I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. It took a few moments for me to comprehend my situation. I had a splitting headache like I’d never felt before. The pain from my stings might not have been as severe as they were last night but it was still present. On top of all of this, I had fallen asleep in my bathtub and had slept at such an agonizingly weird angle that my legs had fallen completely asleep. On top of all of this, I now had a severe neck cramp. I swear it took all the willpower in my body just to recognize that the person knocking at my door was the exterminator and with all the energy I could muster I shouted as loud as I could “I’ll be right there!”.
Luckily, my bathtub is a piece of shit. Over the course of last night, my water had slowly drained off by itself so I wasn’t a completely sopping wet pruney mess. It still took me a few minutes to eventually open the door for the exterminator though as I had to get dressed, down 3 aspirin, and splash some cold water on my face.”
“Are you ok there ?” he said as I opened the door. I imagine that my delayed response toppled with the ghastly appearance I must have exhibited aroused a fair amount of concern.
“Hey man, I’m sorry for taking so long. I had a rough night and slept in.” I said while reeling from the sunlight that was now piercing my eyes and seemingly stabbing me in the brain in a way that caused me to wince in pain.
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that sir.” He said, sounding genuinely concerned. “ what happened? If you don’t mind me asking”
I told him the story as I walked him to my room. Neglecting to tell him the part about the ants standing on my nightstand watching the entire event occur.
“ Oh my word! That sounds awful! Well don’t you worry sir, I’ll make sure we take care of this problem today,” he said, patting my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me.
As he began to inspect my room he noted the number of ant traps I had strewn about my house. With a slightly concerned tone, he told me“If you’ve really taken all these actions that you say you have, then my only conclusion is they must have a nest somewhere in the walls or, maybe even under the floorboard.”
We talked for a little bit about options and where to proceed. Eventually deciding to drill holes into my walls at key locations to lay down bait traps and spray pesticides. Once he was done he bid me farewell and left. I followed shortly after and headed to work.
As I arrived back at my house later that day I instinctively checked the stretch of dirt outside my front door. When I did so, I found 2 new Anthills. Fear, annoyance, and any other emotion I had felt towards my intruders up until that point all faded away, and were replaced with pure unadulterated rage.
“God Damn It!” I shouted before kicking up dirt all over the hills.
“God Fucking Dammit!” I shouted a little louder as I began to viciously stomp on the two anthills over and over again to the point where I swear if there were some sort of cave underneath the hills, I would have broken through the earth itself and fallen in. After about 7 good stomps I found myself a little out of breath and while standing over the hills turned to face the road. A Woman who was walking her dog stood there with a look of confusion mixed with a hint of fear. I raised my hand to attempt to explain myself but before I could do so, she fled down the sidewalk. Leaving me alone with my unwanted guests.
“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decamated anthills, and heading inside.
I couldn’t get to sleep that night. I remember specifically the feeling of being watched was more intense that night than it had ever been up until that point. It mattered not if I faced the wall, away from it, or straight up, I couldn’t evade it. With a deep sigh and a rub of my eyes, I resigned myself to go watch some tv for a few hours in hopes of passing out somewhere down the road. I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.
As the light illuminated my room and I could now see my surroundings, I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 sentinel ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered with the ants once again. I quickly realized however that there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze up from my body to the ants and knelt forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me, and soon enough it was as if we were both analyzing each other.
“What the fuck are you?” I muttered to myself.
I stretched my hand out and hovered it above the ants in an attempt to get them to move. They did not.
“Why don’t you react?” I asked as I began to rapidly wave my hand back and forth above them.
Finally, in a bid of frustration, I stood up and made a swatting motion toward the ants like I was about to smash them onto my table. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and chuckled to myself.
“I got you, little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.
The ants stood there staring at me back. After a few seconds that seemed to drag on for hours, I laughed to myself about the craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I shook my head to snap myself from the never-ending staring contest and went to the floor by the foot of my bed to grab a can of bug spray. When I turned around to rid myself of the ants, however, they were gone. As if they saw what I was about to do and fled before I could take action. I spent the remainder of that night watching god-awful late-night television Eventually passing out somewhere around 3 am.
The sound of my backup alarm going off finally woke me up. I immediately recognized it as the alarm I used for when I would sleep in the parking lot of the car wash.
“Oh, shit” I muttered to myself before rolling off my couch and making a mad dash for my keys and shoes. I had 10 minutes to be at a place that was nearly a 25-minute drive away.
