I've always had a love for insects. The love ants shared for each other, the biodiversity, the just plain weirdness. For some reason, though, I didn't like spiders. Sure, they were cute, but when I saw one in person, I'd start panicking. I never hurt it. I never liked to hurt insects, even the spiders.

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Ants were my particular favorites. They were all the same from afar, but up close, they couldn't be more different. They all had lives, but they all pitched in. Which is why I became a myrmecologist. Even then, I never felt fulfilled. Sure, I was researching ants, which I loved, but something just didn't really feel right in my soul. Like there was empty space.

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Eventually, I filled that void. I met someone else who liked ants, and even wanted to start some colonies. We eventually got one, too! Her name was Millie. I got some personal favorites, Asian Bullet Ants. We both liked them, but I had a particular fondness for them, since they were so small, yet could pack a punch and make a difference.

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We had many ant colonies. Fire ants, carpenter ants, etc. But they would eventually die out. So we started a little experiment, to see if something could truly become immortal. Obviously, we wouldn't risk our ants just yet, so we bought an old tarantula. Tarantulas often died due to being stuck in their old molt, but we'd stop that.

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Sure enough, it got stuck, but we got it out. It was marginally bigger. We sent it to a lab, for further testing. We even found a way to make our own queens without them leaving for nuptial flight, so colonies wouldn't die. We loved our ants the way you would love a child. It was nice. Their food could be found outside, and eventually the colonies grew to amazing sizes.

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We were contacted by the lab 2 years after we sent the tarantula there. They said it had escaped. Me and Millie looked at each other. We hoped it hadn't grown too big to sustain its weight, than died. No creature deserves that. We decided to go bug-hunting to calm our nerves. We found a massive dead caterpillar, so we decided to feed that to our ants later.

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We couldn't buy normal ant food, like mealworms, since the pet store had collapsed. They don't know why. They assume it was because of an earthquake or something. As we walked back, I swore I heard something in the forest. Pitter-patters, but louder. Millie hadn't heard anything.

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Something woke us in the dead of night. Something eating something else. Millie was fast asleep, so I grabbed a flashlight and started leaving. I heard horrifying noises. Howls, crunching, and that ever-present metal moving. I kept going, looking for the source of the noise. Nothing. Nada. I heard it around the corner. I took a peek, and what I saw surprised me.

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A raccoon. I was surprised it had the strength to knock over our garbage can, but it was gorging itself on banana peels and some other stuff I couldn't see. I went back into the house, and noticed the trash can from the window. The raccoon had vanished. I didn't really care, and went back to bed.

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Millie was still fast asleep, so I took the duty of taking care of the ants in the morning. I noticed the package of mealworms I ordered from Amazon had arrived, so I grabbed that. I fed the ants as per usual, and decided to put the box down near their cages.

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I was at work, when Millie suddenly called me.

"Hey, how are yo-"
"SOMEONE BROKE INTO OUR HOUSE."

"What?"
"THE GLASS IS SHATTERED. YOU KNOW THE PACKAGE OF THE MEALWORMS YOU GOT?"

"Well, yes."
"IT WAS THE ONLY THING MISSING."

I requested a break from work, and decided to head home, to check out the damage.

Sure enough, there was a smallish hole in our window. However, there was a rectangular hole beneath it, just barely touching. I sighed. Looks like it was back to feeding the ants meat and veggies.

I decided to take a walk, to calm my mind. I walked, taking in the serenity of nature. How the birds chirped, the grass growing, and I inhaled, feeling blessed to be in this great world. I was not expecting my nostrils to be violently assaulted. I looked down, and right in front of me, on the ground, was a dead raccoon. A massive hole in its stomach. If I'd eaten today, I would have vomited.

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I returned home, tired. I needed to sleep. But I realized something. With me feeding all the groceries to the ants, we had none left. I noticed Millie sleeping soundly, and it didn't feel right for me to wake her up than sleep myself. So, heart heavy, I began the trip to the grocery store.

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I picked up some meat, veggies, all the essentials. I also picked up some febreze, due to me being worried the dead-raccoon smell would waft over to my house. I drove home. I tapped on the wheel, listening to a true crime podcast. I liked them.

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I returned home to find it ransacked, and didn't hear Millie snoring. I ran over to our bedroom, and found her on the bed, eyes wide open. She seemed to be mouthing something. I interpreted it as "Under the blanket, don't make noise". I uncovered the blanket, and found something horrifying.

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Webbing. Webbing everywhere. Millie was tied to the bed by webbing. It was too sticky to undo without being trapped there myself. I opened the emergency safe, and grabbed a shotgun. Something was up. I heard noise coming from the ant room. I opened the door, and was greeted by a monstrosity.

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A giant spider. A GIANT SPIDER. It was sniffing around for the food it smelled. It stomped the ground in frustration. I whimpered, which caused it to whip around. It sized me up, and lunged. I shot that thing in the chest. It blew back a bit, and got MAD. It started kicking hairs everywhere. Every table I kept my ants on fell. Some ants spilled out. Bullet ants, fire ants, they all seemed to make an agreement.

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The spider looked at me with all 8 of its eyes, then suddenly recoiled. Ants swarmed the spider. They were everywhere. Working together, the spider stood no chance. It flailed as the ants devoured it. At the end, I had a giant corpse, and some very aggressive ants. They looked at me, then decided to leave me alone. They were full. They returned to their tipped-over ant colonies, which I then flipped back up. The spider was practically just a hollowed-out corpse. It seemed the ants had agreed to split the spoils.

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I called the lab which had to have caused the spider to grow so big, and explained the situation. They took the corpse away for further testing, and cut the spider silk binding Millie.

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I've always loved ants. The way they all pitched in, the way they were like a massive family. But after that day, I've looked at my ant colonies with a newfound fear, and a newfound respect. Despite knowing they could kill me one night, I'll always love my ants.