The bright red-orange sun cast its rays over the residential suburb of Eaglemont in Melbourne with its nice little layout of small streets and large upper middle class two storey houses. To the untrained eye it might seem like it was like any other ordinary day.

For some it may seem.

On a narrow side street, a black SUV was pulling into a concrete driveway of a brown reddish coloured brick two storey house with a garage and a green front lawn with a small number of bushes and shrubs surrounding the perimeter of the house. The black SUV didn’t pull directly into the garage however and instead stopped just in front of the grey garage shutter door and parked itself on the concrete driveway.

The car doors opened and out stepped out a family of four, all with fiery red ginger hair. This family was the Firewall family and they had just returned from their son’s year 6 graduation.

Rebecca and Robert Firewall (the parents) had two children, a boy and a girl named Max and Lucy. Max Firewall was 12 years old and was a year 6 student who had just graduated primary school and had just returned from his graduation ceremony. He had short length spiky red hair and was currently wearing a black suit with a white shirt and a red bow tie. Lucy on the other hand was only 7 years old and was in grade 1, her second year of primary school. She had a silky long wave of bright red hair that reached up to her shoulders, grey blueish coloured eyes and a small faint collection of brown-coloured freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. She was currently wearing a medium length green dress with blue polka dots and silver flats. Their parents bore a striking resemblance to their children with many people stating that they looked exactly like the grown-up versions of their children.

Robert Firewall was beaming and patted his son Max on the shoulder as they walked up to the front door.

“My son is now officially a teenager who is going to be in high school,” laughed Robert. “I am so proud of you for completing the first milestone of your education”.

“Woo Hoo, that’s so great” moaned Lucy who was trotting beside them. “I don’t see why I had to be dragged along”.

“Lucy come on; you know your brother’s graduation ceremony is very important to him” stated Rebecca Firewall as she fumbled for the house keys in her handbag.

“To be honest mummy I would rather be having a tea party with my stuffed animals at home rather than listen to one boring speech after the other” complained Lucy.

“Lucy enough” warned her mother sternly.

The house keys clicked inside the keyhole and the door swung open  to reveal a dimly lit entrance room and hallway. On the left hand-side was the door that led to the garage and on the right-hand side was the entrance room which consisted of a glass table with a single couch and a vase of fake flowers on top of the glass table.

The Firewall family walked  further down the hallway to the living room which consisted of a large tv on top of a tv stand table with a PlayStation,DVD player, coffee table and two large black couches. The back wall of the living room had a sliding glass door which led to the backyard.

The four family members plopped themselves on the couch.

“Oh, I almost forgot we have to get ready tonight, we are going to visit your cousins in Ballarat tomorrow” realised Robert Firewall.

“WHAT!!” shrieked Lucy who was absolutely caught off guard. She quickly jumped to her feet and stood in front of the other 3 family members, frowning with her hands on her hips.

“Don’t look so surprised Lucy, we have told you about this before” stated her mother. “If you were not listening to us that’s your fault.”

“But Ballarat is 120km away mummy!” gasped Lucy.

“I know that’s why we are planning to leave early tomorrow” stated her brother Max.

“But I have plans to do other stuff” complained Lucy.

“Lucy every member of this family needs to participate in family time.” stated her father. “You can’t just go off and do your own thing”.

“Don’t I have any independence, power or freedom to make my own decisions?” questioned Lucy to her parents with her eyes narrowing in and focussing in on them.

“No of course not” scoffed her father. “You are only 7 years old and still under parental care, you need to do exactly what we tell you to do. Parents know what’s best”.

“THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Rebecca’s face went from one of annoyance to a bright red face of fury and disgust. Dozens of U-shaped wrinkles appeared on her forehead.

“EXCUSE ME?!” Rebecca shrieked. “I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT JUST CAME OUT OF YOUR FILTHY LITTLE MOUTH!!!”

Rebecca was so angry that she raised her hand and slapped Lucy across the mouth, however not with full force. Even Max and Robert were shocked and taken aback by the viciousness of the punishment. Lucy started crying softly and a few tears started trickling down her cheeks.

“Let me make one thing clear” lectured her mother angrily. “Little children are not to use such foul-mouthed language. Especially to grown-ups.”

“YOU ALL SUCK!!” cried Lucy.

With tears in her eyes, she threw open the back sliding door and ran outside to the backyard porch.

