The Silent Incubation
The first week went by without incident. Mark forgot all about the midnight encounter. The kitchen was clean. The house was orderly. Life moved on. But deep in the crevices of the kitchen baseboards, under the refrigerator motor, and inside the dark gaps of the flooring, a silent army was gathering strength. Cockroach nymphs are survival machines born ready to run.
Immediately after “birth,” these orphans instinctively seek darkness and safety. They don’t need the mother to survive. For the first few days, they stayed hidden, feeding on dust, microscopic crumbs, and the adhesive on the back of the linoleum. They were growing. They were molting. And they were completely unseen. Mark was walking past them every day, making coffee, completely unaware of the colony taking root.