Insects 2

INSECTS 2

"Do ant hills hide or keep prisoners?"

There is no such thing as mercy or compassion in the world of the Ants. They are the terrestrial version of the ocean's bottom-feeders. Claws and mandibles are utilized primarily to slice and rend whatever is in their path so as to make it more digestible, or at least of appropriate size to insert into what passes for an ant's mouth. They do not chew. They do not taste. They cut and cut and cut and swallow.

It is with this in mind that I must discuss the notion of the prisoners of the ants. If one is unfortunate enough to be seized but not instantly cut to death by an ant's jaws, their days are still numbered. There are some ants that have developed a neurotoxic bite or sting that paralyzes their target, but such relative tender mercies are unfortunately rare. Most frequently, prisoners are simply snatched by the ant assigned to the hunt, offending limbs snipped off or immediately consumed, and what's left is interred in a holding cell.

If ever an insect could be driven mad with fear, then imprisonment in such a holding cell would certainly bring it about. It is merciful - though by no thanks to the ants of course - that most insects detect only vibration and not discrete sounds. For the sloshing, sliming, and secreting emanating from the ant incubators near these holding cells is a damnable droning... A roiling of flesh ever-hungry, but otherwise ignorant of intellect. Two or less strands of DNA away from a senseless microbe, it wants nothing more than to ingest anything within its reach that's not another living ant.

Should one of these maggots gain strength and sense enough to wriggle its way into the nearest holding cell, its endless feast will continue in earnest. The maggot's next meal may still have some sensation in any of its remaining body parts, but if you or I were there, we would have hoped to have already bled to death. The harbinger of our end would be heralded by the gnashing of the worm's spiny, sphinctered mouth gnawing whatever our physical remains would be, and our life force would trickle away with it, into the budding ant that blindly, dumbly chewed upon us.