Max and his father both looked at Rebecca who was standing with her mouth open at her daughter’s behaviour.

“Well, that was a bit harsh, don’t you think mum?” said Max at his mother after a few minutes of awkward silence.

“Yeah, I agree with Max on this one” stated Robert. “Sorry Rebecca but slapping Lucy was a bit too much”.

Rebecca plopped herself back on to the couch and sunk her face in her hands.

“Oh Robert……” she sighed.

Meanwhile……………

“Hup! Hup! Hup! Let’s go! Let’s Go!” barked a voice coming from way down below from a lifeform so tiny it could barely be seen with the naked eye.

The voice was coming from the leader of a group of harvester ants who were busy in the green grassy forest below picking food scraps to bring back to their colony. Their ant colony was located in the Firewall backyard with the anthill being located in the back lawn. The anthill was located with precision in the corner of the backyard where the grass met the concrete barrier of the backyard concrete pergola. From the ant’s perspective the grass blades soaring above them looked like the canopy of a rainforest and the concrete barrier step was 5 metres which was just below the tips of the grass blades.

The harvester ants were working as fast as they can, like fruit pickers, dragging breadcrumbs, tiny plant matter and pieces of sugar that were the same size as them on their backs. Fortunately, it wasn’t too much of a problem for them as they didn’t need heavy lifting tools or machinery since they could lift 30 times their own weight. The harvester ants were bringing their haul in for the day to their anthill which peaked just over the top of the grass blades, enabling them to gain a clear view of the backyard. On top of the anthill, spotters were scanning the backyard through their dew-ice created telescopes looking for any signs of danger.

Food shortages in the colony had caused the harvester ants to forage further and further from home. Despite warnings from the queen some of them had been foolish enough to venture onto the forbidden human territory of the concrete walkway/pergola.  

Meanwhile………….

Fuming and enraged with red bloodshot eyes, Lucy stormed out of the backyard sliding doors and plopped herself on the backyard concrete pergola steps. Sometimes she felt so small and helpless, being dominated by everyone. If only she knew what that felt like……….

Lucy’s eyes then darted to the anthill located in the back corner where the lawn met the concrete brick walkway.  She then moved her eyes downward to the little black ants that were crawling just a metre in front of her feet on the concrete platform.

Lucy smirked and remembered how she got that satisfaction of power. She had been doing this for a few months now, every time she felt small, bullied or picked on.

Lucy stood up and kicked off her silver flats, wiggling her small, stubby unpainted toes at their new found freedom.

Meanwhile………………

The harvester ants nestled between the blades of  grass below could sense something was terribly wrong. They could feel through the tremors  in the sensors of their legs as they saw grains of soil as large as ping pong balls to them start to bounce up and down  vigorously as the earthquake tremors became stronger and stronger. As they looked up to the sun, they suddenly saw a vast shadow cast over them and saw an enormous figure the size of 50 mountains appear in front of their overhead sky vision. The figure was so large that it cast a shadow that from their  perspective stretched for a several kilometre radius.

As the harvester ants squinted their eyes, they saw that the figure was a young human female. And not just any human.

It was a terrible human they all had known from past encounters.

The leader of the harvester ants started screaming to the rest of his workers.  He knew exactly what was going to happen next and knew that many of the workers might not survive the next sequence of events.

“MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!” shrieked the leader of the harvester ants. “WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO THE COLONY NOW!”

Horrified and terrified the harvester ants began scurrying back to the colony as fast as their little legs could carry them. That’s when the leader of the harvester ants realised another horrifying fact.

“OH, FUCK I FORGOT I SENT SOME OF MY WORKERS UP TO NO MAN’S LAND!!” he gasped.

“Oh well I am not going back for them now, it’s too dangerous now” he shrugged. “They are on their own now. May Mother Gaia help them”.

Meanwhile…………….

No man’s land was the term ants used for the concrete pergola platform. Here it was considered extremely dangerous because unlike the grass there was no place to hide and you were completely exposed in plain view. This might not matter most of the time since ants were tiny anyway and went unnoticed most of the time by humans anyway.

That is unless you had to deal with a seven-year-old girl with a sharp eye who enjoyed squishing ants and actively went out hunting them.

BOOM!! BOOM!!

