Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 358

Chapter 358 The First Sighting

+5 Pearls

Joanna walked the bunker’s length twice more, checking the gate mechanism, the guard logs Jolie had left pinned by the entrance. Nothing added up.

The fencing had no gaps. The gate needed two guards to open it from either side specifically to prevent this. Even if someone had tunneled in from outside, they’d still ave had to carry stolen supplies back out through a patrolled corridor, past watch posts on both ends.

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“It doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, pacing back toward the gate. “Even if they dug straight through the mountain, they’d still have to get out. Carrying food. Fuel. The guards would catch that kind of movement in seconds.”

Julian frowned over the guard log. “Unless they weren’t moving through the tunnel at all.”

Right then, Briggs’s voice cut through the mind link, sharp and urgent. I’m at the western guard tower, Joanna. Come up here. Now.

“This better not be about Glacier and Fletcher,” Joanna muttered to Caleb, already grabbing his arm along with Julian’s. A heartbeat later, the tower’s cramped interior replaced the bunker’s fluorescent light.

Briggs, Levi, and Noah were crowded at the window, a few other guards pressed into the corner, unusually quiet, tension radiating off every one of them.

“What is it?” Joanna asked, already crossing the room.

Briggs turned, face grim. “Come here. We’ve got movement on the

top

cliffs.”

Levi shoved a pair of binoculars into her hands without a word. Joanna raised them, scanning the jagged line of rock stretching above the base, and her stomach dropped the instant she found what they were looking at.

“Boss,” Briggs said quietly, “we’ve confirmed ten. Giant ants. Moving away from the base, up along the cliff line.”

Through the lenses, they were unmistakable — and utterly horrifying. Each one easily the size of a full-grown wolf, bodies segmented and glistening with a wet, oily sheen under the gray light, chitinous shells the color of old dried blood, cracked in places like ancient armor. Their legs moved in disturbing, too-fast unison, jointed at sharp angles that clicked faintly even from this distance, carrying them across the rock with unnerving speed. Mandibles the length of kitchen knives clicked rhythmically at their front, slick with something dark and wet, and antennae twitched constantly, scanning, tasting the air for anything worth devouring. One of them paused mid-stride, rearing back on its hind legs, and let out a high, grinding screech that sent a visible shudder through the rest of the group clustered in the tower.

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Chapter 358 The First Sighting

+5 Pearls

Joanna lowered the binoculars slightly, jaw tight. “They’re running from something.”

hat was our first thought too,” Levi said grimly. “Question is – from what.”

The scene shattered the moment the massive coils exploded from a crevice in the rock nearly silent despite the sheer size of the creature. The rattlesnake struck fast, jaws unhinging to swallow one ant whole before the others even registered the threat – but the remaining nine scattered and regrouped with eerie, coordinated speed, snapping their mandibles and string forward as one.

–

It was brutal from the first second. The snake lashed out again, catching a second antid-eap and crushing it between powerful coils, chitin cracking audibly even from this distance but three more ants swarmed in from the sides, mandibles tearing into scaled flesh in short, vicious bursts. The snake thrashed, flinging one attacker clear off the cliff edge, but two more clamped down hard along its lower body, and dark blood welled up where their jaws punched clean through scale and muscle.

Julian watched, grim-faced. “Looks like the ants have very few actual weaknesses.”

—

Briggs’s voice stayed low, controlled, clearly cataloging everything with a soldier’s eye. “Those

that skin’s thick mandibles pierced straight through the snake’s hide. That’s not easy to do enough to turn aside most blades.”

The fight raged on, brutal and fast, three more ants eventually going still beneath the snake’s crushing weight – but not before the creature paid for it. The remaining ants launched themselves at the snake’s head in a final, coordinated assault, and the massive body lurched sideways, losing purchase on the icy rock. It tumbled, scales scraping violently against stone, sliding nearly halfway down the cliff face before catching itself with a desperate twist, a tail of muscle digging into the rock to arrest the fall.

The moment it recovered, it launched itself back up the slope slithering in pursuit, fast and furious – but it was already too late. The three surviving ants reached a patch of disturbed earth near the cliff’s edge and simply vanished, the ground swallowing them whole without so much as a visible opening left behind.

Levi exhaled slowly. “Well. Looks like they tunnel easily. Didn’t even see where the opening

was.”

Joanna lowered the binoculars, pulse still hammering. “I’d bet everything I have those ants

were the ones that dragged Jolie underground while she was unconscious.” Her jaw tightened. “They appear, strike, and disappear before anyone can react. No wonder nobody’s ever caught them in the act.”

Below, with its prey gone and its pursuit cut short, the rattlesnake turned back toward the cliffside — toward the remaining ant carcasses still littering the rock — and began,

–

–

methodically, to eat.

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10:04 Wed,

Chapter 358 The First Sighting

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