The Collective

"I had a dream last night." Thorn's voice was distant, the type of tone she often used those rare moments of musing about better times. Thade looked up from his breakfast.
"Oh?"
"Yes… the world was full of life." She faced the window, but Thade knew she wasn't really looking at the shadows that made up her world. "There was green, and red, and blue and every other color you could possibly imagine and even those you couldn't. The planet was thriving, living, growing, loving. Everyone lived in … harmony. It was beautiful. Surreal. As I watched, centuries seemed to go by. I watched as the planet, green and covered in life and color, slowly turned gray. The people, they built over the green, the life. They tore down trees I'd watched over for lifetimes, that I'd seen grow from seedlings into vast powerful towers of beauty. They tore them down, burnt them to ashes, and built instead buildings of unfeeling stone. They dried up the rivers I'd so carefully cultivated and spread across the land to bring life to all places. In the dust they dug deep into my planet, pulling out the remnants of life before them and using the bodies of my earliest children as fuel for their ambitions. The people leveled entire forests. What had taken decades, centuries, to grow and mature, was gone in an instant. I watched, helpless as my children fought and killed each other. The humans, my once favored children, murdered their animal brothers without a second thought. I watched, hopeless, as they wiped out what had been so… pure. What had been their best quality, ambition, became their most repulsive flaw as it fueled their actions to tear apart my planet, my life, and suck it dry. Parasites. Feeding off their environment, they took far more than they needed to survive. I hate them. They destroyed me."
As she spoke, Thade's interest was piqued. Her voice turned from Thorn's usual red velvet into that of … purity. At the start, her voice was hopeful, speaking of the beauty and life. Like a mother talking of how her children were thriving. In awe, like a child. But he felt a chill spill over him as her voice became that of hatred. Her voice was layered with a distant echoing. As she described her dream, her tone was like listening to several different people talking in unison. He realized that as her description went on, she took ownership of the planet. He shuddered. There was so much more to his sister than he knew, he felt it.