Gaia slowly opened her eyes, floating gently on a bright golden river surrounded by a world of complete darkness. The calm stream slowly pushed her downwards, further than her eyes could reach into the distance. The only light came from the river itself, small and twinkling like christmas decorations.

Gaia felt truly at peace as she slowly drifted towards a golden lake, shining bright like a warm sun. When she arrived, the water rippled as a few golden drops fell from the dark sky. She slowly started sinking into the golden substance, but she wasn’t scared or startled at all. All she did was close her eyes while she sunk deeper and deeper, as the golden light eveloped her completely.

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A soft breeze rustled Gaia’s leaves. She opened her eyes and looked around, only to find herself in her usual spot between tall blades of grass. The sun shone on her body and the dirt around her as she blinked and looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. Something felt strange.

‘What happened?’ She thought. ‘Did I fall asleep? But how though? And…’ She suddenly perked up.

‘Wow, I’m feeling amazing! What happened to me? How long was I asleep? Also, what’s with the wind, I didn’t notice that before? And wasn’t the grass taller as well?’ She thought, noticing a lot of new things all at once.

Gaia took a minute to calm herself a little and started inspecting her plant body. She gasped when she realised that she had grown almost twice as tall during the night. She was now about fourteen centimeters tall, still only half the length of the grass surrounding her, but still considerably larger than before.

But her height wasn’t the only thing that had changed overnight. Gaia’s vision had improved tenfold as well. Before, she could only see things that were right in front of her, whereas now she could clearly make out every detail on the grass surrounding her little patch of dirt. She still couldn’t see the clouds or the sun though, which she regretted a little. It would be nice to see what the sky looked like in another world.

‘I wonder what kind of birds they have here,’ she mused. ‘I just hope I didn’t get stranded on a jurassic planet with huge pterodactyls or something. Actually, that might very much be the case, judging by the already huge insects.’

She shuddered while thinking about human sized birds dropping their business on top of her from hundreds of meters above her. She decided to ignore the thought for now and focus on the changes of her new and strange body again.

Gaia was a little sad when she noticed her original two little leaves had been replaced by four larger ones, each sprouting from the top of her thicker stem. She remembered that her first two leaves were in fact germ leaves, which contained extra energy for the plant in its developing stage. These leaves would eventually be replaced by flatter ones, but Gaia was still sad to see them go.

‘I just thought they were cute,’ she sulked. ‘Still, I don’t mind having upgraded leaves now. I guess I can produce more… power now?’

She wasn’t really sure if having more leaves would affect her in any way, but it couldn’t be a bad thing at least. Gaia tried to remember how plants produced energy and how photosynthesis worked again, thinking back to her days of school on Earth.

‘Carbon dioxide and sunlight goes in, oxygen and energy come out, or something along those lines. I’m not sure though, I wasn’t a freaking scientist after all. I guess it could be useful if I was now that I think about it…’

Gaia was pulled away from her thoughts when something grabbed her attention. She had been so caught up in examining her new body that she had failed to notice three large ants chilling in the sun next to her. They were just standing there, not having moved an inch this entire time, but they still managed to startle her.

After calming down a little, Gaia’s heart suddenly sunk in her stem when she remembered the fight with the aphid, and how the blue ladybugs had mercilessly torn the creature apart piece by piece. Gaia knew that if the ladybugs hadn’t saved her, she probably would have lost both of her leaves, or maybe worse, would have been eaten completely, but still, she couldn’t help but feeling sorry for the aphid.

Another batch of ladybugs flew past her, but Gaia somehow didn’t enjoy watching them as much as before. At least now she knew why they travelled in groups. She sighed, thinking about how the vivid memory would probably haunt her in her dreams, for now at least.

‘Speaking of dreams, I still have no idea why I fell asleep at all, or why I’ve grown twice as tall after waking up. I was beginning to believe I couldn’t even grow at all, so why now all of a sudden? Did it have something to do with the aphid maybe?’ Gaia thought, trying to avert her thoughts from the unpleasant experience while she looked around.

“And where did you guys come from? Did you think I would forgive you after you betrayed me and left me to die for a few drops of juice? Well I won’t, so shoo!” She yelled a the three ants laying slothfully around her.

Suddenly, all ants turned their little heads to look at her with uncertainty in their eyes. To Gaia’s surprise, they stood up and started walking away, cautiously looking back at her while she just gaped.

“Wait, stop! Don’t move!” She called out to them, thinking they would ignore her and walk off anyway.

Contrary to her expectations, the ants immediately froze in place, not even moving an antenna. Gaia eyed them, not knowing what to do next. What was going on? Could it be that the ants actually understood what she was saying? But how was that possible? Deciding to just go ahead and try out a few things, she adressed the ants with a slightly shaky voice.

“Can… can you guys actually hear me? Do you guys understand what I’m saying?” She asked.

If she was correct and the ants were indeed able understand her, she might actually be able to talk to sentient creatures for the first time in this world, even if they were insects the size of a human hand. After being alone for a week in this strange world, any form of company would be appreciated. Hopeful, she waited for the ants to react to her question.

A few seconds went by without anything happening, during which Gaia feared the ants hadn’t heard her after all. She was about to give up on the idea of having a conversation with an intelligent species of ants, when one of the ants slowly moved its head. Gaia watched with stupefaction as she saw an ant nodding at her and questioned her own sanity.

She blinked just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, but she realised she wasn’t. The ant had nodded at her, telling her they knew what she was saying. Gaia let out a laugh before she shut up again. This was all so weird to her, it felt like a fantasy. Still, she would make use of this situation as best as she could.

“Can you guys um, can you guys come closer?” She asked.

The last word had only just left her lips when the insects rushed at her at top speed. Within a second, all three insects pressed their hard mandibles against her smooth stem.

“Not so close! A little distance, please!” Gaia exclaimed, startled by their sudden behaviour.

Again, the ants immediately followed her order. They all scuttled a few centimeters back with a nervous expression. Gaia looked at them and tried something else.

“Um… sit?”

All ants instantly dropped themselves on the ground. At that point Gaia finally noticed that somehow, all ants gave off the impression they were feeling truly miserable. Gaia felt bad when she saw two of them were quivering a little. They probably didn’t like being commanded like that, she figured.

“Please don’t be scared, I just want to ask a few questions! Could you, maybe answer them for me?”

The insects slowly looked up and nodded meekly. She must have really traumatised them for some reason, but they relaxed at least a tiny bit. They still didn’t move anything except their heads though, so they were still far from comfortable.

“Oh good, thank you! I still don’t know anything about this place, so I’ll just start asking away then. Do you know where we are now, or what this place is called?” She asked, trying to sound as friendly as she possibly could towards three absolutely humongous ants from a different world.

Even though they were already perfectly still, the ants seemed to tense up even more. A second went by when Gaia suddenly realised they had no real way of responding to her. They hadn’t spoken to her up until now, so they probably weren’t able to. Besides, even if they could, they probably wouldn’t know anyway, since they were well… insects. She sighed mentally.

This was going to be a difficult conversation indeed.