I made a big effort to stand up feeling the contusions ache and my muscles throb. I risked a few steps, fearful, approached the feet searching for something different that could make me associate the place with anything that resembled civilization.

I dragged my feet down some corridors until I stopped near a tunnel. Wide enough for… for… I was still trying to organize my thoughts when I felt the ground shake slightly and the crack and fizz I heard before increase.

I stopped any lucubration and started retreating, worried. There was nowhere to run in that labyrinthine hank of corridors, then I went to a stone big enough to hide and put myself behind it.

I muffled another scream when I saw hundreds of ants gather at the entrance of the cave. A devastating wave of giant ants, wiggling their antennas, opening and closing their fangs – from where the crack and fizz came. They formed a wall in front of the entrance, just like sentinels on guard. Behind the first ones, dozens of others scattered, climbing the acclivities and spreading down the fringes. I had no choice and cowered before the inevitable.

I was soon seen and besieged. They were getting closer. My eyes filled with tears anticipating a dolorous death when a hiss made them retreat a few meters. Another hiss made them climb one on top of the others, moving back sufficiently to make me feel less threatened.

From the entrance of the cave the biggest of all emerged. An ant that was so big it took all the perimeter of the entrance. It was probably thirty meters long and six or seven meters high. And on its back… a woman.

Ekaterina Sedia.