The few remaining harvester ants that were left on no man’s land were rocked by a magnitude 10 sized earthquake that literally swept them off their feet. When they got back up, they spun around to be greeted by a monstrous pair of bare feet. They shuddered in horror as they saw her toes wiggling in glee for the massacre. Craning their heads upwards they were greeted by a massive face with flowing red locks and a gap-toothed smile waving at them with fingers so large that from their perspective was the size of jumbo jets.

Lucy padded over to the right side of the concrete pergola having spotted a few lone ants scurrying around. She stopped right in front of them, wiggling her toes menacingly.

“Hi little ants” she giggled, raising her left barefoot over them.  

The harvester ants screamed in horror and began to sprint to the edge of the concrete pergola as a giant size 4 sole began to cast its terrible shadow over them. It was in vain however as Lucy’s sole was the size of 6 office blocks from their perspective and was attached a goddess sized leg that was moving at immense speed. Within a few seconds the sole had come down flattening several of the poor ants under her sole.  

Lucy felt tiny itches under her sensitive soft sole, these were the struggles of the ants who were trying desperately to breathe after being smothered under pungent flesh.

“Hehe he that tickles little bugs” giggled Lucy.

This resistance was futile however as Lucy applied a bit more pressure to her soles, feeling a series of faint pops, snuffing out any remaining signs of life.

“OOHH, AAAHHH” sighed Lucy as she began twisting the ball of her foot just to make sure that the corpses became unrecognisable goo and that there were no survivors left.

Then out of the corner of her eyes she noticed some more ants that were scurrying near the edge of the concrete pergola. Amused she began approaching them.

The harvester ants that had survived Lucy’s stomp were so terrified that they were actually jumping the concrete barrier to get to the grassy lawn, not even bothering to climb down. As their life flashed before their eyes, they took their chances as the twin towers of destruction was approaching them.

Lucy tried to crush some more ants but luckily for them they were too quick as they disappeared into the grassy foliage, concealing themselves from her view.

“You little ants think you can run away from something as big as me!” she laughed, then stopping to realise how good it sounded, to have the power of a grown-up. She lifted her sole to look at the little black dots which were the mangled remains of the harvester ants that were not so lucky.

Lucy approached the concrete pergola barrier with her toes peeking over the edge. She cracked them loudly, sending shudders throughout the bug community in the lawn below for what was going to happen next.

Meanwhile……

“SATAN IS BACK!! SATAN IS BACK!!” screamed the surviving harvester ants as they dashed through the dense grassy undergrowth towards the towering anthill which from their perspective was the size of a 80-metre-tall eucalyptus tree. The seeker ants which were perched on top of the anthill with their telescopes looked down to see around 10 to 15 surviving harvester ants sprinting towards the base of the anthill and began climbing the slopes as fast as they could.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU BABBLING ON ABOUT?!” shouted one of the seeker ants annoyingly.

His question was answered by an enormous thunderclap that sent shockwaves everywhere within a ten-kilometre radius. The seeker ants looked to see an enormous sized figure towering over the anthill and saw two moon sized eyes that were filled with malice and evil.

Lucy had stepped onto the grassy lawn to begin her assault on the ants that were skulking in the undergrowth below. She felt the grass blades slip in between her toes, invigorating herself with a new sense of power and dominance.

“FUCK SHE’S BACK!!” gasped the seeker ants in unison. “WE NEED TO DECLARE A CODE RED NOW!! ALL NON-FIGHTING ANTS INSIDE NOW!!”

Unfortunately, not all the harvester ants had made it to the anthill and were still quite some distance from the anthill. Those ants were about to suffer a very humiliating, terrifying and painful death.

Lucy smirked and brushed her right barefoot over the tips of the grass blades, toenails clipping the tips of the grass blades. She loved and yearned for the feeling of mystery and suspense, not knowing what little bugs nestled in the grass below, bugs that were going to be squished now.

The harvester ants looked up in horror to see a giant barefoot hovering above their heads just over the grass blades, a pink wall of wrinkled skin which was now covered with a thin layer of mud. It looked like a giant storm cloud was passing over them and they shook in fear as they began to see their lives flash before their eyes as they seemed unable to avoid their inevitable doom.

“FOOT!!!” they screamed as they desperately tried to run as fast as they could towards the anthill which seemed to be slipping further and further from their grasp. It was no use however as the speed in which the foot was travelling was much faster than the speed they could scuttle at.

The poor harvester ants looked up to see the giant barefoot of the 7-year-old girl and glanced upwards to see her face between her toes, giggling hysterically. She wiggled and flexed her toes menacingly as if to send her message that she was going to end their lives and there was nothing they could do about it.

