text: I ran. I promised myself I’d be fast enough this time, but I wasn’t. It was raining ants again. My breath caught in my throat as fear washed over me. I sped up, the wind blowing hard with the smell of ants dancing on the air. Thunder rumbled hotly above me, making the hair on the back of my neck start to prick up. I cursed under my breath from the sidewalk where I was, feeling the sprinkle of the first couple of them in my hair and on my shoulders. I tried to shake them off as I kept running along, my house nearly in sight from here. It started to rain harder, and I could feel dozens of little legs itching their ways up the back of my neck and down my legs, tickling almost. I finally lunged up onto the rickety porch under the roof, rubbing my reddened face as I panted. I shook out my legs and arms desperately, running my hands through my hair to get the ants all out. Several of them fell to the chipped wood below my feet, squirming before disappearing below the porch. I could feel more of them though, my fingers curling in fear. I kept trying, but I knew it was too late. I felt wriggling all over, their little red bodies clinging onto my skin and follicles and whatever else they could latch onto. They had started to burrow into my skin, sealing their path behind themselves. Fuck. I run my nails through my hair again, trying to stay calm. I study the little white dots where they had just dug under my skin, like little inverted freckles all over me. Before I can think of anything else, my mother opens up the front door with a funny look on her face. “Hun? What’re you doing? Get in here, it’s storming out there.” I looked up at her with a swallow, slowly coming closer to step after her into the house. The ants inside me twitched. They flicked their little antenna, and it itched. They kept burrowing and digging deeper until they reached my veins. Then they itched those, too. I was steadily going pale, nearly tearing a hole into my cheek with my canines. My mother paid me no mind, going back to the living room. I tried to calm my breathing, leaving against the kitchen island. The ants were still going, little legs prickling against my capillaries as they made their way inside of my heart. They felt over my flesh, nuzzled into the muscles. I didn’t realize tears were blurring my eyes until it was too late. My heart felt heavy, and so did my lungs when they managed to find their way there, too. It’s when I felt them coming up along my brainstem that I whimpered, and went into the living room. “Mom..” I said, getting her to turn around. She cooed a soft sound out. “Honey, what’s wrong?” I cried harder, wiping at my eyes with my wrist. “I.. you know how I told you about how I don’t like the ants?” I said. She sighed a little then. “Love.. we talked about this. Just brush them off, like everyone else. Everyone has to deal with them.” I shake my head back at her. “No, mom.. I can’t brush them off. They dig in.. they crawl all over. I don’t know what to do anymore.” She shakes her head, and then kisses the top of mine. “I’m sorry hun, I can’t help you. Maybe go lie down for a bit, yeah?” She steps away from me, and leaves me alone in the living room. I don’t know how long I stood there staring at the floor. I hated it when it rained. When she was younger, it only rained a couple times a year. Now it was almost everyday, with the itching and crawling and burrowing. I had tried to look it up in the past, or ask my friends. But they didn’t get it. They told me to try to ignore the ants. One of them tried to buy me an ant brush to get them off. It helped a little, but they still burrowed in. After a while, I didn’t want to leave the house anymore, in case it rained that day and more ants got in. I wiped my face once more before running up to my room. I needed them out, and I’d do it myself if I had to. They were feeling heavier with each minute, tugging my lungs down and making it hard to breathe. I went to my room and locked the door. From under my pillow, I pulled the switchblade I’d stolen from my Dad’s tools in the garage. I sat myself at my desk, fingers shaking a little from around the blade. The ants bumped their ways back and forth through my veins, stretching them. They started their way into my skull, bumping along the sides of the bone and making little imprints on my brain. The only thing I could focus on was the sensation of them inside me, and how my whole body screamed that this was wrong. They didn’t even hurt, they didn’t bite down or have venom or sting me at all. But they wouldn’t stop digging, and the fact that others could just brush them away drove me insane. The ants danced their little legs against my temples and skull, a rhythmic little marching over my whole body like a heartbeat from under the floorboards. Glancing down to my hands, the knife was held stiff between my whitened knuckles. I gritted my teeth, and brought the blade to my arm. With numb fingers, I slid it across my skin, pressing deep. Red spilled out and smeared over my arm. None of it was ants, but the itching still stopped. The digging, the tunneling, the marching. It all went quiet. Hands shaking, I slump onto my desk with a relieved sigh.