Beeing a Honey Of a Heroine
At just 16 years old, Asaney was a girl who put her life on the line almost every day collecting honey bee with other teenagers.
This group of honey gatherers always acted together to protect each other against any threat. But, above all, from the African bees themselves.
Asaney used to be the one who collected the most, climbing quickly up any tree. She always wanted more.
In fact, one day she took a different route because she had seen that in the most virgin area of the jungle there was a huge yellowish tree whose branches and leaves had turned into pure honey.
In the distance, Asaney heard the echoing cries of her companions asking her to turn back, but the teenager only thought that if she managed to get hold of all that honey, she would live with her grandmother among fortunes.
Then Asaney lit her torch to start scaring away the bees that owned the tree, as usual. Incredibly for her, many of the insects left without even trying to sting her.
She was the happiest girl in the world: a whole honey tree all to herself.
Asaney didn't know how much honey she had collected in a matter of half an hour, but she knew she would never go hungry with her grandmother again.
Back on the main trail, Asaney managed to show the impossibility of her feat to her companions, but they, instead of congratulating her, started running in panic in all directions.
“I know you're scared of a wealthy woman, guys, but do you really think I'll make you my servants?” asked Asaney with a chuckle as she watched them flee.
Within seconds, she heard the usual buzzing sound behind her. As soon as she turned around, she dropped all the honeycombs she was carrying and started running to get away from a swarm as big as a mountain.
She was being chased by so many East African bees, that for a moment Asaeny felt like she was lifted off the ground, only to let her crash to the it and be ferociously attacked.
Filled with hives and burning with uncontrollable fever, Asaney was treated not long after in the intensive care unit. Some natives who managed to rescue her, prayed for her life after miraculously freeing her from that infernal swarm of before.
The doctors' work to save her life was intense, but the chief physician, based on the experience from other cases, did not foresee any other fate for Asaney than death.
“I am really sorry, but there is little chance for her to be saved,” the chief physician commented to Osha, Asaney's cousin and only relative other than her grandmother, outside the ICU ward.
“Not only will she die, doctor, but also our grandmother and I,” Osha whispered with a face full of pain and tears streaming from her eyes incessantly.
The chief physician only gave Osha a nod before returning to the ICU room. Suddenly, he came out of the same door, but flying away. His body violently hit one of the hospital walls.
This scene was followed by a commotion inside the ICU ward. Screams and metal things falling to the floor could not stop being heard from outside.
Osha became desperate and instantly entered the ICU. Her frightened expression was only surpassed by what she saw: her beloved cousin Asaney had transformed into some kind of humanoid bee. Her dark complexion contrasted sharply with the golden lines adorning her body, along with large eyes, antennae and insect-like wings that raised her a few inches above the ground.
In addition, its jaw, arms and legs, parts with which it attacked the doctors, looked prominent for a human.
After having killed all the doctors who tried to save her from death, Asaney turned her attention to her cousin, who was trying to bring her back to her senses, although she was scared to death to see her transformed into a monster.
“Cousin, I don't know what happened, but Grandma and Osha need you,” she cried out a couple of times.
Soon Osha realized these pleas were useless. The new Asaney, the queen bee, began to shake her head anxiously and buzz in different frequencies, as if making more evident the loss of control over herself. This happened before she broke with great ease on the ceiling of the room and flew away until her cousin could see her no more.
There were weeks of intense searching by the authorities to find the mutant, but nothing came to satisfying results.
Asaney, some time after her transformation, wandered in a sentimental duality. On the one hand, she learned how to control her abilities, but on the other, she wept as she saw herself as a monster that no one would like.
Far from the village, specifically in the heart of the jungle, where she used to collect honey before, Asaney hid from any human presence.
From time to time, she would get bored of feeding on honey and leave her hiding place to fetch pollen.
But once upon a time when she visited the flowery meadows she loved so much, she found, instead, massive destruction. Thousands of goldiggers were exploiting the gold-rich area.
This generated a burst of emotions in Asaney who, without realizing it, caused thousands of bees to appear behind her out of nowhere. Unwittingly, she had summoned an army of insects ready to act on her command.
Raising her arms slowly, with a straight, tense posture, Asaney concentrated the army of bees above her before sending them on the attack with an addition that simulated the sting of a bee.
