Strange Insects

This was another normal day for the 18-year-old Dante. He had finished school today and even graduated a few hours ago. It was fun since he could finally say goodbye to the school that had been sleep-depriving him for the past few years.

It was so bad that he barely got 5 hours of sleep every day. But, luckily there were lots of free days throughout the school year when he could sleep all day long, and let's not forget the weekend. That was his most precious time to sleep and waste his time like that.

So, he was now underway to the bakery to get some fresh bread. He was hungry and hadn't eaten for a few hours already. The bakery was also close by, so he quickly went to it and left it with some fresh, warm bread in a plastic bag.

Right when he looked at the blue sky that was gradually losing its colors, a bright light suddenly entered his vision. Because of this, he had covered his eyes and did not see what that bright light was.

Nevertheless, the next second, an enormous explosion occurred nearby. And not even a second later, another one occurred. Explosions kept happening quite close by, which was no more than a few kilometers. The explosions were deafening and caused chaos.

Dante himself did not panic, but certainly felt shocked by what was happening. What was that bright light, actually? Was what Dante was thinking right now while running away from all the nearby explosions.

People flooded the streets trying to run away, while some of them remained inside to only die a second later because of an explosion. Each second, many died, and there would soon be a bloodbath with human corpses everywhere.

But that was not the only thing people had to be concerned with. There were also strange-looking creatures flying around the city that looked like insects. There were lots of them, not able to count them all, but they were at least a few thousand.

The strange insects then flew into the city and disappeared from everyone's sight. Many saw these strange insects, including Dante, who was still running away. He still had his bread with him for some reason and continued to run away.

Whoosh.

After he thought that none of the strange insects would find him, they did actually find him. Lots of them did. Dante looked behind him and took a closer look at them while he was at it. The strange insects were not that fast with those huge insect-like wings behind them. They had two huge legs on their front with sharp-looking claws that could definitely kill a human in one shot. They had a long stinger behind their back which almost looked like it was a bee, but with a few changes to its body.

Not only that, but they were rather big, around 1.5 m, and had insect-like wings behind them. They all had various colors which were green, purple, yellow, red, and black. There were lots of green, purple, and yellow ones, while there was a small amount of red and black.

But other than that, they looked really creepy to any human who faced them. They seemed really slow at first, but they gradually caught up. This was because Dante was close to exhaustion and was almost at his limit to running. He was slowing down each second and became slower and slower the more he tried to run.

There was nowhere for him to run away from anymore because cars, buildings, and human corpses literally piled upon the city, making it more difficult for him to pass through. Before he realized it, he had already collapsed to the ground.

Breathing heavily while looking up at the sky, Dante gave up. He would die any second now, so he might as well come to terms with his death and hopefully die a quick death. He would rather not die a brutal death, so he hoped that these strange insects could just get this over with.

Then, the head of one of the thousand strange insects popped up into the view of Dante. He saw the head and stared at it, not daring to move his head. The longer he looked at it, the more terrified he became. He could not breathe properly and felt like he was being choked. Then, the strange insect put one of its claws on Dante's forehead for a second before retreating it back.

Right after the strange insect retreated its claws, Dante's body began to change in color, which was now green. It was a strange phenomenon, which Dante himself did not notice. He felt dizzy, and his eyes became blurry, making him unable to see something correctly. Not even a minute later, he could barely move his arms or legs anymore.

His whole body was beginning to ache while in the middle of his body, his heart was beginning to hurt him each second. It was difficult to breathe, and he could hear his heart pumping really loud.

After ten minutes of constant pain, Dante's skin began to fade the more time passed. It became darker and darker until the point it turned completely black. His hair was also completely gone, his nails turned into sharp claws that were relatively smaller than the strange insect's claws, and he had lost his sight and hearing. Once the transformation was done, Dante died on the spot.

The countless strange insects that were surrounding the corpse of Dante then began to move one by one. The first one suddenly became as small as a human's hand, and then disappeared right after from anyone's sight. It had entered the soul of Dante. A soul that resides in every human that is accessible for a short amount of time after a human dies.

One by one, they all disappeared from sight and entered the soul of Dante. Not a single living creature saw this for some reason. They did this rather quick. At last was a black one that stared for a few seconds at the corpse of Dante before also entering the soul.

This did not happen only to Dante but to countless other people, this phenomenon affected even animals. The whole world experienced this complete chaos that was happening because of these strange insects that looked like normal insects but were bigger and more dangerous.

Each day, the military exterminated thousands of those insects, but unfortunately could not do anything to the insects who had entered the body of humans. Humanity still decided to help those stuck with the insects inside of them and brought them to hospitals.

Months passed by like this and the total outcome of this was that more than 50% of humanity had 'died' with an insect inside of them while 10% had died before an insect could invade their body, while the rest of the humans remained human. But that also didn't last long before almost every human turned into something that looked like an insect and went into a coma.

The whole world came to a standstill and waited for the people to awaken from their coma. They were all still alive, even though they looked like insects, but were for some reason sleeping.

Four years passed by like this. Humanity had adjusted to this, and almost every human that was invaded by an insect woke up. Their appearance also gradually changed back to a human's and looked like almost nothing had happened.

But, then someone discovered that they had strange powers and see something terrifying the moment they fall deep asleep. That's how they all came to know they all had their own Parasite Abilities.

But that was also when they discovered that they all possessed strange powers that probably originated from the insects inside of them. That's also how they came to know that they had their respective powers, which they call Parasite Abilities.

Humanity slowly but surely tried to look for a possibility to remove this, but unfortunately could not find anything that could remove these insects from within them. Then, they thought that it would be better to use these powers to protect themselves. Nowadays, people with Parasite Abilities began to mass murder almost each second they get ever since they learned that they could easily kill people with their newfound strength that far surpassed human strength.

Another 4 years passed, and every human woke up from their coma. Everyone except Dante. The doctors were concerned as to why he was not waking up. His appearance was now of a human's, and he was still alive but did not wake up.

One day, Dante suddenly woke up out of nowhere. No one by his side, a white room and a strange bed he was sitting on. He was confused. 'Where am I?' That was his first thought. But then he experienced a tremendous headache and fell unconscious.

Inside a wide black room, there was Dante. This place was not Earth that Dante knew, but a place off-limits other than himself that could enter it. Suddenly, an enormous head appeared before Dante, whose eyes were still closed.

The moment it appeared, Dante's eyes also gradually opened. Opening them and then looking at the massive head, Dante screamed for his life for the first time since he woke up. He was panicking for some reason, and it instilled a strange fear in him when he looked at this huge head, taking over him.

'This is like those strange insects I saw before I died...' thought Dante. He didn't realize that years had already passed by and that he had just now woken up and was not on Earth but rather in his own dream.

"W-Who are you?" He stuttered and asked the huge head. The huge head instead said nothing, which Dante of course expected. Who would expect an insect-looking head to speak, anyway? How stupid would that be?

Instead, the enormous head did not move and simply looked at Dante, who was distancing himself from it.

Instead, the insect-looking head was merely looking at the nervous Dante, who was gradually distancing himself from it.