Shattered Hive

Ghostly pale translucent grubs, chew the mud of an alien planet and huddle together in dark chambers. Once they were larvae, surviving underground until they could metamorphosize into winged insects but cowering in the dark proved a better survival strategy than flying, so now they stay adolescent forever. Once they were solitary, assuming any other life was hostile. Cooperation proved an effective means of gathering food and creating shelter, so their society became tightly bound, and then bond even tighter when the grubs began communicating through an unceasing ultrasonic song, carrying the thoughts of a nascent gestalt mind

Their carefully sculpted clay tower colonies became slumped over mounds and they began to die ever more frequently, from mold, parasites, and confused violence. Yet, in the depths of these mounds, individuals began to experiment with their own creations, churning mud into representations from their dream-like consciousness.