The Only Chance

Watching the worker ant approaching him, Tom clenched his fists, but he knew he couldn't beat the ants without weapons, without the gecko, and outnumbered. He felt helpless at this moment.

The worker ant pushed Tom aside, not pinching him, but instead, it pinched the man next to the long-haired man, who should be a tenant from either the first or second floor.

The man struggled desperately, crying bitterly, but he couldn't resist against the strong worker ant and was dragged away, leaving behind a trail of excrement and urine, scared out of him.

Ten ants left, only one person pinched away, which surprised everyone greatly.

"It's still not my turn... still not." The long-haired man seemed slightly angry. "Why am I left till the end? It's not fair, Alan, wait for me!"

"He's gone crazy," Li Qiang said, watching the long-haired man's frenzied state.

Once again, everyone looked at the person taken away by the ants, only to see many ants of various sizes forming a circle, with the man surrounded in the middle.

"Waah..." Chen Jianbin trembled, covering his eyes, afraid to see what would happen next.

Just when Tom thought the ants would surround and devour the man, the ant colony surprisingly made way, and six soldier ants, the size of Border Collies, lined up and walked in, then surrounded and pressed down on the man.

Although the soldier ants were small, their mandibles were sharp. They tore off a piece of flesh from the man's body and quickly chewed it. The man struggled with intense pain, but he was powerless against the six soldier ants, like a helpless person facing six mad dogs.

Through the glass jar, they couldn't hear the man's screams outside, but everyone turned their heads away, unwilling to see the gruesome scene of live flesh being torn apart. Only Tom and the long-haired man continued to stare.

The long-haired man's face showed fanaticism and excitement, chanting incessantly, "Faster, faster... Hahaha, he'll soon be liberated, the sooner he's liberated, the sooner it's my turn. You... you can't beat me, hahaha, I'm older than you, the next one is me, hahaha!"

The three days and nights of hellish scenes, coupled with his wife dying in front of him, had already driven the long-haired man to a mental breakdown. For him, the greatest hope was not to survive but to be liberated, to reunite with his wife in hell. That's why he looked forward to his turn as soon as possible. As long as the ants chose him, he would be able to be free.

Tom was different from him. Tom carefully observed the behavior of the ants.

At this time, human flesh should be the ants' top priority food, consistent with what Tom had seen along the way. So, what made these worker ants endure their hunger for human flesh and instead organized to leave it to specific ants?

The Queen?

As far as Tom knew, there was no domination or submission relationship between the queen and the ants, unlike in human society.

The queen was responsible for laying eggs, continuing the ant colony's offspring. The other ants each had their own duties: finding food, caring for eggs and larvae, selecting safe and suitable new locations for the colony, defending against external invasions by soldier ants, and dying after mating with the queen.

They were like the various organs of the human body, each responsible for different functions, without the concept of who ordered whom.

Then who could decide among them who would eat human flesh first and who would keep watching?

"It must be an individual ant that has mutated and gained the ability to command the colony. That's... the Queen!" Thinking of the command to capture "two-legged insects" when communicating with the soldier ants, undoubtedly, it was the Queen who had already learned to prioritize human flesh to the soldier ants to ensure the safety of the colony.

Especially just after a battle with another group of ants, they must have suffered considerable losses, and the fighting strength urgently needed to be replenished.

Thinking of this, Tom asked the long-haired man, "How long do they wait to pick someone to eat?"

"Wife, wife! Wait for me!" The long-haired man was still immersed in his fervor and ignored him.

After thinking for a moment, Tom pushed him and asked again, "How long until it's your turn?"

"Wait?" The long-haired man blinked, pondering for a few seconds, "Wait until these ants finish digesting the flesh and grow up, then it'll be my turn, hahaha!"

Sure enough! Tom was shocked. Although he had suspected early on that the ants growing larger was related to eating humans, getting confirmation from the long-haired man still stirred up a huge wave in his heart.

Humans shrinking, creatures eating humans, and then mutating, producing gems within their bodies.

Who created all this, and what was in the bodies of the shrunken humans that attracted creatures to hunt and eat, thereby causing the creatures' bodies to produce gems?

Thinking that he could communicate with biscuits through emeralds, perhaps these gems were the ultimate goal of shrinking humans. Undoubtedly, humans, who were originally at the top of the food chain on Earth, had become the bottom feeders nurtured by gems due to their shrinking.

If only the people in their building had shrunk, it would definitely be the result of someone's experiment.

If it wasn't just the people in one building, it meant that these people had completed the experimental stage and had begun to implement it comprehensively.

Who were these people? The government? Tom shook his head. This didn't fit the government's needs.

