A cool autumn breeze went through the forest Sophia was walking through. Closing her eyes, she stood still for a moment to enjoy the cool wind that brushed against her body.


    Sophia liked this. The noise nature made. The ruffling of the falling leaves. The sounds the various animals who live in this forest made.


    It was something she decided to do after she quitted her job at the supermarket she was working at. Well, it was more of a recommendation her therapist made a while back and she hadn’t really bothered doing it.


    Sophia was afraid of large crowds. Something she had trouble with on a daily basis. Even though the school she was attending at was smaller compared to the other bigger schools, there were still about three hundred students attending. Too much for her to feel comfortable in.


    Sophia soon resumed walking through the forest. It certainly worked calming her down.


    It’s not like she had a choice though. Having recently graduated from high school and having no money nor the smarts to go to college or university, Sophia tried applying to jobs where it had a more quiet environment. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find anything.


    Her mom forced her to try the supermarket, as she worked there as well, saying Sophia didn''t have much of a choice. She couldn’t just stay inside of the house all day. It was that or work at her brothers tattoo shop. She first wanted to go to her brother, but ultimately decided against it. She liked drawing. No, she loved it. But drawing on peoples bodies? Sophia was too afraid she’d make a mistake and her confidence was going to drop rock bottom if that happened.


    So she took her mother''s forced recommendation and tried working at the supermarket. The large crowds and the large noises those same crowds made was slowly breaking her. But because of her inherent stubbornness and unwillingness to worry her family, Sophia didn’t complain and ignored the chaotic emotions dwelling within her.


    Despite how uncomfortable she felt, Sophia held out quite long. Six months before she broke down and ran away. She didn’t even change back into her casual clothes. Her family must be worried sick.


    And now she’s here walking through a small forest pathway still in her uniform and jeans. Her uniform only consisted of a buttoned up shirt. She didn''t need to change out of her jeans or sneakers, so she kept them on. She was trying to forget the embarrassing scene she caused. Sophia sat down at a bench placed alongside the pathway and looked at the sky.


    She guessed the only thing she could do now was work at her brothers’ shop. He was a patient guy who knew about her fears, so he’d know what to do.


    “I really should stop being so stupid…” Sophia whispers, scowling. Her family only had her best interests in mind and if she had immediately went to her brother, she wouldn’t have to suffer for so long in that stupid supermarket.


    “I’m so stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid!” Sophia cursed under her breath as she stood up from the bench and started walking back from the way she came.


    “I’m going to go to Riley and ask to work for him.” Sophia kept muttering the same sentence about going to her brother, Riley, over and over again, as she absentmindedly walked back.


    Error! Foreign object is entering the earth''s atmosphere!


    Removing...


    “Huh.” Sophia let out a dumb sound and stopped walking when a weird blue screen suddenly appeared in front of her.


    Error! Object could not be removed!


    Searching for viable methods. Please wait...


    Method found! Initiating…


    System has been successfully established!


    Foreign Object has been removed!


    Time until the system starts: 3 min 30 sec


    “What?” Sophia stared at the weird things the blue screen that suddenly appeared out of nowhere was saying. She didn’t understand. Foreign object? What does that even mean? What is this system that removed it?


    Due to an unknown circumstance the initiation of the system has been started earlier than planned. The world as you know it will soon collapse. Please try to survive. It would not do if my precious creations were to suddenly go extinct.


    Sophia felt a sense of foreboding as she read the final announcement, which felt different than those monotone messages from before.


    She then noticed a timer in the corner of her vision.


    Time until the system starts: 2 min 50 sec


    “Oh…” Sophia stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. She should get out of here first. But… It’s a thirty minute walk from where she was to just get out of the forest.


    She wanted to call her family, but in her haste to get out of the supermarket she forgot to bring her phone with her.


    Cursing her luck, Sophia decided to just wait until everything started. It could be her hallucinating after all. Yes, that was it. No reason to panic. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    5… 4… 3… 2… 1…


    Activating…


    The forest went quiet.


    Then came the pain.


    “Ah…” Sophia cried out and fell down.


    Her body spasmed, her bones breaking and molding back. Her muscles doing the same, tearing and mending to its previous state.


    The pain was bad. Even worse when she got that tattoo from her brother for her eighteenth birthday. No, it was incomparable with that. Sophia lost consciousness and woke up repeatedly. She had no control over her entire body. The pain was too much!


    Unbeknownst to Sophia, this was happening to every living thing in the entire world. Animals and humans alike experienced this torture as the system integrated within their bodies.


    The System has successfully integrated within the bodies of the various lifeforms!


    After who knows how long, the pain abruptly ended. Along with it, a soothing sensation came that made her forget about her traumatic experience.


    But before Sophia could sigh in relief, her head exploded in an agonizing pain.


    She felt like millions of tiny needle penetrating into her brain, twisting and turning to make it even worse. Sophia couldn’t even think about anything as her mind went completely blank because of the pain.


    After what must’ve been forever, but in actuality no more than a minute, the pain abruptly ended once again. The soothing sensation came as well, clearing her mind. When Sophia’s head cleared and she was able to function normally once again, the dreaded blue screen returned with a message.


    The System has successfully integrated within the minds of the various lifeforms!