As I started speeding my way to work, in a vain attempt to somehow make it there in time, I began to rehearse my “I’m sorry” speech to my boss. I say ‘began” because I was quickly interrupted by the sensation of a sting on the back of my neck. Then another, then another, then another just like 2 nights ago I began to feel stinging all over my body. I jerked and twisted my body in response to the newfound pain but it did little to ease my situation. I started to see them crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car was a question I couldn’t begin to think about at that moment in time. I looked into the rear view mirror and could see them all over my neck and shoulders. They were swarming me and stinging me all over my body. Once the realization of what was going on settled into my mind and the pain began to permeate every square inch of me I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to begin swerving erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped my in the patch of skin between my left shoulder and neck. Acting on pure instinct I lunged over to attempt to swat the ant stinging me there. When I did so, the motion of my arm caused my elbow to lean across the steering wheel, and send my already speeding car straight into one of the old oak trees that lined the road.
I awoke in the hospital a few hours later with a cast on my right forearm and a headache that made the one from the day before seem like a fleeting memory. The doctors told me that I had a concussion, a fractured rib, and had broken my wrist in 3 spots upon impact with the tree. When they asked me what happened I opened my mouth to tell them, but quickly closed it as I realized that the pain from the stings were completely gone. I pulled up the medical robe I was in and looked down at my chest. There was nothing. No sting marks or any other indication that the ants had ever attacked me in the car.
“How long was I out?” I asked the doctor.
“You’ve been knocked out for about” he stopped to pull up his watch “ 8 hours now”.
“Did the stings fade away that fast?” I thought to myself. “ They were gone in the morning yesterday too.”
“I uh,” I thought to myself for a moment about what to say. “ I fell asleep at the wheel,” I said, trying to sound as honest as I could. There was no proof that I was attacked by the vile creatures. They had made sure of it. I couldn’t tell them “ i was swarmed by and attacked by ants.’’ when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They’d think I was high or something.
“ That’s what we thought,” he said as he began to write onto a clipboard.” your bloodwork came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well son you’re gonna be getting all the sleep you could ever dream for. When you never showed up for work your boss called your phone and we answered it for you. We told him what happened and he told us to tell you that you’re going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover a little. He said he’ll have you doing light duty when you get back, something about a cash register I think.”
I chuckled to myself and nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home. I had to call a taxi however, my car was rendered undriveable by the accident.
As I opened the door to my home, dread didn’t even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me like a tidal wave. It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. As I closed my front door it only grew more intense. After a few moments of standing there, taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. As I did so, I spotted the ant that was running along the top of my tv. A newfound sense of anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. I had to use my left hand however due to the cast, which caused the remote to fly dead center at my tv screen, resulting in my tv being now effectively dead. I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.
“Think man, think!” I said to myself between strained breaths trying to calm myself down.
“What the fuck do I do ?’’ I exclaimed in the vague hope some invisible higher power would tell me the answer and rid me of this nightmare. When no such enlightenment came and I had finally caught my breath, I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.
“So what are my options now?” I asked after informing him that the ant problem had still not gone away.
“Well, if the infestation truly has lingered on this long my suggestion would be attempting fumigation of your apartment,” he said
“Fumigation?” I asked
“Yes sir, the only 2 problems with that being that 1) it’s a very lengthy and expensive process and 2) since you’re in an apartment complex with other tenants living all around you, you would need to get them to sign off on it. Specifically, you would need at least 2 neighboring tenants to sign off on having seen the infestation along with you. That way we could fumigate the whole apartment block that you’re on.”
I sat there in silence for a moment. Contemplating who to ask for a signature, and also contemplating whether or not fumigation would even work at all.
“Ask your neighbors for their signatures sir, as soon as you’ve gotten them give me a call back and I’ll work out the details for the procedure with your landlord,” he said sounding a bit impatient with my silence”
“Will do,” I muttered before placing my phone down and sinking deeper into the floor. I could still see the ant watching me from on top of the tv. I walked by it and headed to my bedroom to sleep, it was all I wanted to do at that moment.
“Wake up”
I was awoken a few hours later by a voice whose origin I had no earthly idea came from. I looked around my room but saw nothing. After sitting upright in my bed , staring into the darkness of my room for a few seconds I shrugged it off as a dream and reluctantly slowly lowered my head back onto my pillow. The second I made contact with it I heard it again.
“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.
