Workers
You suddenly wake up, your shoulders shooting bolt upright as you spin your body around, propping yourself against your thick abdomen behind you, your social stomach being empty and a dark red color matching the rest of your plated skin.
A line of other workers can be seen walking towards you, as well as a line of them walking away from you, each checking you as they pass. Clearly, there’s a kind of system going on here, your instinct causes you to do a kind of counter check-in with them as well, letting them know your current mental status and state of being.
Your feelers detect a kind of path along which your numerous identical counterparts trail along, instinctively knowing where to go and why. A sudden urge to hop to your feet and follow it take over your body, your spiney feet walking along the deep trenches left by the ants that have walked this path before you. Your eager paces make way for many more ants to come.
Along your path there you see an array of different sights and sounds. Ants much larger than you, ants who carry with them pupal siblings, ants carrying chunks of food, and other individuals with full social stomachs swelling their abdomen and stretching their thin skin taut and transparent, a hint of green shining through their flesh.
You make your way into the walls of the facility, deep winding tunnels underground lead away to enormous brood nurseries, food storage units, various entrances and exits, as well as an enormous ‘throne room’ kind of setup meant specifically for the queen to give birth to the entire population.
The trail of ants travels in one direction, while a line to the right of you is formed for which ants going in the opposite direction find their way along. You all exchange greetings as to check in on one another and you can tell that some of your fellow sisters change their demeanor upon greeting certain ants. You wonder what this could be about as you spend your time seeking the main throne room.
The worn trail you tread upon brings you along many merging paths. One branching path, in particular, brings you to a talkative sister of yours. Her excited claws prod you in the back and attempt to engage in a conversation with you.
“Hey sis. So tell me, have you heard about those super majors? Do you know how many of them there are around here? What about worker ants? Do you know how many workers there are? Or if we need anyone in the nursery?” You listen in detail to the endless roles she lists off as the entire group of ants continues marching one by one.
“Hoora,” You think to yourself, “now I have a chatty little friend along with me on this endless trip to who knows where.” your ears barely comprehend the words your newfound ‘friend’ chats on endlessly about.
You continue pacing along this line until you ultimately find yourself upon the large carcass of a dead rat in your territory. The smells being picked up by your feelers are completely enticed as you step closer towards the rotting flesh. You can see a pack of your sisters clamoring greedily along the bloody skin of the enormous carrion, their claws digging deep into the skin to hold themselves steady as their muscular mandibles saw through tiny bits of the flesh.
Written by Driftingdragon on 26 December 2019
The end (for now)