u/Aaron_Breiterman

I'm attempting to transition from writing traditionally to writing for comics and I'm new to this so would appreciate any help and advice. I've written many stories but this is a first for me.

Is there a specific format that artists prefer that makes illustrating the words easier?

Is there a different format in general for writing comics as opposed to short or long form stories that helps in any way.

I heard Robert kirkman writes his stories with a three panel layout in mind and am curious what this means.

If there are any questions that are important that I just can't think of I would appreciate any of those to add into the pile.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

after one look around the room at the dead bodies positioned in the chairs, i knew what to wish for

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.

My name is Alex. My story begins over a month ago. At the job I'd been working for over 3 years. I'd been a cashier all that time, and I thought it was time to finally ask for a promotion, so I knocked on my boss’s door and began.

“No” He interrupted almost instantly.

“No? With all due respect, sir at least hear me out. I've logged more hours than anyone else here” I said raising my voice slightly

“I understand the time you've put in here, and I appreciate it but what you've got to take into account is effort kid.”

“Effort?” 

“Yes Alex. Effort. Time means jack shit when you're only doing the bare minimum you understand me?” He stood up out of his chair, leaning across the desk on his hands at this point. Staring me down with those judgemental eyes that seemed to scan me for even the slightest sign of weakness.

“You think I don't see you slacking off out there every damn day? I know how this job is supposed to be done. You do the bare minimum to stay employed? What you're gonna receive is the bare minimum, employment.”

To say I was furious would be a colossal understatement. What little of the rest of my work day I remember was spent in a rage-filled haze that seemed to occupy every corner of my mind like a fog. Let's just say that I didn't get a very positive reception for the rest of my shift. I don't think I said hello, let alone cracked a smile at a customer for the rest of that day.

As I drove home, I was still seething so I decided to stop by the park to clear my head.

I sat on a bench overlooking the water. The anger in my heart began to be replaced with a soul crushing sense of despair. As the newfound sadness took hold of me, I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was an anthill. Well, Anthill isn't even the proper term to describe it. There was no hill. Just a perfectly cylindrical pitch black hole about 2 inches in diameter. Coming out of the hole was what appeared to be ants. However much like their home, they too looked like nothing I'd seen before.

Just like the hill, they too were as dark as could be. They were huge. At least 2 inches with very defined mandibles. As I watched them, the rage I had suppressed earlier came back. Only now it was accompanied by the dose of sadness which had originally filled its place.I don't know what it was, something about the creatures just disgusted me on a basic primal level and it reignited that burning anger I had originally come to the park to lose in the first place. I stood up, kicked dirt over the hole, stomped on the anthill a few times, and set off back to my car without a second thought. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to let out some of my pent-up aggression from that day. 

The rest of my day went off without a hitch. I went back home, watched some tv, and made dinner just like any other night. Everything appeared to be normal with one exception. As I attempted to toss and turn my way to sleep that night, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not just the feeling people get where they wanna sleep facing away from the wall. It was very deliberately, specifically the feeling of eyes watching me.

The next morning is when things officially started to get weird. I live on the first floor of my apartment complex. Rooms are laid out in a way so that there are 4 separate apartments for each section. 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 on the second with a staircase splitting down the middle, and a little stretch of dirt and grass lining the walls of each of the first-floor apartments. That was the first day I ever showed interest in my little patch of dirt, and it was due to one simple detail. There was a pitch-black hole, with the diameter of a golf ball perfectly centered on the patch of dirt right outside my front door. 

I immediately froze upon noticing it. I can't describe what it was about the hole that creeped me out. The fact that it was blacker than any shade I had ever seen was a good enough reason but there were others. The seemingly, perfectly cylindrical shape of it most notably. However, the reason I felt most unnerved at that moment was due to the simple fact that I had seen this hole before. This was the same type of hole I had seen yesterday, in the park. 

“What the fuck?”

I thought to myself as I knelt down to get a closer look.I grabbed a small twig that was in the dirt and prodded the pit until my fingertips hovered mere centimeters above the entrance.

“How deep does this go?” I thought to myself 

“Are you alright ?”

