Ant's Arc

Chapter 10 of 12

Ant walked down from the stone building and back onto the trail. The leaf sat on his back where it always had. The sun was lower now, casting long shadows across the ground. He had seen the truth in the bubble. The leaf had been given to him with purpose. But the bubble had not shown him where to go or what to do when he arrived. He followed the path until he reached a stone shelter built into the hillside. A metal cross stood beside it, tall and worn, with bells hanging from its arms. The engravings on it showed routes that wound through hills and valleys, marked in a pattern he did not recognize. Behind the cross, mounted on the shelter's wall, was a wooden sign. A leaf was pressed beneath clear resin in the center. Ant stopped. The leaf in the sign was identical to the one on his back. A figure stepped out from the shelter's doorway. It was another ant, smaller than Ant but moving with clear purpose. The stranger carried a leaf on their back. It looked exactly like his. The stranger stopped a few steps away and spoke. "Your colony sent me to find you. They said you left before they could explain where to take the leaf. You were not meant to do this alone." Ant stood still. He had spent so long believing the leaf was his burden to carry, his choice to make. Now someone stood before him saying the choice had never been only his. He looked at the stranger's leaf, then at the sign on the wall, then back at the stranger. "What am I supposed to do with it?" he asked. The stranger turned and gestured toward the trail that continued past the shelter. "We take them together. There is a place beyond the hills where all the leaves are meant to go. I will show you."