Interspecies Praying Mantis Gender Change

You begin by feeling a peculiar sensation all over your body. It's almost like a cascade of bubbles or butterflies are dancing beneath your skin. Then, it’s not just a feeling anymore. It’s a process unraveling itself as you look down and see your skin - it's turning green. Not just any green, a vibrant emerald hue. Your size, too, begins to diminish, your surroundings appearing larger as you grow smaller and smaller. A giggle strains in your throat, only it comes out as a buzzing noise. Suddenly, your face begins to itch, a tickling sensation evolving into a stretching, a reshaping. Your face elongates, stretching out as your nasal and oral structures reform into mandibles. Crunchy, almost mechanical with their strength and precision. You touch your face, feeling the hard carapace extending across your cheeks, your forehead. Your vision blurs, then refocuses - and you gasp. Or, at least you would gasp if you were still fully human. Your eyes, your eyes have changed. Now giant, protruding orbs, they take in an unobstructed panorama of the world. Everything is crystalline clear, even in the dark. Your nose and ears are gone, replaced with thousands of sensitive hairs waving in silent cadence, sampling the air for scent and sound. You gaze down at your body – a hard, segmented exoskeleton conceals your previously fragile form. There’s a puffing sensation near your rear, your lower abdomen inflating, becoming larger, bulbous. It seems strange, but at the same time strangely comforting, as if this is the way it was always supposed to be. Your mind shifts, memories tilting and toppling like unstable skyscrapers. Memories of your past flit and disappear like falling leaves. Names, emotions, passions, ambitions: they all seem alien to you now. Your mind fills with new priorities - survival, nourishment, reproduction. The world makes a new kind of sense now, significantly simpler but infinitely more precise. Your body continues to tighten and reshape, becoming stronger, more resilient. Your muscles pulse with a newfound strength, a potent force in such a small frame. As a final transformation, you feel the prickling sensation of wings sprouting from your back, unfurling and stretching wide. The unfamiliarity of winged flight excites you, fills you with anticipation. Finally, you take a step, your newest foot clicking against the ground. Looking in the mirror, there's no trace of the human you once were. Staring back is an emerald-green praying mantis, a creature of grace and precision. You're different, you're changed, you're something resembling both alien and earthly. You're beautiful. You're a predator, a survivor, a new woman on six legs. This is your world now, simple and primal and pure. This is life through a praying mantis's eyes. You know what you must do, where you must go. Your instincts guide you, this is your life now. You are the praying mantis.