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a firm grip on my shoulder. I spun around quickly only to be greeted by my 1st-floor neighbor Jon. A very tall bald man somewhere in his mid 40’s who I'm fairly certain did nothing with his free time besides chew ground beef and lift weights. Not the kind of person you'd necessarily be comfortable with grabbing you out of the blue. 

“Jon! You scared the shit out of me!” I stammered out between gasps.

“Sorry about that" He said in his gravely southern voice

"I called your name out but you seemed so focused on, whatever it is you were doing that I guess you didn't hear me,”

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine, I was just checking this thing out.” I stammered out as I caught my breath.

He peeked over my shoulder before going back to talking to me.

" Well alright then "

His sentence was shortly interrupted by one of my backup alarms on my phone going off. This alarm, in particular, was to notify me that I had 10 minutes to be at work. Given the number of times I've fallen asleep in the parking lot waiting for my shift to start, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry Jon I Gotta go! "

He gave me a slight wave as he watched me sprint away. As I got in my car, threw it into reverse, and began backing up I neglected to wave back. My gaze remained locked on the Anthill in my front yard the entire time I backed out. 

Because of my speeding and disregard for the laws of traffic that morning, I was able to make it to work only 2 minutes late. 

After the scolding I got from my boss, the rest of my work day was pretty uneventful. Emphasis on the rest of the “Work” day because As I pulled back into my apartment, my eyes immediately locked back onto the dark pit that sat in my front yard like a blemish. I had totally forgotten about the morning incident maybe an hour after arriving at work. Yet all the uneasiness I had felt that morning came rushing back in an instant.I stared at the hole for the majority of the walk from my car up to my front door and even then when the front door was closed, the image of it remained ever-present in my mind.

The rest of the night was boring, save for the constant feeling of being watched. I was walking back to my room, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I noticed Two black ants staring at me from outside my windowsill outside. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I can describe their behavior. Insects congregating around a window is nothing out of the ordinary. But  they were undeniably the same ants I had seen that day in the park. Or at least, they were the same species. As I approached the window and leaned over to get a better look at them, their posture did not waiver. They stood steadfast like statues. Staring right back at me. I slowly twisted my blinds closed and did my best to sleep.

That was the point where my life began to rapidly derail. As I left my apartment the next day I looked down to check on the anthill in my front yard. Sure enough, there were 2 black ants staring at me. They watched me for my entire walk to the car. Just like the night before on my windowsill. I never left their sight

I didn't forget about the incident while I was at work this time. I kept playing the incident in my head over and over and by the time I pulled back into my driveway later that day, I was hesitant to point my eyes any lower than dead straight ahead of me but I looked nonetheless. There were now three of them. As always, they stared me down the entire time until I was safely behind my front door.

I called up my landlord.

"And you're sure it's been growing?” He asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yeah, You know what they say on all those animal planet shows. If you see 2 there's a whole colony." 

“Isn't that only a saying for rat colonies or cockroaches?"

"Look I don't know if the saying applies to all infestations. All I know is that I've been seeing more and more ants show up so clearly, they've settled in. I'm not asking for much, just an exterminator visit.” I said that last line as calmly as I could. figured the only way to get him to throw me a bone here was by making it not sound like a big expensive task.

" I got a buddy who works for pest control. I'll tell him to swing by towards the end of his shift for an inspection." and with that he hung up, sounding mildly annoyed at being convinced to actually do his job. The bane of any landlord's existence I suppose.

The rest of that night went fairly well compared to the previous one. I was feeling very at ease with having someone come in to help out with the situation. On top of that, there were no ants on my windowsill like the previous night. Everything was fine. Until I felt the sting.

 I awoke to a sharp pain between my shoulder and neck. Upon inspection, I found a small red dot. It hurt like hell and when I went to touch it sharp burning pain emanated from it that felt like a lit matchstick being pressed into my skin. 

I inspected my bed to see if I could find the culprit. When I failed this task I resigned, telling myself that it must just be a strange pimple or something.  Knowing damn well that wasn't the case, but nonetheless, I was too tired to care at that moment.

