For a moment you just watch as the parade of six legged horrors stilts up and down the road. One line is headed deeper into the colony, the other back the way you came and between them there is barely room to wag a feeler. You'll be trampled in seconds even if they don't notice you; maybe fungi sprouting in your lungs is a better alternative. Then while weighing your options once more, it hits you. A fragment of memory, probably a nature show you'd watched as a kid, chooses the perfect moment to dislodge into consciousness. A quick scan of the Eleph-ant ranks reveals its relevance. 'What always goes up in an ant hive?' Helmet lights follow a tiny worker hauling along a grainy boulder of clumped sand thrice his size. In more recent memory you see the hive's vaulted funnel entrance, little more than hollowed heap of similar stones. 'They gotta do something with all the soil they dig out.'
By the time you see an ant pass with another rock you've rehearsed your plan several times. Not a second left for thought you charge the Eleph-ant highway and leap at the stone. Held by the insect's strong jaws its as firm in air as it would be on the ground and your impact with its unyielding and uneven face jars your damaged ribcage once more. Grateful to find hand and foot holds in the rough rock, you stabilize yourself as you check on your chauffeur. Neither the bugs antennae or multifaceted eyes appear overly oriented in your direction and your extra weight is likely nothing compared to the seven tons of quartz below you.
Your heart soars as you watch the subterranean scenery go the same way it came. Better yet, now that you are well outside your transporter's jaws the passing ants have little interest in you and you receive not so much as a poke the entire way up. Your hope climaxes with the light of day and crashes abruptly as the ant releases you and the boulder over the edge of the funnel letting you both tumble down its steep incline.
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