Why You Should Not Listen to a LoTR Soundtrack and Write Flash Fiction

Finish That Thought #50 (Judge's Comments) 
Prompt: Dead ants [were everywhere].
Special Challenge: Spiders

Courtesy of ak_nemati @ sxc.hu

Dead ants, that’s what they’d be soon enough, but not right now. Clove watched with fascination as thousands—no, millions—of ants marched in neat little rows down the hallway of her apartment. Like the hoards of an invading army, each tiny soldier wielding a crumb twice their size, they traipsed through enemy territory to headquarters.

Clove pulled her head back and quietly closed the bedroom door on the invaders. She wandered over to her wardrobe. Hanging inside was a black suit and a cat-eared mask. The silky cloth slid easily over her clothes and zippered up the side. The mask fit snugly over her head. She glanced at herself in the door’s full-length mirror and purred at her reflection. A black gloved hand with cat claws reached up to remove the spray can of pesticide and a gas mask from the top shelf.

“Purrrfect, darling, you look simply divine,” she murmured to herself as she caressed the reflection’s masked face. She was ready.

With a kick from her stiletto boot, the bedroom door flung open, scattering hundreds of ants off their course.

“Prrrreparrre to die!” she screeched, aiming the spray can and pushing down the nozzle. A grey, misty substance billowed out. As the toxic gas filled the lungs of its enemies, they crumpled one by one into writhing balls of agony. Clove turned left and right as she slowly made her way down the long hallway, spreading the deadly poison and crunching dying ants under her heels as she went.

It was then she noticed the ants increasing in size the farther along she went. Though they were still affected by the toxic fumes, crunching them under heel was no longer an option. Some of them even came up to her knees!

“Die, you ants!” she hollered in frustration as she sprayed, kicked, and trampled the juicy bodies. “Die, die, die!”

Then she saw it. The ant general. Almost as tall as herself and with spindly legs like a spider, it slowly turned to face her as she approached. She faltered a step, the spray can momentarily ceasing its steady stream of death, and launched herself at the hideous creature. It screamed with rage as the poison burnt its flesh, but it did not go down.

The ant turned on her in an instant, dislodging the can from Clove’s paws. They were forced into hand-to-hand combat. Duck, weave, kick, punch, block, kick. One punch from the ant sent Clove flying into the wall, knocking the air from her lungs. She sat gasping and gagging until she staggered to her feet again. She would not be defeated by an ant!

“I. AM. CATWOMAN!”

With her strength renewed, Clove unleashed her claws on the beast and scraped, scratched, and tore the beast apart until it was an oozing, decapitated mess on her floor. She bent down to retrieve her spray can, gave the general one last puff of poison, and sauntered triumphantly back to her room.

She was victorious.