I willingly obeyed its command and with one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. Half executing to see an ax wielding murder of some kind standing beside me I was taken aback to discover not an indication of life inside of my room. After sitting in the light for a few tense moments I began to feel my eyes water up as a cold chill ran down my spine. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I swear it was as if someone had placed a blanket over it. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to cower back into my bed and hide under the covers, but I knew what I had heard. Someone was in my house, and I had to protect myself. I slowly owned my dresser drawer and took out my only means of protecting myself at that given moment, a small leatherman multi-tool, retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to sweep my house. I took it one room at a time.
Bedroom, Clear. Hallway, Clear. Bathroom, Clear.
One at a time I made sure every square inch of my house was without any intruder. Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room of my home lay baked in lights. Yet I found no one. This did nothing to calm my fears, as I stood in the center of my hallway I turned my head to the side, knife hand outstretched as I began to listen for any movement of the intruder.
“Alex” the voice whispered
I spun around so fast I didn’t have time to bend my arm inward and when I swung I ended up leaving a cut mark on the left side of my hallway wall. There was no one there.
I quickly spun back around the other way and began to slowly back myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door. When I reached the end of the hallway I thought I stopped dead in my tracks. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. My entire body shuddered with fear as everywhere all at once on my body I felt like I was being watched. I couldn’t breathe, I just stood there frozen. Had the chill running down my spine not paralyzed me with fear I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. It was however not a factor at all at that moment. The only thing in my mind was a primal instinct to sprint for the door and leave. Yet I just stood there.
“You took our home, Alex. It is only fair that we get to take yours.” The voice spoke.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to make a run for it but the voice sounded so close to me that for all I knew the intruder was right behind me blocking off the door.
“Where the fuck is he?” I thought to myself.
“Where are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster at that moment, when I was struck with a sudden epiphany. The voice sounded like it was right on top of me…
I slowly turned my gaze to the right side of my body. The ant sitting on my shoulder stared back at me.
“Alex,” the ant said once more.
I felt bile rise in the back of my throat but forced it back down as I swiftly swatted the ant off of me and dropped to the floor, crawling back and watching it from the hallway wall. For a while, it struggled on its back but eventually, It found its equilibrium and got back onto its feet. Staring at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. Soon after, the ant fled from my sight and I went to the bathroom to vomit. I slept in the bathtub that night. I didn’t plan on doing so, but I spent so long hiding there that exhaustion must have eventually seized me.
The following day was spent living in what I can only begin to describe as all-encompassing fear. I quite simply just didn’t know what to do. A part of me didn’t believe the event of last night had truly happened at all and had chalked it up to a bad dream. The other part of me thought I was crazy. Even the smallest part of my psyche that believed the ordeal last night had occurred didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing. So for a long time, I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole that was the only part of the device that still worked anymore. I wasn’t even truly trying to watch tv. Most of my mental energy was spent scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours of anxiety-filled torment, I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me.
“Nothing,” I thought to myself.
To be more specific, nothing within my affordability. As I thought the word to myself I quickly found my thoughts interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Run if you wish. We will follow. You owe us a home.” the voice spoke.
I quickly scurried away from my couch and sat in the center of my living room floor as I attempted to make out the source of the voice. I felt my heart sink into the bottom of my stomach when I realized the voice was coming from all around me at once. As if my own walls were talking to me. Not knowing what to do I went to lie down in the bathtub.
Like the night before I must have fallen asleep from exhaustion because the next thing I remember was waking up freezing from being in the tub for so long. For a while, I sat there contemplating what to do. I eventually pulled out my phone and called up mitchell
“Alex! How are you man?”he asked. “I heard about that accident you got into. I tried calling a couple of days ago but you must’ve not heard me or some-”
“I’m fine Mitchell,” I interrupted. “Thanks for the concern. listen, i was wondering if you had any other exterminators you could call or … I don’t know, just anybody else who might actually be willing to help me out?”
He said nothing at first. “Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?
After a few seconds of annoyed silence on my half I spoke up. “Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you’ve been having see me hasn’t really helped the problem at all. He says he could fumigate the apartment block but i’d have to get people to -”
“Fumigate?” he interrupted, sounding very surprised. “Woah woah, slow down there bud. Nobody’s fumigating anything.”
“Look I know it’s an expensive process and god forbid you actually help take care of your tenants Mitchell, but I have a serious problem at my apartment and your guy hasn’t done shit for me!” I yelled back at him.
“My “guy” happens to be a very respected exterminator kid.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not until you offer up some solid fucking evidence of an infestation! “
“What?” I asked.
“I like to think I have been very patient with you and this entire situation Alex, but I am done wasting the exterminator’s time with routine checkups to your apartment!” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“What am I talking about? Kid, the guy didn’t wanna be rude to your face and say you didn’t have a problem. The truth is though that the last 2 times he’s been over there he’s called me back to complain about you wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said that Every time he’s been over to your place, he’s never found any ants or signs of them being there.” he said
“That .. that’s not” I began before stopping mid-sentence.
