Crawlers

11:26am

The Swatham Academy for Girls. A cubicle in the student toilets in the science block, two weeks later.

'I'm telling you,' Jasmine said into her phone, 'something weird is definitely going on. Samantha and Lauren are going around acting exactly the way they were before - like nothing even happened. Then, as if that wasn't weird enough, there's Lisa: today when I passed the school gates she was in the middle of a crowd. As I went by, all the girls around her turned to look at me. They smiled - all of them, all at once. Well?' she added. 'What does that remind you of, Ben?' 

Ben's reply was hard to hear, almost drowned out as it was by a passing group of boys behind him. Mobiles were still forbidden at his school: he was having to call Jasmine from a payphone. 

Jasmine sighed. 'I'm sorry. I know you believe me. I know you do. But I just get so frustrated. It's like no one who was there wants to admit what happened - like they prefer the official version, because it's less scary. And you know what the worst thing is? Sometimes... I feel the same way.' 

Jasmine bit her lip. 'Those squashed crawlers in the security room: we thought they were dead too,' she said. 'What if we didn't kill her, Ben? Because if she did escape, if she's out there right now taking more subjects, making more surrogates, hatching... whew. I'm not sure I even want to think about it myself.' 

Jasmine listened to what Ben had to say. She smiled. 

'Yeah,' she said softly. 'You watch yourself, too. Speak soon.' She blew him a kiss, pressed the button to end the call, and opened the cubicle door. 

'Well, well,' said Samantha, who was standing outside. 'What have we here?' 

For a moment Jasmine was so startled she couldn't reply. 

The sudden jangle of the school bell for the end of morning break gave her the second she needed to collect herself. 

'My private conversations are none of your business,' she said, and pushed past. 

'Oh yeah?' crowed Lauren. 'And who do you think you are? Queen of Everything?' 

Samantha and Lauren grinned at each other, then followed Jasmine out of the toilets. The door swung shut. The noise of the students in the corridor outside faded away. The only sound was the faint drip-dripping from one of the basins. 

The dripping stopped. Then, with an effort, a thumbnail-sized creature pulled itself out of the tap. 

It had five legs. It was not alone.

Oh, the children had hurt me, certainly. If I had not feigned death, Jasmine and the others might even have actually killed me. But once out of their sight, I was more than capable of limping to safety. Wounded but very much alive, I left the Barbican to its fate and took to the sewers. 

My plan progresses well. Each hour brings fresh hatchings, and my hands now reach across this world. I control your leaders. I hide in the embraces of lovers and family; I crawl into your beds and take more of you as you sleep. Soon my present need for stealth will pass, for I will rule you completely. 

You, reading these words now, a question: Are you quite certain you aren't mine already? 

Check yourself. Find nothing. But remember: with those who might resist me I have learned to be less... direct. Perhaps you only feel what I allow you to feel. Perhaps the hand you raise to the back of your neck fails to detect the royal hand already upon you. 

Prepare. My rule begins.