Invasion

My enemy, a black ant roughly my size, yanked hard on the grasshopper leg with her mouth, glaring at me. “Let go!” She said with her antennae. “It’s mine! I found it first!”

“You’re on our property! What you've ‘found’ is ours!” I yanked on the grasshopper leg harder.

She tugged, I tugged. I tugged, she tugged. But no matter how hard either of us fought, we were stuck in a stalemate. We were stuck in a stupid dance where we would circle around with the piece of food gripped tightly in our mandibles.

Any other bug or insect, if there had been any around, would probably look at us and think we were fighting over nothing. But with the strange Aliens showing up at random, and food being scarce, I and my fellow ants had to protect what little resources we had from all outsiders. At some point, one of us would have to quit it, but the quitter wouldn’t be me.

Where are my sisters when I need them?

Just then, a weird humming-buzzing sound from above rang in our ears and a shadow of a large winged insect hovered over us.

My enemy glanced up at the sky. “What the—oh no!”

I didn’t have to see the new intruder to know what it was. 

It was the Alien. 

I took one last look at the grasshopper leg, and, with a heavy heart, let it go. I would have to be the quitter after all.

I scurried towards the tall grasses. “Run!” Even though my enemy had stolen from us, I didn’t wish to see her meet her doom like that. 

But when I looked behind me, my enemy was still standing there, staring at the monster like a fool.

The monster landed lightly in front of her. It had the face of an ant, but it was no ant. It had the tail of a scorpion, as red as blood, and the wings of a tiny hummingbird, as black as night.

The Alien’s eyes locked onto the grasshopper leg that was in my enemy’s mouth and then looked directly at her. Green ooze dripped from its mandibles.

As the realization of danger came into my enemy’s eyes, I turned away. 

It was too late. 

I rushed through the tall grass, the Alien’s screech made my head ache, and there was snapping and crunching, and a gurgling sound that was a strange burp.

My enemy was no more.

Ants cannot throw up, but if we could, I would have. It was too terrible, hearing the Alien devour that ant. Even though I didn’t witness it this time, my first encounter with the Alien made it so vivid in my mind, it was like I’d seen the ant’s demise with my own eyes. The Alien biting down on my enemy’s neck, snapping it like a twig, so that her head dropped to the ground, the Alien feasting on it and then gorging the rest of her remains down in one or two gulps—ugh!

When I was certain I was a safe distance away from the beast, I stopped to rest. Relax, focus, focus on the positive. At least my colony and I are still alive in spite of this invasive species from Nightmare Land. Well, most of us anyway. 

Some were killed by the Aliens. Eaten alive, even.

Speaking of my colony, I hadn’t seen them in days. I wasn’t able to find game to bring home because the Alien’s had either taken most of the prey or scared them away. But now that I thought about it, it was unusual for me to not bump into one of the scouts at least once. Where was everyone?

I hate to go home empty handed, but…

I crawled south and followed the scent that led to home, trying to keep my mind off the Alien Ants and on to more manageable problems, like where to hunt next, or what I would say to the colony should all the scouts had returned with nothing to eat. Would we have to eat grass seeds again? Yuck!

But despite my efforts, my mind kept wandering back to what the Queen had said a month ago, when we had first reported to her about the strange invaders.

“A Great Invasion may come soon,” she had said. “It could be our end.”

Could she be right? Was the random appearance of these beast only the beginning of my colony’s downfall?

I shook my head. So a few strange monstrous bugs had appeared and caused hunting to be more difficult. That didn’t mean there was an invasion. Did it? 

As I grew nearer and nearer, something felt more off. The scent…it was different. Tainted. Like something else had been nearby, designating the place as its new territor–

A sticky blade of grass brushed my front leg. When I looked down, the thing on my leg made my hairs stand on end. Green ooze.

I sped up. The further I went, the more ooze I spotted. On the grass, on the dirt, on the nearby flowers–it was everywhere! And the further I went, the louder the familiar, chilling humming became. No, no, no, no…

As I parted through the last few grass blades, and stopped in my tracks. Surrounding the large ant mound, my home, were hundreds of the Alien Ants, dragging away our food, the queen’s eggs, and the curled up stiff bodies of my sisters.

No amount of grasshopper, slug, or any kind of game could save my colony now. Nothing could save them now.

The Great Invasion had begun.