation. They have been members Hammurabi’s school of thought from the beginning, but their entomological philosophies are irrelevant. Deep down, centipedes are full of ire and the avarice of domestic imperialism.
There is a strange vibration about the house these days – one that hints at impending Doom. Someday soon, we will see the Day of the Centipede, but we will die trying to defend what is ours, and with any luck, we will so severely decimate their armies that it will take them another twenty years to rebuild the empire.
Yet my spirits are dwindling along with my hope, for their is no chance for glory in the events to come. There is no hope of Victory or compromise. It is personal now for all of us. Our only chance is to form an alliance with the Spiders…
…and I’ve been their enemy for even longer.
