No Breaks, No Benefits, and No Way Out
Aya Kurose, former corporate drone, now Worker Ant #10284, had reached a single, devastating conclusion about her new life:
She had been reincarnated into the world's most nightmarish unpaid internship.
And there was no quitting.
Her six, nightmarishly spindly legs scuttled forward automatically, carrying her down the endless, suffocating tunnels of the colony. The walls curved and pulsed, packed with the warm, shifting bodies of thousands upon thousands of worker ants, all moving with perfect, mindless efficiency.
The air was thick, humid, and rancid with the overwhelming stench of pheromones—orders, commands, warnings, and priorities all crashing into her brain in a suffocating tidal wave.
And the worst part?
Her stupid, newly evolved instincts understood all of it.
Dig here. Expand tunnel. Move eggs. Transport food. Protect the Queen. Don't stop. Don't question. Don't rest. Work, work, work.
The mandates pressed down on her like an unbreakable corporate contract, her tiny ant body responding without hesitation, because—of course she was biologically programmed to obey.
Her legs twitched furiously as she tried to fight the autopilot response, but her traitorous worker ant instincts pushed her forward anyway, forcing her to fall in line with the rest of the soulless worker horde.
Aya's antennae drooped miserably.
WHY?! WHY DID I GET REBORN INTO ANOTHER SOUL-SUCKING JOB?!
This was the ultimate scam.
She had spent her previous life buried in paperwork and unpaid overtime, a cog in a corporate hell-machine, only to DIE AND REINCARNATE INTO AN ACTUAL MACHINE—one even worse than her last job.
At least her old company had a break room.
Here? The closest thing to a break was dying from exhaustion.
The irony was soul-crushing.
Aya tried to grind her mandibles in frustration, but all she managed was an angry chittering sound, lost in the endless droning of the colony's workforce.
No one cared.
No one listened.
Because no one here questioned anything.
This was how things were.
An eternal cycle of work, breed, and die.
No weekends. No holidays. No sleep-ins.
Just an eternity of back-breaking, mindless labor, all for the sake of a Queen she had never even seen.
Aya's horror deepened as she finally, truly understood her new reality.
She wasn't just an office worker again.
She was an office worker in hell.
And worst of all?
She couldn't even complain about it.
The Office Job Was Better Than This?!
Aya had barely been hatched—born felt too generous—before she was shoved straight into the workforce.
There was no orientation. No introductions. No pep talks about teamwork.
No one pulled her aside to explain, "Hey, congratulations on being born! Here's what's going on!"
Nope.
She was dumped into hard labor within minutes of existing.
And her "training program" boiled down to three simple pheromone commands blasted into her brain:
"Move."
"Work."
"Don't fall behind."
That was it. That was her entire employee manual.
The older workers wasted no time shoving her along, their thick exoskeletons bumping against her fragile, newborn body, antennae flicking impatiently.
Aya barely had time to find her footing before she was forced to march with the swarm, her six ridiculously uncoordinated legs flailing beneath her.
How the hell did ants do this so easily?! Her human brain wasn't built for this!
She was stumbling, tripping, skittering awkwardly—and the older ants didn't care. No one stopped to help her. No one so much as acknowledged her struggle.
They pushed her forward, and if she couldn't keep up? Tough luck.
Then she entered the central chamber.
And her tiny mandibles nearly unhinged in horror.
The ground wasn't solid.
It was moving.
An endless, writhing sea of ants.
Thousands of workers scuttled in every direction, soldiers patrolled the tunnels, nurses tended to the eggs, foragers hauled food, engineers expanded the burrows—all moving in a perfectly synchronized industrial nightmare.
The sheer scale of it was overwhelming. The air was thick with pheromone signals, orders being barked in silent, chemical waves. Every single ant was locked into the machine, following its purpose without hesitation.
Aya's antennae twitched violently.
This wasn't just a workplace.
It was a dystopian, factory-like nightmare.
Even her old office job—the one that slowly crushed her soul with unpaid overtime and incompetent managers—hadn't been this bad.
