Two days quickly passed and the first Sylv hunters hatched. They still need around three days to mature enough in order to go on hunting trips. Because Sylvia has agreed to not produce any more Sylv creatures without the consent of Elise or Mark, she decides to stop further production for now. The living structures inside the Hive Complex are now fully matured. The Spawning Grounds can now morph up to 18 hunters at the same time if the need arises. In order to save energy and therefore reduce biomass consumption, the living structures enter into short-term hibernation, which can be stopped at will within a minute. There is also a long-term hibernation option, which further reduces energy consumption, but in return takes significantly more time to be lifted.

The Hive Queen herself continues her studies and now has very basic reading and writing skills. She has learned the alphabet and already knows a few first words. This is enormous progress which normal children like Erik can't keep up with. Until now however, the latter has not noticed Sylvia's true progress and is not aware of the extra hours in the evening. This may change in the future, but so far everything has gone well. Through the additional lessons, the Sylv Queen has learned a lot about rules in nature. These include things like how water expands when it freezes or evaporates. Another thing would be for example, an overview of the most common animal species that occur in the Everglade forest.

After the first day Elise started to get more interested in the Hive Complex, which Sylvia started. She visited it another two times together with the Hive Queen to learn more about the Sylv race. Initially Elise was quite overwhelmed when she first saw the Hive Complex, but she has caught on and her curiosity has been piqued. She planned her second visit so that she could watch the new Sylv hunters hatch from the Spawning Grounds, which worked as intended. As always there is enough to eat, but Sylvia could not extract any new Strains within the two days.

(PoV Sylvia. End of the second day)

It is already getting darker again, soon it will be night. I wonder where Erik is, he seemed tired after class and I lost track of him after Elise's last lesson. I still had a few questions which I wanted to have answered. Soon it's time for dinner, but until then I still have plenty of time. If I find him, we could play together outside some more. This allows me to further improve my body control. I think he would like to play too!

With determined steps, I set off toward the stairs to get to Erik's room. "He's probably gone back upstairs where he has his picture books and wooden toys", I assume while quickly climbing the stairs. I hurry upstairs to Erik's door and knock gently. After a moment his voice chimes in, "You can come in." I follow his invitation and open the door in order to enter his room. With a quick glance I sweep through the room and analyze the situation. Erik sits on his bed and looks expectantly in my direction.

I let my antennae move around a bit while my gaze focuses on Erik. "Dinner will be ready soon, but we can go play outside for a bit beforehand. Are you in?", I ask him with my improved language skills. He agrees and we walk together the stairs down and proceed to go into the garden surrounding the house. I take him to the tree on which I already practiced climbing last time. Once there, I suggest we start by climbing it to get a better overview of our options in the garden.

This time I want to try something new that I noticed the last time I tried it. I put my fingers and legs on the tree and try to pull myself up. My claws on the tips of my fingers extend a little further and allow me a secure hold on the trunk. Slowly, piece by piece, I climb higher until I reach a branch that I pull myself up on. In the end, I sit on the branch at an estimated height of about 2m and look down at Erik, who is struggling to follow me. After he has come high enough himself, I help him to get onto the thick branch. We didn't manage that last time. Progress!

We sit relaxed on the branch and observe the surroundings. It is a bit high and Erik seems to have concerns about how we will get back down later. I gently squeeze his hand to calm him down and he regains his composure. I talk with him about the garden, when after a few minutes a dark shadow falls upon us. Surprised, I raise my head and see a large flying beast hurtling towards us.

The beast is bigger than Elise or Mark and has raven black feathers. It has two wings, two more arms and two legs with claws. Like a black angel in a swoop, the creature comes racing towards us. A horrified scream comes from my throat as I call out to my swarm over the hive mind connection. In parallel I try to evade by shifting to the side on the branch, but my attempt is in vain as the beast snatches me with its claws before flying on with its prey.

Below me I can see Erik, who is clinging to the tree with a horrified expression on his face and looking after me. Alerted from my scream Elise and Mark arrive in the garden, seeing me get carried away. Elise immediately runs back into the house to get her bow, but the bird of prey is pretty darn fast. He climbs up with me swiftly and with the size of the creature, more than one arrow hit is needed. My faithful Sylv hunters who rested in the Hive Complex appear, but they can’t help me now.

As the creature continues to fly away with me, I can feel the connection to my swarm slowly weakening. If my captor takes me far enough away, this connection will be severed. I must therefore make a decision about what final orders to transmit before that happens. Regardless of what happens to me, I don't want anything to happen to my new adoptive family or my swarm I build thus far. A Sylv swarm can operate without a Hive Queen if there is a synapse creature to take command. My problem is that I don’t have any synapse creatures yet, which means that my swarm will go feral without me. The only option to avoid this outcome is to order them to enter long term hibernation, with an exclusion to one hunter in order to provide new biomass from time to time.

It is impossible for a Sylv swarm to produce a new queen if the old one has been lost. My Hive Complex also does not yet have the ability to create creatures other than hunters, which makes it impossible for it to evolve. This Hive Complex will have to wait until one day a Sylv synapse creature arrives to reestablish control. While pondering about my last orders I notice that Elise exits the house again with her bow in hand, but I’m too far away already. With a last sad look in the direction of my safe home, I give my orders to my swarm.

I turn my gaze back to my current problem, the bird of prey which is currently carrying me off. I suspect that he is carrying me to his nest to feed me to his offspring. Otherwise he would have probably already eaten me instead of carrying me further through the air. He has grabbed me around the belly, so I can't get to him and even if I could I don’t want to fall from this height. I have to wait until he releases me at his nest in order to flee.

I take another closer look at my enemy. The creature has a long beak and both arms have four fingers each, which seem very delicate. So later I have to primarily watch out for the strong legs with the claws and the dangerous beak. The creature probably doesn't have poison or anything like that, otherwise it probably would have used it already.

I myself can extend small claws on the tips of my fingers, with which I can stab well. I can also do a lot of damage with my 'shredder teeth'. My jaw muscles are extremely strong and allow me to bite extremely hard. As soon as I can move freely again, my feathered friend will experience a big surprise! I hope this will be enough to overpower my captor and whatever I find at my destination in order to flee. I memorize the passing landscape as well as I can in order to backtrack later, but this is easier said then done. I do my best and hope that everything will work out somehow. I refuse to die to some random bird flying by!