“Bye, Bye” she sneered, waving her fingers cutely at them.

“NOOOOO!!!” they screamed as the foot descended upon them.

Dozens of grass blades were flattened beneath her foot and dozens of ants were pressed into the ground and became pancakes under the immense weight of the little girl. Their insides squeezed out like a tube of toothpaste as their bodies were pressed into the ground and were turned into mushy goo.

Lucy laughed as she dug her toes into the dirt and scrunched her toes together trapping dozens of grass blades in between them.

“What are you going to do about it, little ants! Oh, that’s right! Nothing! Because I’m big and you’re small!” she laughed. “Oh, I flattened you guys like pancakes!!”

One lucky harvesting ant had tried to escape the onslaught by climbing to the top of one of the grass blades. Unfortunately, this had done little to help as the grass blade he was perched upon came crashing down like a tree being felted after its base was flattened under Lucy’s sole. The top part was now trapped in between Lucy’s big toe and second toe. Little did he know the horror that was in store for him.

Lucy began scrunching her toes together, pushing the grass blade towards the space between her toes. The helpless ant squirmed in panic but it was in vain as he was pushed into a small mushy ball that was between her toes. It was salty, composing of mud, soil and sweat and the simple action of Lucy scrunching her toes together was pushing him deeper into it every second.

This little mushy ball was Lucy’s toe jam.

The poor ant didn’t stand a chance. As he was pushed deeper into the toe jam the toes began closing more tightly around him, encasing him in his mushy tomb. Unable to breathe, the ant due to his entire body being buried, he soon suffocated due to the lack of oxygen, his corpse embedded in the mushy sludge.

Lucy felt a slight itching in between her toes. Confused she scrunched her toes together and rubbed her toes together vigorously. The itching suddenly stopped and she sighed satisfactorily.

Meanwhile……

“Alright is that all the harvester ants inside the anthill now?” barked one of the seeker ants.

“Well, the ones that made it” sighed another seeker ant sadly.

“Alright, the defence army is ready!” barked another seeker ant.

“Locked and loaded, prepare for fucking war, here they come out!!” chimed all the seeker ants in unison.

The first platoon to march out of the main entrance/exit of the ant colony was company B. This was a platoon consisting of 100 ants and was led by a man called General Sting. He was an army segreant who had served for 22 years in specialised ant combat and had a 6 pack on his thorax with 6 extremely muscular legs and was wearing a captain’s jacket and cap. For most of his military career he had fought with rival ant colonies but in light of recent events he was facing a threat none of the other ants had ever fought before, a threat so large and formidable it could wipe out an entire platoon in a single stomp.

Many of the solider ants were marching out in formation from the top of the anthill wearing standard uniforms and carrying a vast array of weapons, specialised for the most ferocious of combat. Some of these weapons included seed cannons, splinter swords, sand grain guns and light rays. While this platoon was armed with an impressive display of ground arsenal it was still no match for the horror that was about to be unleashed.

 Company B soldiers kept ducking in and out between the grass blades, slowly moving the arsenal into position just a few metres in front of Lucy’s bare feet with her toes wiggling in anticipation.

“HALT!!” barked general sting. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!!”

The volume dropped down so low in the grass below that a feather could be heard dropping to the ground.

The soldiers cocked their guns, adrenaline pumping through their veins.

“NOW!!” screamed the general. “ATTACK!!!!!”

With a shrieking battle cry the first round of ants charged out of the grass blades cover towards Lucy’s feet, firing their sand grain guns at Lucy’s feet, hoping to make some kind of impact or injury from individual sand grains being fired from the nozzle of their gun, at lightning speed. However, their weapons had been designed to fight other ants, not creatures as large as this. The sand grains bounced off her feet like tennis balls being reflected of the backwall, unable to penetrate her thick skin or even make a dent in it.

The ants were essentially running towards the slaughterhouse.

“Ugh what?” muttered Lucy confused. She looked down to see a group of ants scurrying near her feet. Her feet suddenly felt very itchy. Annoyed she knew just how to handle these pests.

She raised her foot.

THOOOM

The ants didn’t stand a chance as 85% of the platoon was squashed under pungent flesh. That single stomp had killed almost all of company B.