“Alex. Are you alright?” he asked softly.
I hung up and set off to go talk to my neighbors.
“Nope.” “Nope.” “Are you ok? You look terrible? Also nope”
These were essentially the answers I got from everyone in my apartment block. Not even my next-door neighbors said they had seen any signs of an ant infestation. The closest I got was one of the guys who lived 2 doors down saying he saw a few ants outside his house last week but that was it. I didn’t have the signatures I needed to get the fumigation approved. I didn’t have anywhere to go. With no other options, I went back to my apartment and slowly sank into the couch.
The way the living room lights illuminated my surroundings made my reflection very visible on the broken tv. The crack mark lay situated over the right side of my face. As I stared deeply into the tv I found my eyes going fuzzy. As if I were staring off into the space behind the tv. As I did this, I noticed the ants crawling up my legs from my reflection. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly swallow me up to my abdomen. It was as if I was disassociating from the world. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. They eventually stopped once they reached my shoulders. Without actually looking down it was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a thousand of them on me.
“We are your problem, not theirs.” the ants all seemed to speak in unison.
My fugue-like state was quickly broken and reality came crashing down onto me like an anvil from up high as I stood straight up and began to swat them all away. When they were all finally off of me I stood there and watched them scatter in all directions to safety.
Once they were all gone the voice spoke from all directions yet again.
“So be it.”
I clenched my one good hand into a fist and screamed out in a mixture of frustration, fear, and anger that all seemed to rise up at once.
“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under the sink”
“Get the fuck out of here!” I yelled as I swung the hammer into the wall above my living room couch”
“Where the fuck are you little demons? Get out! “ I screamed as I swung my hammer from wall to wall. Occasionally I would see a few of the ants in the holes I created before they would quickly scurry deeper into the walls to evade me. I attempted to hit them as soon as I saw them but they were fast and more often than not my hammer missed the same spot and I would just end up leaving a fresh hole instead.
How long this went on for I honestly do not recall. I was locked in the jaws of anger and completely at its mercy. The only thing I wanted at that moment was the death of the ants who had tormented my life and invaded my sanctuary for far too long. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor Ron yelled at me through the door sounding very annoyed. “ It sounds like a damn tornado over here!”. I placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.
“Hey ro-” I was quickly interrupted.
“Don’t you “Hey Ron, me! What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!”
“ Im … sorry” I began “I was just trying to … kill a few ants.”
He stared at me in disbelief for a few seconds before speaking. “Ants? Coulda told me you were fighting a tiger in here. Id’ve believed you too.”
“I know I know I’m sorry,” I said, choked up with embarrassment. Rons sudden arrival had completely snapped me out of my rage-filled haze and as I looked to my left to survey my handy work, I was now appalled by the scene I had created in my home. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn’t think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. Eventually, I said the only thing I could think of.
“Ron, you haven’t seen any ants around your home have you?”
He looked over my shoulder, and judging from the widening of his eyes and the pale look on his face, it was safe to assume he could see what I had done too.
“No … no I haven’t,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again so help me I will call the cops Alex!”
With that, he backed up all the way into his apartment and left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, took a few steps back into my living room, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, my walls began to start murmuring. I once again decided to make a phone call.
“Hello? Alex, is that you?” my boss asked. “What can I do for you? You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Yeah, I know I know,” I replied. “ Listen, I know I still have about a week’s worth of leave left but do you think it would be ok if I came back to work early? I’ve been feeling really cooked up and I just really need to get out of this house and focus on something else.”
“Something other than what?” he asked
“ Umm, something other than … tv” I weakly replied.
He took a deep breath and said “well you know i’d never turn down help around the carwash, but unfortunately you coming back early would be a liability.
“A liability? I asked” the murmuring had grown louder
“Yeah, a liability” he reiterated. “ the hospital said you need at least weeks of rest. If I were to let you come back to work and you hurt yourself somehow, I’d be held accountable for it”
“ Sir, please let me come back” my eyes began to start watering. “ I promise you I’ll be extra careful I’ll … I’ll do cash register duty or whatever else you think is safest just please let me come back early,” I begged him.
He replied “I’m sorry kid but no can do, you enjoy your rest and I’ll see you next week”
“Wait!” I said before being cut off by the click of him hanging up.