Back then, at least she'd had a cubicle. A tiny, personal, half-assed space where she could sit, pretend to work, and browse social media when no one was looking.
Here? Nothing.
No break room.
No cheap vending machine coffee.
No half-hearted complaints about management whispered in the bathroom.
Just work. Forever.
Aya felt a deep, primal dread settle in.
She had no individualism here.
She wasn't Aya Kurose, overworked office worker.
She wasn't even Worker Ant #10284.
She was nothing.
Just another tiny, insignificant cog in a biological megastructure that couldn't be stopped.
A horrible realization hit her.
In her old job, she had always dreamed of quitting.
Of throwing her resignation letter onto her boss's desk, flipping him off, and walking out like a hero.
Here? That wasn't an option.
There were no exit doors.
There were no managers to negotiate with.
There was no HR department to lodge a complaint.
There was only one rule in this nightmare colony:
Work. Or die.
And Aya had a sickening feeling that the latter would come sooner than she wanted.
Basic Training—Or, How to Break a New Employee Immediately
Aya barely had time to process the fact that she had no rights before a massive worker ant grabbed her by the back of her tiny, frail head and dragged her off.
She chittered in protest, her six legs flailing as she was yanked away from the marching swarm.
"Wait! WAIT! I need a second—!"
Too bad. The colony didn't wait.
Aya was thrown forward, landing face-first in a pile of food scraps. The pheromone orders hit her instantly.
New Task Assigned: CARRY FOOD.Difficulty Level: NIGHTMARISHLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Her first job as a newborn worker ant?
Carrying a dead beetle leg.
A massive, horrifying, nearly half-her-size beetle leg.
"Are you serious?!"
She stared in absolute horror at the grotesque chunk of insect limb, the thick chitinous shell gleaming under the dim tunnel light. It was like a severed human arm lying in front of her.
Aya's antennae twitched violently.
"Oh god, it's still fresh—!"
The smell of rotting beetle juices hit her all at once, so strong it made her tiny ant brain short-circuit.
The older worker supervising her flicked its antennae. A new pheromone pulse shot through her mind:
"Pick it up."
Aya hesitated.
"You want me to lift this? With my TINY FRAGILE BODY?"
She was a human before this! She had struggled to carry grocery bags, let alone a dismembered corpse limb the size of a skyscraper.
But she had no choice.
Ant instincts overrode human hesitation, forcing her weak, newborn legs to move.
She reached forward, mandibles clamping down on the beetle leg.
And then—
LIFT.
A mistake. A massive mistake.
ANTS CAN LIFT TEN TIMES THEIR BODY WEIGHT.
Aya, who had been a weak, caffeine-addicted human in her past life, was not ready for this level of physical labor.
The moment the weight hit her, her entire exoskeleton trembled, a horrible, suffocating strain squeezing every inch of her tiny, pathetic body.
Her thin legs buckled.
Her joints cracked under pressure.
Her entire existence screamed in agony.
Oh god—oh god, I'm going to die from carrying a BUG LEG?!
But she refused to give up.
One.
Two.
Three agonizing steps forward.
Then—
FLIP.
Aya tilted sideways and slammed into the ground, the beetle leg rolling on top of her.
A horrifying wet squish echoed as she found herself pinned beneath it, her six legs twitching uselessly in the air.
Aya was officially stuck.
Like a pathetic, helpless, upside-down turtle.
She struggled. Wiggled. Twisted. Flailed.
Nothing.
Her entire world was now beetle juice, failure, and crippling humiliation.
Her siblings marched past her, not even sparing her a glance.
The senior worker overseeing her training flicked its antennae in her direction.
For a brief moment, Aya swore she felt it.
The pure, unfiltered disappointment.
Not pity.
Not concern.
Just cold, emotionless disgust.
A new pheromone message seared into her mind:
"Pathetic."
Aya wanted to cry.
But guess what?