The next morning, there were four of them. Filled with annoyance at the pests, I kicked up dirt at them violently in an attempt to get them to run back into their hole. They didn't move an inch. They stood their ground and watched me intensely from my front door all the way to my car.

When I got back home I was relieved to see the exterminator was already hard at work, crouched down alongside my windowsill spraying something along the edges of my wall.

“Hey man, thanks for helping me out,” I said asHe pulled out his earbuds and looked over at me 

“you say something?” I sighed, rolled my eyes internally, and began again.

“This is my place, your um … "I struggled to think of the word to describe the procedure the man was in the middle of.

“Pest controlling?” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“ Oh! You must be Alex! Yes sir, I was notified of a possible infestation so I'm just laying some pesticides around all possible entry points into your home. All natural neem oil pesticides so they are nontoxic to you and any possible pets you may have.” I nodded along pretending to have a clue what he was talking about.

“ Great! Just make sure you get the anthill in the front yard too.”

“Don't you worry sir, I'll be sure to hit up any possible entry points as well as possible nest spots. As I go along” 

15 minutes later he told me he was done and to keep an eye out for any more ants and left. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, with some peace of mind, I was able to enjoy my night relaxing with some video games and staying up late due to my day off tomorrow. The morning after was just as good. I woke up, relaxed for a bit and decided to go see a movie. Unfortunately, there were now 2 hills.

About a foot away from the original and closer to my apartment lay an almost identical-looking copy of the first one.

"Fucking christl. Some exterminator friend you've got" I thought to myself.

With a deep sigh, I resigned myself to a day of exterminating rather than relaxation. I bought a can of bug spray and a few of those little plastic bait traps that ants are supposed to inadvertently poison the entire colony with.

I had no idea how to go about using the equipment properly. I figured that if I sprayed a copious amount of the bug spray along the bottom of my door frame and along my window sills, that would keep them from entering my apartment. I placed one trap outside both of the 2 hills and figured they would have to investigate them eventually. When I got home the next day, the anthills were gone.

"Did they move out or something? Did my traps work that fast? Even if they did the holes wouldn't be this covered up so soon" I thought to myself.

My ant traps were still there, looking quite lonely without any trace of an ant colony to accompany them. A comforting fact. So why did I still feel it? That sense of dread. Constantly in the back of my mind from the time I woke up, all throughout work, and even now as I had visual confirmation that my intruders were gone, it remained. I opened my front door and stepped inside. The 2 black ants sitting on my kitchen table turned their heads and stared at me.

In an instant, I felt my blood turn to ice. As I stood there frozen with fear, all the moments that had led up to this raced through my mind. The encounter at the park, the mysterious anthills, the windowsill encounter, the sting and the dread I felt when I looked at these damn bugs all played back in my mind. 

"Something is very wrong here." I thought to myself. On an almost instinctual, primal level that I couldn't comprehend at that moment in time, something was simply very wrong.

I began to walk past the table and to my fridge to retrieve a paper towel. The entire time their heads followed my every move, and I in return did not dare let them out of my sight. With one swift motion, I yanked a paper towel off from its roll and smushed the bugs before they could escape. Their remains left an unusual amount of black liquid on my paper. I threw their remains away and pulled out my phone.

“ I need the exterminator back here. I don't know what kind of you had this guy do but it clearly wasn't enough cause they're in my house now.” 

“You mean the ants?” he retorted

“No, the fucking lawn gnomes YES, the ants, Jesus!” I spat back at him. Even though I had no visual indication, I could tell that he was rubbing his forehead out of annoyance.

“ I'll call him just calm down kid.”

“Sure, thanks,” I said before abruptly hanging up.

After about 10 minutes I got a text that read: “He’s all booked up. Says he can do it 2 days from now at the earliest.”

“That's not soon enough man! You gotta find me, someone, sooner!”

“He's the cheapest one in town, Alex. He's the one I'm going with. You'll be fine until then, they’re just some fucking ants” 

I threw my phone at the wall out of frustration and slumped against the kitchen counter, almost immediately regretting that decision before frantically going to check the damage. Just a crack on the screen. I took a deep breath, and called in sick to my boss for the following day.