    “Ugh” Sophia groaned as she tried to get up. She put her hands on the ground and pushed to stand up. But her trembling arms that were still recovering couldn’t handle the sudden strain. That and her sudden dizziness she got when trying to get up didn’t help either. She fell back face first on the dirt that is the forest path. It seemed like the soothing sensations didn’t fix everything.


    “Uuuuu” Sophia wanted to curl up and sleep. But the place she was in wasn’t the best place to be sleeping. And there was the blue screen crisis that was the culprit of her recent suffering of course.


    After waiting a while for her body to recover, Sophia sluggishly stood up.


    “Urgh” She groaned as she waddled away to find help. It was going to be a while though, as it was in the middle of the week. There probably weren’t many people here. Sophia didn’t encounter anyone when she was walking through the pathway.


    She suddenly stopped when she realised the sounds in the forest were noticeably different than before. How Sophia didn’t realise it sooner, she didn’t know. Instead of birds and little bug sounds, she heard loud chittering all around her and rumbling far off in the distance. Something that was chittering was getting closer to her.


    Sophia held her breath and watched in the direction where there were random bushes that were rustling. Something soon jumped out.


    What appeared was a huge black ant, which made Sophia widen her eyes in surprise, fear and disgust.


    The ant was as big as a chihuahua, its mandibles clicking as it stared at her. Its black carapace was filled with dirt, like it recently burrowed out of the ground.


    The ant started skittering its six dangerous looking legs directly towards her.


    Sophia cried out in fear and surprise as she stumbled backwards. She wanted to turn around and run away, but the ant was faster than expected. It crossed the distance in no time and pounced on Sophia, its mandibles clicking in hunger.


    Sophia screamed as the ant bit her right arm when she reflexively used it to block it from coming to her face. She flailed her arms around to try to get it off. But the ant stubbornly held on, attempting to rip off a chunk of meat. Before that could happen though, Sophia fell. Her right arm carrying the ant reached the ground first, Sophia’s entire bodyweight came next.


    A disgusting sound came when the ant was crushed between the ground and Sophia. Sophia herself quickly stumbled away to escape the dirty fluids that were coming out of the ant. She didn’t want to be covered in them. Luckily, only her right arm and part of her torso were covered.


    “Ah!” Sophia cried out in pain when she remembered the ant had bitten her right arm. She carefully moved it up and winced when she saw the blood.


    Sophia’s uniform was shredded on the right forearm where the ant had bitten. The mandibles were still attached to her skin, and blood was still gushing out. Sophia tried ripping a piece off the shirt from the under end, but doing it with one arm proved impossible.


    She then tried taking it off. After two agonizing minutes trying to unbutton the shirt, looking out for the ant’s friends who would surely come, hoping she wouldn’t pass out from blood loss, and wincing when she took of the sleeve for her right arm, Sophia finally succeeded.


    She wanted to use one side to clean the wound from the fluids of the ant and use the other side to wrap it around to keep it from bleeding so much. There was a problem though, the mandibles sticking in her skin were still there.


    Sophia lifted a shaky left hand toward the first mandible. She took a deep breath, grabbed it and immediately yanked it out.


    “Fuck!” Sophia cursed as she dropped the bloodied mandible on the ground.


    “Fuck shit!” She cursed again when she took the other mandible out.


    Having wasted enough time, Sophia immediately started cleaning the wound. It involved spitting on the cloth and carefully wiping the dirt, blood and whatever the fluids of that ant were called, off.


    After a minute of cursing and wincing, Sophia finally managed to clean the wound, she then wrapped it tightly around the forearm.


    “Finally…” Sophia breathed out a sigh and stood up, preparing to leave.


    Right at that time, like they were waiting for it, a group of ants appeared from the same side the other ant came from, clicking their mandibles in a threatening way..


    They all looked relatively the same as the other ant, except for the one at the front. Instead of standing on six legs, this one stood on four. The other two, Sophia assumed, were used as hands, or weapons. More like weapons, because they looked really sharp. And they didn’t really look like hands. Its head and torso had a more human shape to it and its lower body looked like the other ants. It was also twice the height of the other ants and its carapace appeared to be a lot thicker, looking a lot more intimidating.


    The big ants creepy eyes glanced at the crushed corpse of its subordinate and then stared at Sophia.


    Sophia herself was paralyzed with fear. In her mind she was constantly cursing herself for being as stupid as staying with a corpse that other things might have smelled. That and her blood, that was pretty much all around her, must have also smelled delicious for these gigantic, flesh eating insects.


    Maybe it was for the best. Not the eaten alive by giant ants part, but she had a feeling things must be much, much worse at other places. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to handle it. Sophia didn’t like violence unless it was absolutely necessary. And it would probably be necessary ninety-nine percent of the time to survive whatever was happening. She didn’t really feel anything when she killed the ant. But it was because it was an ant. And it tried to eat her…


    Sophia snapped out of her thoughts of justifying her first kill when the big ant clicked its mandibles in a different way than before. Following its instruction, five of the twenty or so ants skittered towards Sophia.


    Just as Sophia thought she might as well try to fight the ants because she couldn’t possibly outrun them, a sudden rumble made the ants, who were going for her, stumble.