ANTS DON'T HAVE TEAR DUCTS.Smell-Based Communication Is a Nightmare
As if the soul-crushing labor wasn't bad enough, Aya soon realized something far, far worse:
She couldn't talk.
No words. No sighs of exasperation. No sarcastic complaints to lighten the mood.
Just pheromones.
And let her tell you—
IT SUCKED.
In her old life, she could at least:
✔ Grumble under her breath in the office.
✔ Roll her eyes at dumb corporate emails.
✔ Text her friends about how much she wanted to quit.
✔ Passive-aggressively sigh during pointless meetings.
Here? The moment she panicked, her body—without her permission—released distress pheromones.
Which, unfortunately, summoned an entire squad of soldier ants.
OH NO.
Within seconds, a horde of battle-hardened warriors came stampeding through the tunnels like a living tidal wave.
Their massive mandibles clicked as they surrounded her in an instant, their armored bodies gleaming in the dim tunnel light.
Each of them at least five times her size.
The pheromone messages flooded her brain, each one more terrifying than the last.
"WHERE IS THE ENEMY?!"
"IS THE COLONY UNDER ATTACK?!"
"DO WE NEED TO KILL?!"
Aya, who had merely been struggling with a breadcrumb, stood there, completely frozen.
Oh my god. OH MY GOD.
She tried to wave them off—but guess what?
ANTS DON'T HAVE HANDS.
All she could do was awkwardly twitch her antennae, which was basically the ant equivalent of a nervous breakdown.
The soldiers stared at her.
They looked at the breadcrumb.
Then back at her.
Then—
Dead. Silent. Judgment.
Without a word (or a single pheromone), the soldiers slowly turned and marched away, their bodies radiating a level of disappointment that transcended language.
Aya stood there, humiliated beyond belief.
Her entire existence was now failure, shame, and the crushing realization that she was the colony's village idiot.
She had been reborn for less than a day.
And she had already caused a false alarm.
Aya wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
…Which, considering she was already living underground, meant there was nowhere lower to go.
The Final Realization—This Is Her Life Now
Aya had experienced many forms of suffering in her old life.
She had endured unpaid overtime, her boss dumping last-minute projects on her desk, pointless meetings that could've been an email.
But nothing—NOTHING—compared to the sheer soul-crushing despair of being a worker ant.
After what felt like an eternity of humiliation, exhaustion, and the grim realization that her life now consisted of nothing but labor, Aya finally reached a terrible, horrifying conclusion.
She was never getting out of this.
No promotion.
No salary.
No vacation days.
No quitting.
Only endless, back-breaking work.
She had spent the entire day:
❌ Being forcibly assigned to a job she didn't apply for.
❌ Failing at basic training in front of everyone.
❌ Summoning a death squad over a breadcrumb.
❌ Realizing she was at the bottom of the corporate food chain—again.
And now? Now she was too tired to even function.
She dragged her exhausted body through the tunnels, every part of her aching.
Her tiny legs trembled.
Her antennae drooped.
She collapsed in a quiet, damp corner of the colony, pressing her tiny, segmented body against the dirt wall.
Her mandibles barely twitched as she let out a tiny, pitiful chitter.
This is hell.
No—
This was worse than hell.
Because at least hell had fire and demons.
Here?
There was no suffering to fight against. No villain to overthrow. No hope of rebellion.
Just an endless cycle of work, eat, survive, repeat.
Her lifespan wouldn't even be that long. She wasn't a queen. She wasn't even a soldier. She was a worker, destined to spend her short, miserable existence digging tunnels and hauling food—until something ate her.
Aya curled up, her small body pressing into itself as a heavy, unbearable weight settled in her mind.
She could feel her instincts creeping in, trying to drown out her thoughts with simple commands.
Work. Obey. Don't think.
She clenched her mandibles in silent defiance.
No.
She was still Aya Kurose. A human.
She refused to lose herself.
But how long could she fight it?
As the dark tunnels whispered around her, filled with the constant, mindless movement of her colony, one final, bitter thought echoed in her mind:
"Screw reincarnation. I WANT A REFUND."