Chapter 7: The Nest

Chapter 7: The Nest

The video on his phone was an unerasable scar on his memory. Alex had deleted it, but the images were seared onto the back of his eyelids: his own blank face, the methodical grinding of his jaw, the low, alien hum vibrating from his chest. He was no longer just a host; he was becoming a tool, a piece of living machinery being repurposed for a gruesome, unknowable task.

He spent the next day in a fugue of quiet terror, barricaded in his own home. He didn't answer his uncle's angry calls. He didn't eat. Food was tasteless ash in his mouth. What was the point of eating when his body was being programmed with a different, more ancient appetite?

It began subtly. A nagging emptiness. A hollowness deep in his gut that no amount of food could fill. By evening, it had sharpened into a specific, undeniable craving. It wasn't for salt or sugar. It was a phantom taste on his tongue, a deep, cellular yearning for the dry, fibrous texture of old oak. For the resinous, dusty flavor of the roll-top desk.

The memory of himself chewing on his own furniture in the video was no longer just a source of horror; it was now a source of deep, gnawing temptation. The beetle in his pocket, which he could no longer bear to look at but was physically unable to discard, pulsed with a faint, insistent warmth against his thigh. It was a compass, and it was pointing him in only one direction.

“No,” he whispered to the empty room, clutching his head. “I’m not going back there.”

But his body betrayed him. His legs felt restless, jittery. The skittering sensation under his skin intensified, an impatient army demanding to march. The craving was a physical ache now, a tightening in his jaw, an insatiable need to grind his teeth against something solid. He was a puppet, and the puppeteer was growing impatient.

He found himself standing by the door, his car keys already in his hand. He had no memory of getting them. He looked at his own reflection in the dark glass of the door pane—a pale, haunted face with wild eyes. This was his last chance. He could throw the keys away, lock himself in the bathroom, break his own leg if he had to.

But the craving was a tide, and his will was a sandcastle. With a sense of soul-crushing inevitability, he walked out into the night.

The Abernathy house was a black silhouette against a bruised, moonless sky. He still had the spare key Uncle Joe kept on the truck’s visor; he’d pocketed it days ago for reasons he hadn’t understood then, but which were now terrifyingly clear. The lock turned with a well-oiled click, and the door swung open, releasing a concentrated wave of that familiar metallic stench. It smelled like home. The thought was so alien, so horrifying, he almost threw up on the porch.

He didn’t turn on the lights. He didn't need to. He moved through the dark, debris-strewn rooms with an unnatural certainty, drawn by the invisible thread connecting him to the study. The room was just as they had left it, the floorboards raw and sanded, the air thick with the ghost of the stained carpet. His eyes fixed on the empty space where the roll-top desk had once stood. But the desk wasn’t what he was here for. The source was still here.

He remembered Uncle Joe grumbling about the desk being too heavy, how they’d had to take it apart to get it out of the house. They’d left the largest, heaviest piece—the base with the leg panels—in the garage, to be dealt with later.

The craving pulled him there. The garage was cold and damp, smelling of oil and rot. And there it was, leaning against a wall: the husk of the roll-top desk. Driven by a will that was no longer his own, Alex grabbed a heavy pry bar from Joe’s toolkit. He wasn’t a renovator now; he was a predator tearing into its prey.

He slammed the tip of the pry bar into a seam between two panels. The old wood groaned in protest. He put his weight into it, his muscles straining, the hunger giving him a frantic, desperate strength. Splinters flew. The varnish cracked. He wasn't looking for a secret button or a hidden latch. He was simply obeying the command to open.

With a final, wrenching shriek of tortured wood, a large side panel tore away from the frame. It fell to the concrete floor with a heavy thud, revealing not the hollow interior he expected, but a false backing of thin, dark cedar. And behind it, something was wrong. The space wasn't empty. It was packed full.

Alex dropped the pry bar. It clattered loudly in the sudden silence. He reached in with a trembling hand and touched the objects within. They were smooth, heavy, and cool to the touch. Stone. He pulled one out and held it up in the gloom.

It was a beetle. Identical to his own, but for the veins, which were a dull, lifeless grey.

His blood turned to ice. He reached back into the cavity, his hands pulling out one after another. Two. Five. A dozen. The hidden compartment was a tightly packed clutch of them, a nest of stone insects nestled in a bed of dried, crumbling leaves and what looked like human hair. There were dozens of them, all dormant, all identical, all waiting. This wasn't a unique artifact. It was an egg. And he had just stumbled into the hatchery.

At the very bottom of the compartment, his fingers brushed against something else. Something rectangular and soft. He pulled it out. It was a small, leather-bound journal, its cover cracked and brittle with age. He flipped it open. The pages were filled with a spidery, frantic handwriting that he recognized instantly from the newspaper article. Alistair Abernathy’s final testament.

He read by the thin, pale light of his phone, his body numb with a horror that went beyond simple fear.

October 12th. The Seed is a marvel. Its influence grows daily. It showed me the hollow space in the desk. It is a perfect incubator. The wood will provide the initial energy.

Alex’s hand flew to his mouth, the memory of sawdust and splinters sickeningly fresh. He read on, his eyes scanning the mad, looping script.

November 3rd. It has a name for me. For what I am to become. The Collector. It says the seed requires a vessel to prepare the Nest. It chose me for my obsession, my willingness to see what others cannot. My weakness has become my purpose.

The dream. The words of the desiccated Abernathy echoed in his mind. The Collector is the vessel. He was reading his own future.

December 7th. The hunger for wood is… distracting. But necessary. The book says the glyph must be charged with life force before the Nest can be fully activated. The local strays will suffice for now. It is a messy but vital part of the process. The vessel must gather. All for her.

Nibbles. The puncture marks. The glowing veins. It wasn't just a feeding. It was a sacrifice. A charging.

He flipped to the last entry, the handwriting almost an illegible scrawl.

January 19th. My work is almost done. The Nest is ready. The others are waiting. My own life force fades, but it is a worthy trade. The Collector is a temporary role, a caretaker until the Nest is secure. Soon, the Queen will stir. She will need the Master Key to unlock the final gate. She will need her first true vessel. And he will come, just as I did. He will not be able to resist the call.

As Alex’s eyes absorbed the final, prophetic words, a sound broke the silence.

Click.

It was a small, dry sound. Like a pebble striking glass. It came from the pile of stone beetles on the concrete floor beside him. He froze, his gaze slowly lifting from the journal.

Click. Click.

Another beetle stirred. Then a third. A soft, rustling, chittering sound began to fill the cold air of the garage—the sound from the deepest heart of his nightmare, now made real. He looked at the pile of carvings, his phone's light shaking in his hand.

One by one, then in a horrifying, synchronous wave, the dormant stone beetles began to unfold. Their six, needle-sharp legs emerged from their seamless carapaces, scraping against the concrete with a sound like a thousand tiny scalpels being sharpened at once. The Nest was waking up. And he was trapped in the middle of it.