General Sting watched in horror as he saw the giant foot raise itself of the ground to reveal the carnage. Dozens of soldiers’ corpses were twisted beyond recognition, their guts squeezed and sprawled everywhere. Grass blades were pressed into the ground as if they had been flattened by an asteroid impact. The entire impact zone formed a human barefoot print with a clear distinct shape from a bird’s eye view.

General sting shuddered in horror. This was unlike any enemy he had ever faced before. But he wasn’t just about to give up yet.

“BRING OUT THE SEED CANNONS!!” he screamed.

The seed cannon was one of the biggest achievements in ant military technology. It was a cylindric device about 7 ants long and ant height composing of a barrel containing a seed capsule which was fired at lightning speed by a trigger chemical reaction from a substance inside the second compartment of the barrel when activated by heat. The mechanism worked in a way very similar to human cannon warfare. From a human perspective it was about the size of an action figure. The device was moved by a base on wheels.

Seed cannons were typically used to bombard enemy ant colonies with impactful explosions that send multiple enemies and arsenal flying in all directions and blow them to pieces from the force of the explosion generated. If this didn’t work then they were all doomed.

The surviving soldiers of company B quickly moved the seed cannons into position, ready to put all their chips on the table.

“FIRE!!” screamed general sting.

A great sequence of thunderous booms was heard as multiple seed cannons fired one after the other. The sunflower seeds hit Lucy’s feet with immense force causing the skin of her feet to slightly turn red. The survivors were filled with hope for a second as they saw small dents being made in her skin. However, that hope quickly faded as they realised, they weren’t even drawing a drop of blood.

“OUCH WHAT WAS THAT!!” shouted Lucy in alarm. She now felt little pricks near her toes, ankles and skin of her feet. Narrowing her eyes, she saw a little toy cannon that had been left in the open and not covered by any grassy foliage. Thinking for a second, she came to the conclusion that she had accidently stepped on one of her brothers’ toys that had been left in the yard.

Fuming with anger she snarled “Why you little………….”

She then bent her knee back ready to undertake a new manoeuvre the ants hadn’t seen before.

“What? What she doing” said General Sting confusingly.

The survivors didn’t know what had hit them until it was too late. A giant foot with 5 stubby toes came flying towards them with immense speed swung from a leg which swung like a pendulum. They screamed as Lucy’s foot hit the ground with a force with the magnitude of 50 seed cannons. Clouds of dust, soil and plant material were thrown everywhere as if it had been it by a nuclear bomb. When the dust finally cleared a shivering General Sting looked to the devastation that had unfolded.

The seed cannon had been smashed to pieces. Body parts of ants had been scattered everywhere for a radius of several kilometres and an enormous crater had been left behind with the depth of 10 ants. Plant matter and debris had also been scattered everywhere.

All this chaos and destruction had been created by the simple action of Lucy kicking the ground in anger.

With General Sting observing his surroundings he soon realised a horrifying fact. He was the only survivor of his platoon.

He hung his head in shame and began sprinting back to the anthill. There was no use fighting a war now which he now knew was impossible.

“RETREAT!!” he screamed to the seeker ants. “SEND EVERYONE TO THE BUNKERS NOW!!”

The seeker ants looked at him from their perches with disdain.

“Retreat? Excuse me?” scoffed one of the seeker ants. “We ants have the blood of warriors in our veins. We do not cower to our adversary. I am sending another platoon”.

“NO, YOU FUCKING MORONS!!” shrieked General sting. “YOU WILL BE SENDING THEM TO THEIR GRAVES!!”

His words were in vain however as the next platoon of ants had already started making their way out.

Meanwhile annoyed by her brother’s supposed carelessness of leaving his toys in the backyard Lucy soon turned her attention to something else. 

Lucy eyed the commotion of ant activity on the anthill as she narrowed her eyes. She flashed a toothy gapped grin. 

“Well, well, Well What do we have here?” giggled Lucy.

Meanwhile…..

General Sting’s words on the other hand seemed to had fallen on deaf ears as the second platoon of soldiers had already begun streaming out of the anthill.  Compared to Company B, Company G was a lot more organised with more complicated battle formations and sharper fighting instincts.

Company G was a platoon consisting of 50 ants and was led by General Claw. Compared to General Sting, General Claw was enormous being 3 times the size of General Sting and dwarfing every other ant in the colony with a 12-pack on his thorax and even larger rippling muscles.

Despite being more well organised and skilled fighters, they were unfortunately armed with the most primitive weapons. Most of the advanced military arsenal had been used by the previous platoon which had now been completely obliterated, along with all their technology leaving them with very little firepower and only armed with splitter swords.

