First person, present tense, speculative narration... YES, please do stick with this. It has a great Tales from the Afternow feel to it. (Not sure how familiar you are with SKTFM.) As for the length, it's not really that important. On the contrary, if it ends up growing into ten chapters, even better. And the reader can guess most of the answers to their questions based on the thoughts of the narrator.
Oh, and as for HIVE, hehehehe, honestly this last HF happened without any of the usual crap, it was amazing. Of course the biggest change took place more than a year ago, when we were forced to truly seize our independence. Who knows, not being dependent on a company that slows you down or tries to control you may ultimately have been the reason why this last fork went so smoothly.
I am not familiar. I have been reading short stories by Poe, Lovecraft and Philip K Dick lately. Not that I would compare myself, but that's where my head is kind of at. I also just finished a Spillane novel. I'm not limiting it to any length. Maybe I should say at least 5 chapters. I started the second one. But I'll probably finish that one tomorrow.
If you're curious, you can get the whole story set here, plus all of the Rant Radio stuff they put out. I used to listen to a lot of Sean Kennedy back when he was still active. For a bit of an introductory overview, check out this post on reddit.