Frightful wailing all around. The bees attacked the goldiggers with such insanity that within seconds none were left alive.
Seeing this, the queen bee slowly descended among her subjects and evidenced in detail the great power she possessed.
This situation made her forget about the pollen. Instead, she saw with great appetite all the surrounding gold.
"What did the yellow of honey matter, if that of gold was infinitely richer," she said to herself.
“Grandmother, people of my beloved village, we will never go hungry again,” she uttered as a victory as she watched her bees diligently gathering the gold.
Asaney took it upon herself to negotiate all the gold collected with guerrillas in exchange for all kinds of food and goods for the people of her village.
Within days, all was prosperity in Asaney's village. Although the people feared her at first, she proved to them that she had control over her powers.
Her cousin became her right-hand woman as the days went by and her grandmother, whom she loved deeply, gradually began to enjoy better health with the medicines she could never buy.
Asaney was convinced to turn her village into a mini empire.
On the other hand, the authorities of her country were still looking for her more eagerly than ever after learning about the gold mines attacks.
They insisted so much that they went so far as to meet with enemies such as the guerrillas. Those who had previously helped Asaeny in her dreams were now about to make her live her worst nightmare.
With some of the gold seized and the location of the queen bee secured, the authorities, bringing their best men, were rubbing their hands together.
The plan was essentially to set a pollen-heavy trap for Asaney on the route she flew over to exchange gold.
Several dawns passed until one day, under the first rays of sunlight, the figure of the queen bee was camouflaged with the golden colors of the sun to pass with the precious mineral.
Her swift and silent flight came to a sudden halt. A juicy amount of pollen lay beneath her, and no matter how much she wanted to take her eyes off it, she ended up surrendering to the temptation.
Immediately, the authorities came out of their hiding places and fired powerful electric shocks that Asaney could not resist.
As if they were the same bees, the special team they sent in quickly collected the mutant's body and then moved it to a subway cell near a military barracks.
Asaney woke up a few days later with great pain in her body. She found it hard to move even her antennae. Only the feeling of failure was more painful for her. She had neither freedom nor her people.
The queen bee, turned prisoner, hardly saw the light of day nor was fed. Her cell was jealously guarded.
One day, however, Asaney noticed how the top cover of her cell was ajar. At first she hesitated to escape, but after seeing that it was not locked, she began to fly with extreme caution until she heard screams coming from everywhere.
“Mutant bee, save us,” said the muffled voice of a cell guard lying on the floor.
The barracks, the houses, the jungle, everything was being occupied by the locusts.
Still not knowing her limits, Asaney chinned up herself and with a great expression of concentration, began to spin on her own axis, waving her arms erratically.
She stayed like this for a few minutes. Her effort to call for her bees was enormous, but she unfortunately saw none appear.
It was simply the end. She saw more and more locusts taking over everything. In fact, they began to land on Asaney herself.
The queen bee had given up hope. Totally surrendered, she said goodbye to her grandmother and her cousin amidst the sounds of locusts.
There was a moment of silence in which Asaney thought she had surrendered to heaven, or some such place, but covering her eyes she realized she was still on Earth.
Bit by bit, Asaney watched as the locust swarm fell thanks to the attack of an even larger group of bees. Her fierce warriors had not forgotten her mother.
Asaney flew higher than where the pitched battle was taking place and happily contemplated how her guidelines were ridding her beloved land of the plague.
A moment that would have been as sweet as honey had it not been for the fact that, in the midst of the war, she realized that the locusts had wiped out all the people of his village.
With her bees victory, Asaney went down to see her grandmother once more. Her pale, yet smiling face somehow offered Asaney some relief in her soul that had suffered so much when being her so young.
Unexpectedly, the queen bee had to hasten her farewell because her subjects began to attack her. As much as she tried to control them, the bees continued to fear an offensive attitude towards her.
At first she didn't realize it, but once she got away from it all, she understood that the bees were acting this way because their queen was emotionally unstable.
For this reason, she decided to calm down by restarting her life far away from Africa, crossing the Atlantic in a golden sunset like her, perhaps in pursuit of a honeycomb where she could rule her honey empire forever.