The following “sick day” I returned from the store with 2 bags in hand that were filled with more of those plastic ant bait traps, sticky traps, and bug spray. I spent a good hour placing the various traps throughout my home in high-traffic areas where I thought the ants liked to travel. I sprayed down more bug spray along the windowsill and doorway and when I was satisfied with that, I laid down even more ant traps. 

I half expected the ants to come out and try to stop me at some point. Not only did this not happen, but I didn't see them at all that day. Not on my kitchen counter, not on my window, not anywhere.

Whereas the previous day I awoke feeling unbearable dread, the day after I had a sense of optimism. As I left my home and walked to my car there were still no anthills to be seen or any ants at all. As I pulled out of my driveway and began driving to work I was in such a good mood that I even found myself singing along a little to the songs on the radio. That's when I noticed the ant crawling around on my hand.

I instinctively smacked it off of my hand with the other, causing me to turn my car sharply to the left and nearly end up off of the road. I waited for the annoyed honks to pass me by until it was safe to pull over. When it was, I jumped out of my car and began to furiously pat down my body in search of any more ants. I found none, except for the now-dead one that lay on the dashboard. I spent a good 10 minutes checking every nook and cranny of my car to see if I could find any more of them. When I was certain that there was absolutely no chance of the insects hiding anywhere in my vehicle, I finally set off to work in complete silence.

I don't remember if anybody talked to me at work that day. The feeling of being watched now made itself present at work. The entire day I kept randomly slapping myself at even the faintest itching sensation. I'm sure I looked nuts, but I couldn't help it. I was paranoid that they had followed me to work and at certain points, I even mistook the pain of a random muscle cramp for one of their stings. 

When I pulled back into my driveway the feeling of being watched grew so intense that it nearly made my eyes water up from the cold chill that ran down my spine. Once again, no new anthills. This was not a comforting discovery. I had no more optimism about the situation and knew that this did not mean they were gone. It simply meant they had moved in. 

“The exterminator comes tomorrow,” I told myself in an attempt to remain calm.

I awoke to all encompassing pain. Though it was pitch black in my room and I had no visual confirmation, I knew what the culprit was immediately. The stinging sensation was the same as I had felt on the back of my neck many days ago. But this time, I felt it everywhere on my body all at once.I leaped out of bed and yanked on my desk lamp cord. My desk lamp fell to the ground and its light shone straight up at my ceiling. It was enough light to see my current situation. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of ants had swarmed all over my body. 

I immediately began to swat, slap, spin, and do everything in my power to shake them off of me. all the while they continued to sting me over and over again. They felt like hot staples being driven into my skin and they were happening multiple times a second. The pain was so excruciating I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any second. In my frenzy I noticed there were 2 ants sitting on my nightstand. Just like the day at the park, my house, and my kitchen, they watched me. Despite my frantic and fast movements in all directions, they stood steadfast. Watching me writhe around in agony. Eventually, I had gotten enough of them off of me to the point where I could grab a can of bug spray from the dresser. Almost instantly, I felt the stinging stop. The pain didn't, but I could feel no new stinging occurring. As I looked down I noticed the ants fleeing from me. The ants on the nightstand were no longer there and the ones who were just attacking me a moment ago were now scurrying across the floor away from me as fast as they could. They weren't fast enough. They were resilient though. On average I'd say each ant took about a 3-second spray to fully stop moving. I honestly think I used up half the damn bottle that night. I simply held down the spray button, and I didn't let go until I saw no more signs of life in my room. When it was all finally over, I counted 85 stings all over my body. I crawled my way to the bathtub to try to ease the pain, and promptly passed out.

I awoke to the sound of a knock on my front door followed by a familiar “Hello?”. 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. 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 drained off by itself so I wasn't a completely sopping wet pruney mess by the time I reached the door.

“Are you ok there ?” he said 

“Hey man, I'm sorry for taking so long. Rough night”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that sir. What happened? If you don't mind me asking.”

I told him the story as I walked him to my room.

“ Oh my! 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.

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 and waved him off as he drove away. That's when I noticed the 3 new Anthills in my front yard.

