This choice: Find a way to bring it back home • Go Back...Chapter #12No Ant Left Behind by: Doom   Perhaps this is human sentimentality, a useless carry-over form your time as a behemoth, back when you could afford to spare compassion for others. Now, at 1/32" tall, common sense shouts at you that survival of the fittest is all that matters, those that fall behind being left to be swallowed by the ever-hungry circle of life.
You defy that notion. You may be but a mote, but you must cling to your honour, lest you descend to a beast. This ant saved you, and you must save her as well. There's the small matter of transporting her back to the ant-hill, but you put your mind to a solution swiftly.
Slashing a few of the grass stalks around you, you fashion a suitable sled, and with some effort convinve your colossal partner to roll onto it with the last of her strength. Then with every ounce of your own power - not that you could even lift a single ounce right now - you heave the sled after you and - one foot after another - trudge back to your people's home.
Invisible to any regular human, the stampede of ants leaves quite an obvious trail for you to follow. Onward you stride, the merciless sun beating down on you through the breaks in the garden canopy. You've never walked this journey on foot before, and find yourself having taken for granted how easily the ants traversed this route. Each moment sees you with your nerves a-jitter, wondering if another predator like that mantis might spring forth to slay you now that you are defenceless.
But no; clearly the pair of you are too pathetic to be worth bothering with by any hungry creature. What luck!
But as you crest the tiny rise that looks over the entrance to the pit of the ants, you see the true reason for the jungle's quiet. Looming over what you've come to call home is a new, lengthy and high mountain, which can only be the shoe-clad foot of Ashley. You can't even look up far enough to see much more of her, let alone encompass both her planted feet in your vision at the same time.
What can she be doing here? Humans don't generally like ants encroaching upon their territory, so is she here to perform an extermination, stomping the hill or pouring scalding waters down into it? Either would be apocalyptic!
Relax, relax... She could simply be standing here, utterly unaware of the miniscule kingdom between her feet.
Seeing her powerful form here, you are tugged by a nostalgic longing for fellow bipeds, and ponder the possibility of tossing aside your comrades to return to the bosom of the gods known as humanity...   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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