Company G had gathered in a triangular formation along the slope of the anthill facing the concrete pergola. Many of the soldiers were prepared to engage combat in a synchronised movement pattern to have a clear strategy for victory.     

Company G suddenly felt a low rumbling sound which gradually became stronger and stronger like the way an Earthquake starts with tremors before building up for the main event.

The soldiers looked up to the sky in horror for the slaughter that was about to occur.

Lucy had gotten down on her hands and knees directly in front of the anthill, on all fours so she could get a better look at the tiny life forms. The moment her knees and hands made contact with the ground; a magnitude 9 earthquake shockwave travelled in a several kilometre radius (ant’s perspective) throughout the ground from the redistribution of weight from the seven-year-old girl. Lucy then readjusted herself, folding her knees, stretching her legs and proceeded to lie on her stomach in a way so that the upper chest area, arms and her massive Jupiter sized head was hovering directly over the anthill. The shadow cast by her body was so large that it seemed that the anthill and the entire surrounding area had been cast under a partial solar eclipse with the majority of the sun blotted out creating a twilight zone.

The quivering soldiers looked up to see the Jupiter sized head of a human child however this time since her head was much closer to the ground, they could make out her facial features in even more detail. The bright red-orange ginger hair that freely flowed over her shoulders looked like a jungle of its own with some strands of hair being much longer than the grass blades. The grey blueish pupils of her eyes dilated and as the ants stared into the abyss of those eyes, they could tell by the tiny pattern movements of blood vessels across those eyes that she had something sinister planned. Her mouth was shaped into a gigantic upside-down semi-circle grin, revealing a row of jagged mix of permeant teeth and milk teeth with several gaps and spaces between some of her teeth, revealing the baby teeth she had been losing over the past few months.

She was rubbing the tips of her fingers with excitement.

She had intentions.

Ill intentions.

Evil intentions.

Company G watched in absolute horror as they saw Lucy lifting her right hand of the ground and hovered it directly above them. Lucy then cracked her fingers at the joints, making a thunderous sequence of cracks that was heard by the soldiers and sending a terrifying message that something awful was about to happen.

“This is going to be so much fun” she giggled.

What happen next happen so fast the ants didn’t even have time to properly arrange battle formations or use their splinter swords. Lucy’s single unpainted pointer finger came crashing down with such speed on a couple of ants that they didn’t even feel any pain. One moment they were solid and the next moment they were instantly transformed into a mushy goo as they were sandwiched between the pressure of the ground and Lucy’s cushiony fingertip.

Lucy had simply crushed a few individual ants under her fingertip as she raised her finger and aimed at a small group of 2 to 3 ants that were huddled on the middle slopping section of the anthill. The other soldiers screamed in horror as they heard an ear shattering exoskeleton crunch and witnessed the traumatising sight of seeing their colleagues’ bodies being pressed into a singularity before their insides being squirted out after the crunch.

Lucy laughed as she lifted her hand back up to her face to examine it before wiping the remains of the ants off the end of her fingertip with her thumb.

“It’s like popping bubble wrap!!” she giggled

The next sequence of events and carnage that followed was shocking and horrific. Actually, to call it horrific would be an understatement.

Compared to stomping with her feet, crushing ants with her fingers was a lot more accurate for Lucy. She could actually pick and choose certain victims that were scurrying around since she had closer observation, greater flexibility and the control of movement of her arms, hands and fingers compared to her feet, ankles and toes.

It was like a deadly game of rush and roulette for Company G who were getting absolutely massacred. No ant knew whether he would be Lucy’s next victim as her finger hovered above their heads seeking potential victims. Her finger was like a vengeful goddess getting to decide who lives and who dies at random or rather like a military drone strike in the Middle East which fired missiles at random targets and the ground below which had little regard for human life.

“Hehe he, this is so fun!” sneered Lucy as she continued to crush ant after ant under her fingertip.

Meanwhile General Claw was skulking in a covered corner at the base of the anthill which was covered from Lucy’s view and watched the events unfold, quivering.  

“This isn’t war it’s a fucking genocide!!!” he gasped.

Within 2 minutes all of Company G was dead except for General Claw. One of the most sophisticated insect armies had been completely massacred by the simple squishing of a young girl’s finger.