“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 under my apartment, I would have broken clean through the earth itself and fallen in. Eventually I found myself out of breath and stopped.

“Fuck” I muttered to myself before kicking dirt over the now decimated anthills, and heading inside.

I couldn't get to sleep that night. The feeling of being watched was too strong.  I sat on the edge of my bed and turned on my nightstand lamp.

As the light illuminated my room I spotted them. Just like the night before, there were once again 2 ants watching me from my nightstand. Remembering the horror of the night before I immediately patted down my body, expecting to be covered once again. But there were none to be found. I slowly turned my gaze to the ants and leaned forward to get a closer look at them. They stood there staring back at me.

“What the fuck are you?” I said 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 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. They finally reacted and moved backward to avoid my hand. I stopped my hand midair however and laughed.

“I got you little bastards,” I said, moving my hand backward.

After a few seconds of us staring at each other, I  started to laugh. The sheer craziness of what was happening. Eventually, I walked over to the counter to grab the spray. When I turned around, 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.

My backup alarm woke me up. “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.

 I began to rehearse my “I'm sorry” speech to my boss when 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 looked down and saw that they were crawling all over my hands and arms. How they had gotten into my car I couldn't say. 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. As the pain began to permeate I started wildly swatting all over my body in a vain attempt to free myself from the ants. Causing my car to swerve erratically all over the road. A particularly large sting nipped 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, my elbow leaned across the steering wheel, and sent 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. 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. 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.

When the doctor showed up I asked her “How long was I out?” 

“You've been knocked out for about “ 12 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,” what was I supposed to say? I couldn't tell them “ I was swarmed by and attacked by thousands of ants in my car.'' when there was no proof of the event ever occurring. They'd think I was high or something.

“That's what we thought,” your blood came back clear of alcohol so we figured it had to be something else. Well, 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 says you're going to be getting 2 weeks of paid leave while you recover.”

I nodded. After a day of evaluation, I was allowed to return home via taxi. My car was rendered undrivable by the accident.

As I opened the door to my home, dread didn't even begin to describe the emotion that swept over me.  It was the most soul crushing sense of impending doom I had ever known in my entire life. Taking in the dimly lit apartment, I slowly lowered myself into my couch and stared at the powered-off tv. An ant was running along the top of it. Anger boiled up within me and with one swift motion I grabbed my tv remote and chucked it at the ant. The remote flew dead center at my tv screen cracking it down the center, I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments before dropping to my knees and beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think man, think!” I said, trying to calm myself down.

“What the fuck do I do ?'' I sat back against the bottom of the couch and called the exterminator once more.

“So what are my options now?”

“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, you would need to get at least 1 neighboring tenant 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 a fumigation would even work at all.

“Ask your neighbors sir, as soon as you've gotten confirmation 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 before hanging up.

“Wake up”

I was awoken by a voice.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.

“I said wake up!” the voice sounded annoyed this time.

With one motion shot straight out of bed and turned on my light. I was taken aback to discover nobody there. I stood up and waited. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck was so strong I could feel it physically weighing me down. 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. A small leatherman multi-tool. I retracted the pitifully small knife attachment from it and began to search the apartment.

Bedroom Clear. Hallway Clear. Bathroom Clear. 

Eventually, I checked everywhere. Every room 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 slowly backed myself out of the hallway and into the living room to make a break for the front door when I froze. The feeling of eyes was so strong at this point that I no longer felt it on my neck. It was everywhere. I couldn't breathe, I just stood there frozen. If I wasn't so terrified I might have been able to taste the salt from the tears that were now running down both of my eyes. 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 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 are you!” I began to ask the question out loud as intimidatingly as I could muster when I was struck with a sudden realization. The voice sounded so close. 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 backward. It stared at me for a few moments before running under my couch and leaving me alone with my thoughts and fears. 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 describe as all-encompassing fear. A part of me didn't believe the event of last night had truly happened at all. 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. I sat in my living room, trying to watch tv through the bottom left peephole of the cracked screen. the only part of the device that still worked anymore. It didn't matter. I was too busy scanning the corners of my vision for any sight of the creatures and trying to think of a plan. After a few hours I pulled out my phone and began to look for apartment ads near me there was nothing

To be more specific, nothing within my affordability.

