Snatchers don't sleep. At least, I don't think they do because, like clockwork, every time I would work up the courage to climb the pit walls, the creatures would drop something down the hole to be trashed. It was like they had a sixth sense for it. 'Oh, it looks like Bartelby was stupid enough to try to climb out of the pit. Let's dump stuff on his head.' Thanks to them, each climb had exasperated the arm issue–my splint had come undone twice already, and there was swelling.

I spent the next few hours contemplating how to escape, to no avail. Every idea seemed useless, and I didn't regard my magic as helpful as the situation demanded. The [Platform] helped me climb easily, but that meant nothing if a random piece of stone was dropped on my head. It was hard to dodge. Especially since my injury had made it harder to do two spells at once.

To avoid reinjury, I gave up on the climb and settled against one of the walls instead. The wall was spongey, like the floor, and felt like a mattress, albeit harder than I'd prefer. If it weren't for the pain–and the fear of being hit in the head by some snatcher trash–, I would've already been lulled to sleep.

The items the snatchers were dropping were mostly pieces of broken tools and bones from beasts I assumed they had eaten–there was still blood and meat on the bones. It didn't take much internal convincing for me to partake in eating the snatcher's leftovers. The meat scraps tasted good, but to be fair, I wasn't the harshest critic. Plus, I hadn't eaten in a while. Anything would have tasted good.

After a while, I got bored of the silence. I started to hum a song. I couldn't remember the words, but I remembered the melody by memory. It went something like 'duh-duh-duh-duh-duhhhh. I momentarily forgot my worries as the hums filled the empty space.

The song went on until I ran out of melody to hum. Then the silence came. After that, when my heavy eyelids could lift no longer, came snores.

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I heard them before I saw them. And even when my eyes fluttered open to look around, I still struggled to see the tiny bugs. The bugs were the size of a fingernail and were crawling out of the holes in the walls surrounding me, including the one I had my back to. They were on my hands and my legs, and some had already made their way to my shoulders.

I leaped to my feet and shouted, "[Platform]!"

Bugs were all over me. I flailed around a bit, swiping and swatting at my body. I knocked most of them off. The ones that didn't get knocked off ran up and down my body like ants. They had gotten inside my clothes.

I climbed onto the [Platform] and created multiple more platforms to get further from the ground. Once high enough, I started to strip naked. I was determined to remove the bugs from every inch of my body. They were a menace in the worst way.

By the time I was naked, most of the bugs were off my body, but some still clung to my clothes scattered across the [Platform]. The clothes were of no use with the bugs on them. I lifted my off-hand--the broken one--, and tried to summon a new platform.

As the energy spun around my body, I could feel the warm feeling of magic trying to force its way out. But still, even after a passing breath, a new [Platform] didn't show. Seeing that my magic wasn't working, I gave up on summoning a second platform. I decided to make my immediate safety my primary concern.

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I summoned a new [Platform] right next to the old one, and the old [Platform] holding me up disappeared. To my relief, most of the bugs fell along with my clothes. Those clothes would be hard to get back, but it was better than being covered in bugs.

I pulled my body up and onto the newest [Platform] and continued to scrutinize my naked form for bugs, killing any I found. It wasn't until I was sure none were left that I took a breath. I had forgotten to breathe through the ordeal. When I finished catching my breath, I turned my attention back to the large colony of insects.

The bugs were still flooding the room, but they already covered the whole floor, even in their current state. The lower walls suffered a similar fate. Everywhere I looked was like a tidal wave of black. And when I tried to peer through the insects to see the items, including my clothes, I couldn't because everything was engulfed. I was lucky to have made such a quick decision.

I shifted my splint back into position and ripped some cloth from my shirt to tie the knot tighter. I glanced up while doing so. The [Platform] was located about halfway between the ground and the hole at the top. I didn't want to be caught off guard again with more stuff thrown on my head.

When I finished with the splint, I returned to observing the bugs. They were unknown to me, just like every creature I'd encountered so far, but they weren't that different than what I was used to. The bugs were like ants; They were black with tiny legs. And they moved like every creepy-crawlie I'd ever seen.

The ants skittered about until they eventually stopped pouring out of the walls. There were so many that most were stacked on top of each other. I wished I could've taken a picture of them. It was a colony of at least a few million, give or take.

"Stay down there, little buddies," I said before chuckling. The laugh was more like a nervous tick than a genuine laugh.

I was baffled by the whole situation. When I first got tossed in the hole, I thought it was a prison, and then when the snatchers started throwing trash in the hole, I switched my thoughts toward it being a trash bin. The new presence of the bugs changed things. I didn't know why the snatchers stuck me in the hole, but it certainly had something to do with the bugs.

As I pondered their purpose, a tiny sparkle entered my gaze, and like a fleck of sun, it was gold beyond comparison. It wasn't blinding, not at all. It was a sparkle. A sparkle that could've gone unseen if I wasn't looking in the right place. It was as if a few lightning bugs were floating around my head. I was mesmerized by the sparkle and reached out to touch it.

Unsurprisingly, my hand phased through like the sparkles were merely a mirage. Considering what I'd seen, it wasn't the strangest occurrence, but that didn't diminish my shock. I continued to paw at the sparkles like a cat with keys. And I would've kept going longer if I didn't almost tip over the edge of the [Platform].

I ignored the sparkle and again turned my eyes to the bugs. I hadn't devised a name for them yet and could no longer put it off. I went with the name 'Hants.' It was a combination of holes and ants. A good name, if I do say so myself.

I watched the Hants with interest, waiting for them to return to their holes, but they refused to leave. If anything, they seemed to be getting more emboldened. Last I checked, they were nowhere close to me, but upon closer inspection, I saw the bugs were beginning to creep up on me.

"I would stay back if I were you." I wanted to know if I could fire a [Blast] and catch myself with a [Platform]. I would do so if forced. I looked at my splinted arm and considered trying to focus magic through it again, but I ultimately decided not to. The last time I'd tried, the magic had gone wasted.

The bugs, as if they didn't hear my threat, started to inch farther and farther up the walls to get closer to my [Platform]. Then the Hants started to glow bright red. The sparkle's light hovering near my head started to glow like crazy as if to match the ant's intensity. I stood up. All the Hants were zipping around the floor like crazy and making sounds that made them seem like a much bigger creature. I wanted to get farther away if I could.

I created a few more [Platforms] and climbed until I reached the top. My head was a few feet from the hole when I stopped climbing--a stone slab was covering the opening. It wasn't far enough. The Hants were still glowing red hot and zipping around like crazy, but they'd stopped their ascent up the walls.

I focused on the center of the floor where most of the Hants congregated and noticed something strange. They were eating. They were eating my clothes, the discarded bones, tools, plants, old food, and whatever else the snatchers had tosed down that I hadn't noticed.

"What the hell," I whispered.

They continued to eat until everything was gone. Once all the stuff on the floor, save the mossy ground itself, was eaten, the red glow from the bugs disappeared. They returned to normal as if nothing ever happened.

I watched and waited for what they would do next. But to my surprise, the Hants simply returned to the holes they'd come from, leaving me to deal with what I'd witnessed. I was happy to be alive, of course, but as I looked at myself, I realized there was no cause for celebration because I was naked. The darn Hants had eaten my clothes.