General Claw then remembered that this human wasn’t even an adult and was still a child growing up. It petrified him to think what this girl would be capable of when her body and mind was fully developed.

“Did I really squish all of you guys?” smiled Lucy. “I could have sworn I saw a big fat ugly one somewhere”.

General Claw started shaking in absolute terror as Lucy began to push the grass blades away, trying to find the survivor. Despite being the strongest ant in the colony he knew deep down he was no match for this little monster.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck” he whispered under his breath as her hand slowly began reaching his grassy hiding spot at the base of the anthill. “Gaia please save me” he cried out softly.

Then he suddenly heard a much older female’s voice calling out.

“Lucy stop playing with the bugs, its time for dinner now”.

That voice had come from Lucy’s mother who had opened the backdoor glass door to see her daughter laying on the grass, fiddling with something near the anthill.

“Ugh sweety don’t lie in the grass like that. Your dress is going to get all dirty.” Lucy’s mother frowned at her daughter.

“Wash up, change and come for dinner. Also, I would like to talk about what happened today.”

“Okay mummy” sighed Lucy clamouring up to her feet and picking up her silver flats which had been left on the concrete pergola platform.

Meanwhile General Claw peeked out from behind a grass blade, watching one of the most violent and merciless enemies he had ever encountered walk away, sending rumblings throughout the ground. He eyed her closely as she disappeared inside the house which the ants called the human nest.

He then glanced at the bloodbath before him. All of company B corpses were scattered around everywhere covering most of the area of the anthill slopes. Their bodies were flattened, twisted and mangled beyond recognition and were marinating in a puddle of their own haemolymph (insect blood). 

General Claw sighed. There were going to be a lot of funerals today.

“Fucking hell!” he gasped.

A few hours later inside the military headquarters department of the anthill ……………

“Sir I think that’s the last body we recovered” stated one of the seeker ants as he carried the last brown body bag containing the last mangled remains of the ant.

Both General Sting and General Claw looked at the immense death toll that had been collected inside the military department of the anthill. The military department consisted of one large cavern containing all weapon arsenal and army training equipment as well as smaller connected rooms, containing the private offices of all the high-ranking army officers. In the back corner of the main military cavern, both generals had counted at least 150 body bags piled up which means they had lost in total, 150 soldiers in one day.

The bodies had been recovered by the seeker ants and scouting troops who had attempted to identify the remains using DNA testing because identifying individuals was impossible based on their mangled appearance. They had been collecting corpses all night from the grass blade fields, slopes of the anthill and even no man’s land (concrete pergola), once they were certain Lucy was in bed and wouldn’t be coming out again. When remains were identified using DNA testing kits they were placed in the brown body bags and carried inside the anthill on ant mobility vehicles, which was the human equivalent of trucks and wagons. Each body bag had the remains of one specific identified individual.

How were they going to explain these 150 deaths to their families?

Meanwhile inside the private office of General Sting, General Sting had grabbed one of the seeker ants by the throat and was full on screaming at him. He was so pissed off.

“YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER” he roared. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO FUCKING SEND OUT MORE SOLDIERS!! BECAUSE OF YOUR FUCKING STUPIDITY YOU ESSENTIALLY DOUBLED THE DEATH TOLL!!”

The seeker ant sheepishly tried to justify himself. “But in the ant’s official conduct of war it says ants should never retreat or surrender unless they have used all the resources in order to fight to their greatest ability.”   

This made General Sting even more enraged. “CAN’T YOU SEE THAT CODE OF CONDUCT WAS WRITTEN FOR FIGHTING OTHER ANT COLONIES. NOT FUCKING HUMANS!!” he shrieked

“But I can explain-” the seeker ant stammered.

“Shut the fuck up!” snarled General Sting. “Fighting humans is completely fucking different from fighting other ants. What you essentially did today is give that demon child a second fucking playtime.” 

“He’s right” interrupted General Claw who had been standing in the doorway for the past few minutes. “More ants are dying in this colony each day than being born thanks to the attacks from the little monster becoming more frequent. At this rate this colony will become extinct in a few months’ time”.

General Sting lowered his head. Everything that General Claw had said was startlingly accurate.

“We need a completely new military code of conduct for humans. General Sting is absolutely right this is a very one-sided war so we need to essentially try a completely different set of strategies”.

General Claw took out the old ant military code of conduct and then a couple of sheets of blank leaf paper.

“Now who is going to help me fight this little monster?”