Perhaps I could have fought off the pheromones from the two guards, but once I found myself in line, a new problem arose. That problem came in the form of a second set of pheromones lining the ground. It was thin, almost undetectable, but once on top of it, my antennae immediately picked it out of the air. So, that was how the workers stayed in line. Meanwhile, I felt compelled to follow the trail, moving in that same breakneck pace that my fellow workers kept up around me.
I know that, from a human perspective, I was only clocking in at a couple inches per second at most. Down here, though, I was eating up ground like an offroad vehicle, all six legs a blur of organized frenzy. Soon, I had reached the crack in the wall. Without hesitation, I dived through head-first into utter darkness.
It didn’t even occur to me when I switched from sight to smell, maybe because smell had been a major factor in my new navigation even before now. In any case, I suddenly became aware that I was in a makeshift tunnel leading downward. Taking advantage of miniscule gaps between the various building materials of my house, I wound my way deeper beneath the floor until I emerged at the top of the foundation.
From there, the line transitioned smoothly from horizontal travel to vertical, and things got even more interesting. I guess weighing almost nothing helps when climbing sheer walls, that and having feet covered in microscopic hooks. It hardly registered as vertical motion. The world simply turned sideways, and I continued as before.
On and on I went, no rest stops, no slowing down, no wasted movements, all the while driven on by these overwhelming instincts.
At last, I stepped off the house completely and plunged into another world. A world of ants.