I chucked the phone across the room and watched it shatter as it hit the kitchen wall, and slowly crawled backwards to rest my head against the front door. From where I was sitting I could see a dozen ants or so devouring a half-eaten bag of chips on my kitchen table. With no more options at my disposal and a newfound sense of hopelessness, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?
I didn’t go to sleep that night, I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls had never ceased. It continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. No more whispers or indistinguishable voices could be heard from all around me anymore. I took a deep breath and rolled over to face away from the wall and finally try to get some sleep. My plans were interrupted by the discovery of a single ant watching me from my nightstand. Almost instantly I shot out of bed and stood up. After a few tense seconds, I spoke to it first.
“I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry! I destroyed your home and I’m sorry!” The ant said nothing. It just stared back at me.
“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”
After a few more seconds of silence, the ant finally spoke. “ You owe us a home, Alex.”
As soon as the words were spoken the murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time, but from one clearly identifiable origin point. The voices were coming from my bed. As I made this discovery I slowly opened up my dresser drawer and pulled out my leatherman pocket knife and one of my many cans of bug spray and slowly approached the side of the bed. The ant on my dresser moved closer to inspect what I was doing but said nothing. With the bug spray being held out in my damaged arm I aimed it at the bed and slowly began to cut a hole in the side of my mattress. As the seams of it came apart I was met with the discovery of a sea of black made up of hundreds of thousands of ants that began to rapidly dart away in all directions.
I immediately recoiled in disgust and as I dropped to the floor I began to spray the poison wildly in front of me, desperate to kill the ants. My actions were quickly interrupted by a loud voice that spoke with more malice and hatred than I knew existed in the world.
“YOU WILL NOT HARM ANOTHER NEST!”
As the voice spoke I felt the walls around me start to rumble. As they did so the murmuring grew louder and before I could even register what the voices ants were saying, A large black tentacle shot out of the hole I had cut into the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me like the finger of Satan himself and as it swat across my chest I was able to see that it wasn’t a tentacle at all. It was hundreds of thousands of ants all coalesced into a single tentacle-like shape. The tentacle writhed and swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. as I lay there on the floor looking up in horror, I Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness. Acting on instinct I scrambled back onto one knee and began to douse the mass of ants with my can of bug spray. This had seemingly no effect, however. Apart from a few dozen ants falling to the floor, the ants held their structure steady. After a few seconds of my retaliation, the tentacle quickly shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow and grow and grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button I simply fell back to the floor in horror as I watched the tentacle morph into an indistinguishable black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision, and soon after my legs.
The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs became so intense I felt like I was going to pass out, the murmuring turned to screaming. I wish I could recall what they were saying, I really do. At that moment, however, I was encompassed by a primal instinct that limited my mental capacity to one task. Run. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The entire time more ants poured out of my mattress and made the tidal wave of ants grow even higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. As I did so I could hear the collective ants behind me growing louder and louder. With one swift motion, I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices reached their height in one last act of defiance.
“ALEX!” they spoke before being cut off as I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. No more murmuring, no more rustling of the ants, it all simply stopped at once. I propped a chair against the bedroom door and hunkered down in my bathroom for the night.
Which finally leads us here, the present. Ever since that night, I’ve been holding up in my kitchen. I’ve consolidated what remaining cans of bug spray remained in my home and I’ve been sitting with my back to a corner of the wall for the last 3 days waiting for the swarm to return. It hasn’t yet, but I can’t give them an opportunity to sneak up on me. I can’t risk falling asleep and letting them get me. I can’t risk them getting anyone else. These demons can not be allowed to spread. I won’t let them.
As I’ve been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been running the entire time. I don’t know if the ants know what I’m planning but I do know that the murmuring has returned, and over the last hour it’s been growing louder and louder. There’s a lighter in my kitchen drawer, and as soon as I submit this story, I’m going to use it to destroy these creatures once and for all. There’s a shared fire alarm system in my apartment block. I pulled it about 5 minutes ago and sincerely hope everyone within range has gotten out. I can’t wait any longer. The feeling of eyes on my neck has returned and even though I’ve grown immune to the paralyzing effect it had on me, I know what it means. The ants are watching me. They know what I’m planning and will surely try to stop me. I’m sorry.
If there were any words of wisdom I have left in my tattered shell of a psyche, I doubt they would be of any worth. The only thing I can think of to impart onto you is this:
“We like to think we are the masters of our domain, but the sobering reality is that we are masters of nothing. The creatures that inhabited this earth before us will continue to do so long thereafter. Leave them be, and if you’re lucky they will do the same. And for the love of god, stay away from anthills.”