Dot woke up feeling like someone had stuffed her mouth and brain with cotton.
She stared for a while at the ceiling, trying hard to remember what had happened before she fell asleep. Her head swam with distorted memories she couldn't make sense of, most of them involving strange ants with exoskeletons the color of midnight. Mushrooms sprouting from the walls around her gave the room a faint red glow, ominous compared to the calming greens and blues of her anthill.
Dot tried in vain to sit up, but all the strength left in her body was being used for breathing and blinking. Her limbs felt heavy, like someone had bolted them to the floor, while her fingers and toes had no feeling at all. She couldn't even lift her head up from the ground.
The panic finally set in.
"Help!" she cried. Her voice came out raspy, like someone had scraped her throat with a cactus leaf. "Someone help me! I can't move!"
"It'll fade in a few minutes."
The voice came from somewhere to her left. It didn't belong to any of the ants in her memories, all of whom were male ants much older than she was.
It belonged to a girl.
"How do you know it'll fade?" Dot demanded, suddenly bold now that she was speaking to someone closer to her age. "Did you do this to me?"
"Of course not!" The girl sounded genuinely offended by the accusation. "It was probably one of Zinc's men. They always carry those poison-tipped cactus spines with them."
Zinc.
A clearer face flashed into Dot's mind. Scarlet irises, pointed nose, slashes of berry juice that looked like bleeding wounds on his forehead and beneath his eyes.
She remembered now. She remembered everything.
"Am I in Zinc's kingdom?" she whispered, fear clutching her heart as she waited for the answer.
Her question was met with a bitter laugh. "Sure, if you want to call it that. I suppose we all might as well."
Dot furrowed her brows as she began curling and uncurling her fingers and toes, which were just starting to tingle with feeling again. "Well, he kept saying he wanted me to come visit his colony," she said, shuddering inwardly as she pictured the ant's glittering smile. "I guess I assumed that meant he was the king."
Her feelers twitched with the soft patter of footsteps coming near. A shadow fell over Dot, and she found herself staring into the scowling face of another ant who looked just about her age.
"He can call himself whatever he wants," the girl said fiercely, her hands balling into fists. "He'll never be my king."