The glistening mass of ants had been called to the surface by the fog. Its language had grown louder during the damp night, drawing the whole colony up and into a boil at the edge of the forest where the green ended and the world turned to featureless stone. As It spoke to them, they raced around it and over each other; the constant contact communally pleasing -communally informing. The ants at the very center of the pile were dead of course, though not from the struggle and the trample but from the strength of the signal. Oh to die in that glorious din. Oh to secumb to all that knowledge. Their spent bodies continually were squeezed to the surface of the scrum, rolling off on all sides like droplets.

Away from all this, at the edge of an abandoned tunnel entrance sat one on the outskirts. The fog spoke to him too, but he was smaller than the others - a straggler who probably wouldn‘t last. He was the only one who saw the colossi arrive. They approached on legs that were two miles high and stopped. Concealed in the fog, their voices thundered notes between each other for awhile as their enormous feet shuffled dangerously. Then without warning one of the gods reached down and began pouring a bright yellow river onto the seething populous. The small ant recoiled in horror and instinctively attacked without knowing why or what he could possibly do against creatures so high in the sky and wide that they could not be completely seen, and as he leaped down the steep stone face toward them he saw a mass of ants making the same descent away to the east. Hundreds caught in the new river and falling like hourglass sand over the prepice. As he tumbled to the bottom he skinned three knees but ran for it anyway. The river brushed past him sweeping up many, but he got out into the open and he never looked back or slowed down.

Racing across the wasteland to catch the foot of the colossus he could feel the colony behind him rejoicing over the catastrophic liquid. They were slick with it and a sudden energy gripped them all. Those who were too soaked immediately began killing one another in the puddles. Others crawled out and threw tantrums in all directions. The Voice has become pure liquified energy! cried the hivemind. Only one knew better, and he wouldn‘t be missed.