Damon exits his shelter to scout out the houses in the immediate vicinity, to prevent him from being flooded with bugs at night. But when checking for bugs, you must look in holes, crevices, basements, and attics. Luckily for Damon the bugs are generally big enough to see their nest much easier. Unfortunately, they are also big enough to fight back

Damon did a thorough inspection of all the houses surrounding his shelter, to a total of 8 houses, majority were collapsed.

“All Clear”

He mumbles to himself.

“Only took all fucking day, at this rate, it's gonna take me a week to look over the area.”

Damon heads his way back to the house and enters right at sundown. The dark Is dangerous, because while you can't see anything they can see you. And don't try to make any light, that'll attract everything in the area.

Damon didn't forget to bring dinner home with him. Damon enters the house with two dead mites in his hand, the size of chickens each. He drops them onto the kitchen counter to dismantle them. He picks up the knife that was lying on the chopping board and starts with the legs. Damon chops off each of the many limbs of the mites by the joint, too little meat.

The head was next, with many inedible parts there. After that, he uses the knife to carefully slice off all the outer skin of the mites. And finally, he disembowels the critters, so the stomach and intestines don't contaminate the meat. Damon starts a small fire to roast the meat.

He picks up a chunk of the freshly roasted mite with a fork and takes a bite.

“Could use a little seasoning, tastes a little like death. But still, it's better than my stomach eating me from the inside out. And besides, it's quite nutritious.. For a bug.”

With a belly full of meat, Damon lays down on one of the mattresses in the basement. Sleeping is extremely important, especially for someone whos schedule is full for the next week.

———————————————————

Waking up in the morning, Damon drags himself out of bed, still a little sore from two days ago. He puts some treatment on his face and gets ready to scout.

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He leaves the house and walks past the buildings he checked yesterday toward the ones that are next on the list.

Not even a few houses in Damon find a bug’s nest. It was Inside the doghouse of the previous owner. The nest is best described as a bulbous purplish blob the size of a basketball throbbing and spewing out eggs every now and then.

“Hmm.. A mite nest could be good or bad, I'll have to see what kind of mite this nest produces.”

Damon grabs one of the adult mites crawling a few feet away from the nest and decapitates it. Damon brings the head closer to his face to inspect it.

“It's one of the plant-eating ones, that's good. I'll leave this nest intact, it'll be a reliable food source unlike those stragglers I picked up last night.”

Damon says as he tosses the now-useless head and makes a mental note of his current location. He continues to check the rest of the building on his list finding only a couple more nests. A flesh fly nest and another mite nest. He destroyed the flesh fly nest because of the potential danger it poses. Flesh flies are sole carnivores that like to swarm and eat their prey alive like piranhas. The mite nest is another herbivore nest.

“It's weird how lucky I'm getting, I'm never this lucky” Damon says to himself as he walks home

He grabbed a couple of mites on the way home and prepared them to eat. He ate the mites then passed out on his bed again, due to repeat again tomorrow.

———————————————————

Damon drags himself out of his bed once again to continue what he started. He ate a can of fruit for breakfast and got ready to leave. He left the house and walked past two areas of houses to arrive at where he wanted to be.

Damon repeated like clockwork, check a couple of houses see nothing, see a nest, destroy a nest. Check a couple of houses see nothing, find a nest, leave the nest. He did this till the sun started to fall, and he went to check one more building. It was a warehouse, comparable to a few houses in length. The warehouse should be quite empty inside, and it should be a quick check and leave. But fate isn't so simple now, is it?

Damon walks up to the giant metal doors and puts the whole force of his body to open up one of the doors. As he walked inside the place was pitch black except for one area, a little area in the middle of the empty warehouse. The area is illuminated by the light entering from a hole at the top of the warehouse.

The hole in the roof indicated that something fell through, it was small, small enough to look like a bullet was shot through. The area the light revealed was a crater. The thing that caused the carter, was a marble, or at least it looked like one from a distance.

Damon’s curiosity got the best of him and he walked up to the ‘marble’ to get a better look. But apparently, it wasn't a marble at all, actually, it looks like a Dyson sphere you would see in theoretical books. Except for this Dyson sphere isn't bigger than a star, it is only about twice the size of a marble. Inside the sphere, it looks like there is a mini galaxy being trapped inside.

But as Damon was inspecting the sphere, he heard a sound from behind him. He turned around quickly, and what he saw was the last thing he expected to see at this point.

It was an ant and not just any ant. An ant with a giant scar where its left eye should be, and it does not look happy.