Colton finally reaches the outer edge of the city in the dead of night. He notices the same tree he saw earlier all over the place, each standing ever so still. There were also multiple man-size holes around the tree, but he ignored them. He could see that all the buildings had been slowly chipped away from the weather. This isn't quite how he imagined the city would look, rather than a decrypted-looking city, this one was thriving with plant life and whatever else that lives here.
"Hey Richard, I'm here at the city's edge. Where the hell do I go now?"
"Let's see, which side of the city you are. And didn't you say you know where you're going?"
"Uh I lied about that; I have only been in the city a few times."
"Okay just tell me what building you are around."
"Let's see, I see Tim's Butcher and Meat, a few destroyed buildings, and the Smart grocery store. I also forgot to mention that there are weird holes around the ugly trees, care to explain?"
"…"
"Hello? You, okay? Are the holes bad or something?"
"Get out of there now! Run to the nearest building and hide there until morning."
Colton bolted straight for the Butcher shop. He slams the door behind him and hides behind the counter. He starts sweating and starts to have issues breathing again.
"Okay, okay, I'm in the shop, can you explain why now???"
"Those holes are tunnels to a hell ant nest."
"What the hell is that thing?"
"It's a massive ant around the size of a medium dog. They pack super toxic venom that dissolves organic matter very quickly. Very high intelligence as well."
"So, they are just super big ants with venom?"
"Pretty much, the only difference is they seem to be hurt by the Sun's UV rays and so they only appear at night. They also travel in packs very commonly."
Colton walks to the back window of the store and stares at the holes.
"I don't see nothing though."
"These things have sort of an internal clock inside and will appear from 10 pm to 5 am before the party returns.
Colton checked his watch, it was exactly 10 pm now. His eyes were glued to the holes. He then can see the ants emerge. Of these ants, some were bigger than what Richard had described. This one was the size of a large dog, with this one being even larger than that. He noticed that each one has a unique head feature and body shape.
"Hey Richard, some of these ants are way bigger than you said and I'm pretty sure that one there has wings!"
"Yeah sorry, I forgot to mention that these ants have sort of created a system with other similar insects like wasps."
"So, are they different then?"
"No, the ants and wasp have kind of just combined. They have different shapes to their head and body based on their role."
"Well, I see this one has a weird shield head and this one has goddamn horns."
"The one with horns is a soldier, while the one with a wide flat head is a guardian. Just forget about it and hide until morning. Make sure the doors are locked."
Colton walked around the store to make sure all the doors were locked. He grabbed out his sleeping bag and placed his gun next to him. He gets into bed, still paranoid that one of the ants could break in. He stares at the store ceiling trying not to think about it before falling to sleep.