To conduct such sensational experiments, it must be in the most closed environment, not in a certain part of a big city.

And if it were to be implemented comprehensively, making their city a breeding ground wouldn't be appropriate. This city was an international hub with frequent exchanges, so leaking information would be very easy.

Now, thinking about these things is useless," Tom shook his head again, pushing aside these thoughts. "The most important thing now is how to escape, survival is the most pressing concern." He wasn't going to resign himself to death like the long-haired man, just waiting to become lunch for the ants.

How to escape? He looked around, the only hard object was the ring on his arm. If the diamond on the ring hadn't been taken away by the ants, it would be a good tool to scratch the glass jar.

Unfortunately, even if he scratched the glass, with so many ants outside, there would be nowhere to escape.

Tom surveyed the surroundings, feeling that this room was not like an ordinary dwelling. However, he had shrunk, and everything from before seemed larger. In an unfamiliar environment, it was difficult to discern the original appearance.

So he called out to the others and asked, "Do you know where we are?"

Liu Lian's face was pale, obviously just having vomited. "I don't know where we are, but I know we're going to end up in the ants' bellies."

"It's all because of you!" Chen Jianbin complained again, but Tom glared at him, and he immediately shut up, covering his head.

"We still have a chance, don't give up!" Tom said.

"What chance? The chance to be picked by the ants to eat ourselves?" Liu Lian joked at this moment.

Li Qiang leaned against the glass wall. "If we can feed the Queen, that's good enough."

"As long as we're alive, I won't give up! Where are we? Why do I keep smelling something strange?"

Li Qiang surveyed the surroundings, seeing the half-eaten human body, he retched again, then continued to observe. "I remember!" Li Qiang said, "The telecommunications bureau rented a room here to serve as a line equipment room, and they also rented one of the poorly located rooms on the first floor to store generators."

"Generators? What are they doing with generators?" Tom thought for a moment.

The room at the end of the first floor was next to the public restroom, dark and smelly, and no one had rented it for a long time.

Liu Lian said, "Haven't we been having frequent power outages recently? When the equipment room is without power, nearby telephones, broadband, and cellphone signals all go out. So they use diesel generators to power the equipment room. It seems like the owner of this building is a leader in the telecommunications bureau, so they rented the place to store generators."

"Generators, then there's diesel!" Tom ran to the front of the glass wall and found a few green barrels. "Are those barrels storing diesel?"

"There won't be much. In case of a fire, the telecommunications bureau would be implicated too," Liu Lian said.

"We don't need much. Don't forget, the best fuel is these enlarged ants." Tom reminded.

Liu Lian burst into laughter, "That's right, hahaha! Roasted ant tastes pretty good, haha. But don't forget, we'll also be burnt to death, and have you figured out how to get out?"

Tom shook his head, "Not yet, but there will always be an opportunity."

"Saying it is as good as not saying it," Chen Jianbin seized the opportunity to tease, but Tom couldn't be bothered to deal with him.

They waited for a long time, until their stomachs were growling, and surprisingly, the worker ants brought in some biscuits and threw them in.

Holding the broken biscuits, Tom became more certain that this Queen ant had remarkable intelligence. Although the food wasn't much, it understood to leave food for them to maintain their energy, which was not something ants would typically do.

The smell in the jar was a bit unpleasant, with the residue of the man who had been dragged away, but now everyone didn't care about these things, after all, if no one came to rescue them, their fate would be the same.

Others were restless with worry, only Tom kept staring at the soldier ants that had eaten human flesh.

He noticed that those soldier ants seemed to be lying still, as if they were asleep, and other ants passing by would deliberately avoid them.

Tom observed until he was tired, then lay down to rest for a while, and when he woke up, he noticed a change: the size of the six soldier ants was slowly increasing, although not obvious, their size was indeed changing while they slept.

Perhaps this was similar to their shrinking process, both entering a state of sleep.

Thinking of this, Tom's heart jumped, combined with the biscuits and their drowsiness last time, perhaps they were also preparing to mutate after eating so many yellow gems, so they were not energetic at the time.

Thinking of this, he felt frustrated again. The biscuits were just pushed down like that, and he didn't know what would happen. But he believed the biscuits would be fine. The floors were high, but the biscuits weren't that big, and they were also carrying makeshift umbrellas at the time.

Compared to the biscuits... Tom stepped back two steps, and he saw another ten worker ants coming over.

In the anxious eyes of everyone, the long-haired man was finally selected as he wished.

He was happy when he was dragged out, but when he passed by Tom, he asked, "Are you resisting fate?"

Tom immediately replied, "I won't give up!"

The long-haired man shouted loudly, "Ruby, remember, the ruby is your only chance!"