Chapter 1: Don't Eat The Ants

Chapter 1: Don't Eat The Ants

The van smelled like a chemical cocktail of failure and cheap air freshener. Leo Martinez gripped the steering wheel, the worn vinyl slick beneath his palms. Beside him, Marc Riley had his feet on the dashboard, bouncing one leg to the rhythm of a song only he could hear.

"Dude, seriously, another roach gig?" Marc groaned, crinkling a half-empty bag of chips. "I thought you said Mr. Henderson was hooking us up with that termite job. Big money."

"He gave it to the other crew," Leo said, his eyes fixed on the cracked windshield. The paycheck-to-paycheck rhythm of his life felt like a slow, grinding beat he couldn't escape. "This one's a last-minute call. Ant infestation. Should be quick."

"Ants. Great." Marc tossed a chip into his mouth. "At least it's not bedbugs. I'm still having nightmares from that flophouse on Miller Ave."

Leo grunted in agreement, turning onto a street lined with decaying apartment buildings. This was their world: a series of dingy rooms and forgotten corners, fighting back the endless tide of vermin for people who had just enough money to be disgusted but not enough to move.

He pulled up to the address—a grimy brick monolith that seemed to be sagging under its own weight. "Apartment 4B. Client's name is Elias Vance."

"Vance." Marc snorted. "Sounds fancy. Probably some rich weirdo who saw a single ant and freaked." He zipped up his own stained blue jumpsuit, its sleeves crudely torn off to reveal his wiry, tattooed arms.

Their client was waiting for them in the dim, flickering light of the hallway. Marc’s "rich weirdo" theory died on the spot. Elias Vance was a ghost poured into a stained grey hoodie. He was impossibly thin, with pale, almost translucent skin stretched tight over his bones. Thick, black-rimmed glasses magnified his eyes, which darted between them like trapped birds. He looked less like a client and more like a man about to confess to a murder.

"You're the exterminators?" Vance's voice was a dry whisper.

"That's us," Marc said, his usual cocky grin faltering slightly under the man's unnerving stare. "Got a little ant problem, huh?"

Vance didn't answer immediately. He seemed to be analyzing them, weighing their worth. "The infestation is… unique. There are rules."

Leo exchanged a look with Marc. Rules? They had one rule: spray until it stops moving.

"Okay," Leo said cautiously, hoisting his chemical sprayer. "What kind of rules?"

"You will seal the room before you begin," Vance said, his voice gaining a sharp, urgent edge. "You will not touch the… the source… with your bare skin. You will not breathe too deeply near it." He took a shuffling step closer, his magnified eyes locking onto theirs with terrifying intensity. "And whatever you do," he rasped, "don't eat the ants."

Marc barked out a laugh. "Eat the ants? Dude, what do you take us for?"

Vance didn't crack a smile. He simply stared, his expression a mask of pure, undiluted fear. He handed Leo a key, his fingers trembling. "Just… be careful." Then he turned and practically fled down the hallway, disappearing into the stairwell.

"Well," Marc said, breaking the tense silence. "He was a bucket of fun."

"Let's just get this over with," Leo muttered, the man's strange warning echoing in his head.

The lock on 4B turned with a rusty groan. Leo pushed the door open and was immediately hit by a smell that made him stop dead. The air was thick, not with the expected stench of rot and filth, but with the cloying, unmistakable scent of… baking sugar cookies. It was warm, sweet, and completely, utterly wrong.

The apartment was a minimalist nightmare. A single mattress on the floor, a folding chair, and stacks of esoteric-looking books. Dust motes danced in the single beam of sunlight cutting through a grimy window. But the smell was overwhelming, emanating from a closed bedroom door at the end of the hall.

"Smells like my grandma's kitchen in here," Marc said, wrinkling his nose. "Maybe the dude's got a secret baking hobby."

"Or a secret body," Leo muttered, his hand tightening on the sprayer. He pushed open the bedroom door.

The source of the smell was immediately apparent. In the center of the room, where a bed should have been, was a mound. It wasn't a nest of dirt and debris, but a glistening, pulsating pile of tiny white spheres, each the size of a tapioca pearl. They were slick and semi-translucent, and they seemed to hum with a faint, internal energy. A thick, syrupy residue coated the floor around the mound, catching the light like spilled honey. Thousands upon thousands of ants—a species Leo had never seen before, with milky-white bodies—crawled over the pile, tending to the eggs with an eerie, coordinated intelligence.

"Whoa," Marc whispered, stepping closer. "What the hell is that?"

"I don't know," Leo said, a cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach. The sweet smell was strongest here, a saccharine perfume that made his teeth ache. "But we're gassing it. All of it."

He primed his sprayer, the hiss of the pump sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet room. But Marc wasn't reaching for his equipment. He was staring at the mound, mesmerized. He knelt down, his face just inches from the pulsating pile.

"They're beautiful," he breathed.

"They're bugs, Marc. Get back."

Marc ignored him. He reached out a gloved finger and gently touched one of the eggs. It wobbled, glistening under his touch. "It's like weird, alien Jell-O."

"Don't. The guy said not to touch them."

"The guy's a nutjob," Marc shot back, a familiar, reckless glint in his eye. He carefully plucked one of the tiny white spheres from the mound. It rested on his thumb, shimmering. "I wonder what they taste like."

Leo's blood ran cold. "You're not serious."

"Why not?" Marc grinned, his mischievous side taking full command. "Life's for living, Leo. You're always so wound up. It's probably just, like, ant sugar."

"That's not a thing. Put it down before you get some kind of flesh-eating disease."

Marc looked from the glistening egg to Leo's horrified face. The grin widened. "I'll bet you five bucks I won't."

It was the kind of stupid, pointless dare that had defined their entire friendship, from jumping off garage roofs to chugging expired milk. But this felt different. This felt like a boundary they shouldn't cross.

"Don't be an idiot, Marc," Leo pleaded, his voice low.

"Five bucks."

"No."

"Scared?" Marc taunted. He held the egg up to the light. It seemed to glow from within.

Before Leo could protest again, Marc popped the white sphere into his mouth.

Leo flinched, a wave of nausea rolling through him. He heard a soft pop.

Marc's eyes went wide. He closed his mouth, a look of genuine surprise on his face. He chewed once, then swallowed.

"Well?" Leo asked, his voice barely a whisper.

A slow smile spread across Marc's face. He licked his lips, a tiny smear of clear syrup glistening on them.

"Like a gusher," he said, his voice filled with a strange, childlike wonder. "But... warm. And sweet. So, so sweet."

He looked back at the pulsating mound, a new kind of hunger in his eyes. "You gotta try one, man."