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303. Arriving at the Ants
🕑 Added 2025-02-13 15:00:03 +0000 UTCIke pushed aside the curtain of ivy and stepped into a small, dark grotto. Trees formed walls on all sides, oozing dark sap that ants greedily harvested. Only slender gaps opened in the tightly-grown trees, barely wide enough for ants to squeeze through. A carpet of lush moss covered the soft earth and rounded river stones, and a few vines dangled down, sprouting with flowers. Sunbeams delicately illuminated the tableau, siphoning down through the canopy. It would have been an idyllic sight, if not for one small problem.
They are small, but the problem is that there’s a lot more than one of them, Ike thought to himself.
The entire grotto was alive with ants. There wasn’t a surface ants didn’t crawl over. From the bark of the trees, to the delicate flowers, to the mossy stones, ants crawled everywhere. In places, they massed so tightly that they turned the floor black, climbing over one another in hideous superstructures formed of nothing but ants. Ants formed ant-towers to reach the flowers and harvest their nectar. Ants crawled over the trees, vanishing in and out of the creases in the trees’ bark, stealing little gems of sap as they went. They emerged from holes in the trees, from under the rocks, from within the moss. At the back of the grotto, an enormous anthill piled up against the trees, and it, too, was absolutely alive with ants.
Ike shuddered, barely resisting the urge to wipe down his entire body, run, then wipe himself down again. So many ants. Crawling, creeping, stepping and sticking, all over, their little feet everywhere and anywhere. Every inch of his skin felt itchy. He felt phantom feet all over his body, spectral ants that he knew weren’t actually walking all over him, but it felt like they were.
Wisp elbowed him. “Don’t be rude.”
“I can’t help it,” Ike whispered back.
The shifting mass of ants froze. All the ants turned and stared at Ike and Wisp.
Ike stared back, deeply terrified. I’ve never been so intimidated in my life.
As one, the ants began to sway in place. They shifted as they swayed, moving together into one massive structure in the center of the space. The structure formed a blob, faceless, shapeless. It had a vague ant outline, but Ike could almost see a human face in it. Or maybe not a human face, but simply an amalgam of shapes that somehow conveyed emotion anyways, despite the total lack of familiar features. He shook his head, rubbing his brows. It almost hurt to look at, like it was talking directly to his mind…
My mind. Ike glanced at Wisp. “Is that a mental skill?”
Wisp nodded.
The voice spoke again, but this time, it spoke directly into Ike’s head. WE HAVE BEEN WAITING. WATCHING. SINCE YOU ENTERED OUR DOMAIN, ALWAYS EXPECTING YOU.
“Oh, um… then… the mental skill…?” Ike tried. I might as well jump right to it. They know that’s why I’m here.
FIRST, HELP US.
Ike spread his hands. “Sure. What do you need?”
THE PUPPETS. THEY ACT STRANGE. WHY?
Ike waited for more, then raised his brows. “You want us to figure out what the puppets are doing?”
The mass of ants seethed. There was no response.
“That’s a yes,” Wisp whispered.
Ike nodded. He cleared his throat. “What, specifically, have they been doing that’s strange?”
The voice was silent for a long time. The ants shifted. At last, they replied, FOR A LONG TIME, THEY SLEEP. NOW, THEY WAKE.
Ike hesitated. Should I ask? But then… He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t become a coward just because the mass of ants was terrifying. “Why do you care? That is… why does this matter to you? You’re ants.”
The ants moved faster. They crawled over one another, roiling like a pot on the boil. PUPPETS ARE DEATH. STAGNATION. PUPPETS DROP NO CRUMBS AND GROW NO HERBS. WE BENEFIT FROM HUMANS. WE BENEFIT FROM THE LIVING. WE BENEFIT FROM THE DEAD. WE DO NOT BENEFIT FROM STAGNATION.
“And I bet you’re not afraid of the puppets, either,” Wisp teased the ants.
They rushed over one another, more agitated than before.
“Why would they be afraid? Didn’t you say the puppets ignore beasts?” Ike pointed out.
Wisp shook her head. “For now. How long do they continue to ignore us? At any moment, they could turn and eradicate us. Humans have always outnumbered beasts. You hunt us, but uncoordinatedly. We can retreat, hide, hunt in return. If the puppets, all together, hunt us down one by one… Thousands of humans in perfect coordination, responding optimally to one another, sweeping through the land and killing everything they encounter. Is that not terrifying?”
Ike raised his brows. That’s basically what humans fear about the puppets. Well, the second half of it. The part no one’s saying. After the infiltration, after everyone’s puppets, then… then Brightbriar only has an unstoppable, untiring army that can work in perfect sync. That’s worth fearing. He nodded. “It is.”
The ants looked at him, waiting. Ike thought for a moment, then nodded at them. “Why don’t you find out yourself? Between you and me, you’ve got a better chance at staying hidden.”
WE CANNOT SURVIVE FOR LONG. THEY KILL US. WE CANNOT FIND FOOD. WE DIE, AND LEARN NOTHING.
“Food?” Ike squinted at the ants.
Wisp nudged him. “They, uh, don’t become mages like the rest of us. I’m not completely clear on how their magedom works, but from what I understand, their magedom is shared across the entire colony. In other words, it’s the colony that is a mage, not any individual ant. If they have what feels like an aura, it’s only because the colony has delegated power to that ant.”
“What? How? What skills do they use?” Ike asked, flabbergasted.
There was a laugh in his mind, dismissive. WE NEED NO SKILLS. WE ARE OLDER THAN YOUR PITIABLE—
Ike frowned. “What?”
The ants trembled back and forth, laughing, perhaps? YOUR MASTER WILL NOT LET US SAY.
“My master?” Ike asked. Huh? Did Brightbriar do something to me, after all? How can they tell?
“Don’t worry about that. They say that to everyone,” Wisp whispered.
“Oh,” Ike muttered back. A creeping sensation came over him, and this one had nothing to do with the ants. It’s that, isn’t it? That thing I keep almost understanding.
He turned back to the ants. “Thank you. I’ll see what I can discover about these puppets.”
Without answering him, the ant mass dissolved. The ants returned to their ordinary lives, wandering the grotto. Ike retreated respectfully, as quickly as he could. He walked out of the grotto, and another ten feet, another ten feet, another—
Ike sprinted toward the stream, racing at top speed. Lightning crackled around his ankles. He reached the water and threw himself in, rolling around in the water and soaking himself to make sure he washed any ants away.
Standing on the edge, Wisp looked down at him and shook her head. “Really?”
Ike surfaced and shook his head, hair flapping around him like a dog. He ran it back and met her eyes. “Really.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Let’s go find out about them puppets, huh?”
With one last shiver, Ike followed her toward the edge of the crevasse, and out and away from the creepy tiny ants.
Comments
PoeticSaint
Tftc
PoeticSaint
I completely understand brother...... so..... tiny and everywhere..... terrifying