“Run if you wish. We will follow.” The words interrupting my thoughts.

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. I hid in the bathroom again.

 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. Unsure of what else to do I called my landlord.

“Alex! How are you man? 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,” I interrupted. “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?”

“Exterminator? You mean for that ant problem you said you were having?” he said 

“Yeah, THAT ant problem. Listen, the guy you've been sending 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, “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 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 very respectable.” he said, sounding very annoyed.” If he says we gotta fumigate then by all means we’ll fumigate, but not for whatever shit shows going ok with you and your place!”

“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.

“Kid, the guy didn't wanna be rude to your face and say you didn't have a problem. The truth is the last 2 times he's been over there he's called me back to complain about me wasting his time with an imaginary ant problem. He said "Every time he's been over to your place, he's never found any ants or signs of them period.” 

“That .. that's not” I hung up and  slumped onto the couch.

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. In my reflection, I saw the ants. I watched them crawl up my legs. Without ever once physically looking down at my body, I just stared straight ahead and watched them slowly engulf me up to my abdomen. The ants crawled even higher. Never once stinging me, just slowly enveloping my body. Stopping once they reached my shoulders. It was impossible to tell but there had to be at least a few thousand of them on me.

“We are your problem, not theirs.” The ants all seemed to speak in unison.

reality came crashing back down on me 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.”

“Get out of my house!” I screamed before going to the kitchen to grab the hammer from under my 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? 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 scurry deeper 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. I only stopped due to the pounding on my door.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” my neighbor  Jon yelled at me through the door.  placed the hammer on my table and opened the door.

“What the fuck is going on in this house ? sounded like you were tryna tackle your way through the damn wall!” 

“ I'm 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? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know I know I'm sorry,” Jon's 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 caused. We stared at each other for a few more moments as I couldn't think of anything else to say other than feeble apologies. 

“Jon, you haven't seen any ants at your place 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.

“No, no I haven't,” he said slowly backing up “ if I hear you going ape shit like that ever again i will call the cops Alex!” 

With that, he left me there alone in the doorway. I slowly closed the door, and dropped to my knees. As soon as I did so, the walls began to murmur.

I turned around and rested 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, I ignored the ants and walked to my bedroom to go to sleep. What else was there to do?

I just lay there flat on my bed staring straight up at my ceiling. The murmuring in my walls continued on and on for a couple of hours until eventually, all at once it stopped. 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. I shot out of bed and stood up.

“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. 

“Say something!” I shouted at it impatiently “what do you want from me!”

 “You owe us a home, Alex.”

The murmuring began again, only not from any of my walls this time. The voices were coming from my bed.I slowly grabbed 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. 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 came apart I found 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, began to spray the poison wildly in front of me. 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!” 

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  from the side of the mattress. It lashed out at me 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. It swung wildly at me but maintained its shape the entire time. As I lay there I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ants were moving with a shared consciousness.  I scrambled back onto one knee and began to spray at the mass with. It did little though. The ants held their structure steady. It shot even further out of the mattress and began to grow. Never taking my finger off of the spray button, I watched the tentacle morph into a black tidal wave that began to envelop my entire field of vision and half of my legs. The stinging began almost immediately and as the pain in my legs rose I felt like I was going to pass out. I rapidly began to scoot back, kicking my legs the entire time to get the ants off of me. The tidal wave of ants grew higher and higher. As soon as I was able to get to my feet I turned and ran for the door. I could hear the voices behind me growing louder and louder. I swung the door open and as I stepped into the safety of my lit hallway the voices rose in one last act of defiance.

“ALEX!” they spoke before I slammed the bedroom door shut. The second I did so, the voices immediately stopped. I propped a chair against the bedroom door. It's been there ever since.

Which finally leads us here. Ever since that night, I've been holding up in my kitchen. I've been sitting here 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 won't let them.

As I've been writing this over the last hour, the gas valve on my stove has been on the entire time. There's a lighter in my kitchen drawer and once I submit this 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 murmuring has returned.

All I have left to say is, stay away from anthills.