Fira's library

This is where I am putting all of the stories that I wrote. Don't judge me on them, but I think they are good. I'll start with the stories I have finished, then I will do installments of the story I am working on. I will probably double post a few times, but these are LONG stories, so I will have to continue on another post to fit them. Forgive me in advance. Okay, these are the the 2 stories I have finished, in the order I will post them!

Mysteries of dirt-ant mountain
Mysteries of Dusty Dune

After I have finished them I will put installments of:
Mysteries of Icy Summit

Okay, ON WITH THE SHOW!!!

Mysteries of
Dirt-Ant Mountain

Written & Illustrated by:
Fira

Chapter 1: Dirt-Ant Mountain
“Where are we going? Where are we going?” “You’ll find out when we get there.” “No! Tell me now!” “Stop bugging me! I don’t know where we’re going!” “You just don’t want to tell me!”
“STOP BOTHERING ME! IT’S ANNOYING!” This may seem like a normal day, but today we’re going to a historical monument. In fact, it’s the most historical monument in all of ant kind; according to the hints my mom is giving. My sister keeps bugging me, so I can’t enjoy the beautiful scenery. “MOM! Tony won’t tell me where we’re going!” “That’s because I don’t know, dirt-brain!” “Stop it, both of you! We’re going to go to Dirt-Ant Mountain!
I thought a secret would be good for you two, but you proved me wrong, yet again!” “Sorry, mom.” “(Sigh.) Well, we’re almost there, anyway. Look to your left.” We looked, and couldn’t believe what we saw. A gigantic dirt pile came to view. It had many hairy green things at the top, along with a big blade of grass that had a red stain.
Maybe I should back it up a bit. First of all, my name is Antonio Ant, but everyone calls me Tony. Probably because I’m related to everyone, because the queen is my mom. She’s so busy that every time a group of ants are born, the queen takes one of her workers, and assigns her to take care of them. Then, she takes one of her soldiers (a male) and makes him a part-time father. Okay, back to the hike. “Mom, what are those hairy green things? And that red stain? What are they?” “How about I tell you the story of Dirt-Ant Mountain instead?”
“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes ye-’’ “Quiet! Do you want to hear the story or not? If you do, then be quiet and listen!” “Sorry, Tony. You know how excited I get when I hear a new story.” “No new bed time stories then.” “WHAT!?” “You can’t fall asleep if you’re excited.” “Forget that I said that then.” “Are you two done yet? I haven’t even told the story yet and you two are still fighting.”
“Sorry mom” “thanks. Now, where do I begin?”
Chapter 2: The Legend of Dirt-Ant Mountain
“A long time ago, when the queen had just started this colony, a huge drought was starting to come. This worried the queen, who had just eaten the last drop of nectar for the season. Also, on top of all her other worries, the patroller of the colony said that humans were coming regularly each day. The queen was so worried that she sent out 13 of her scouts to investigate. Bad idea. We never saw them again. Weeks went by; months even, before we saw them. The weird thing was that they looked different, VERY different. It took a moment for the queen to realize the ants were GRAY. This scared her that wherever they had went, they had turned gray in the process. Yet they were her colony’s ants, so she welcomed them with open arms. Other ants did not like that they were gray, and asked the queen to stop welcoming them. But, since she didn’t, they went and lied to the ants about what she said about them. They decided to finish their lies by saying the queen did not want them, and by calling them dirt-ants. This made the ants so angry that they decided to talk with the queen. They talked with her, and decided that if there ever was hunger, one ant would be chosen to ask for food and get it, but only him. Then the ants built a mountain, and hid in it. That was how Dirt-Ant Mountain was built.”
“Hey, Tony, look!” “What is it?” “The mountain, I-I thought I heard a noise coming from it.” “You’re getting scared about a noise?!” “N-No I thought I saw something move in the hole over there… Tony, let’s go, I’m scared.” Suddenly we heard a slight hissing noise coming closer, and closer. “TONY! HELP!” I looked just in time to see a big spiny thing scuttling away with my sister!
“Hey! You leave her alone!” Thinking quickly, I hurled a rock at it, and saw it drop her. Unfortunately, it then decided to go after me. “Stop, you filthy nuisance!” I heard a voice say. Then I saw a dirt-gray thing come hurtling at the creature, and the creature backing away, having no dinner that day. I looked up to see a gray ant looking at me with a concerned face, before I blacked out.
“Hey, get up, it’s gone now.” “Wh-wha?” “Come on, get up, I’m lonely.” I opened my eyes, and wondered why I was here, and, most importantly, where I was. Then, I remembered the past hour’s events. “I’ve got to save my sister!” “Finally, you woke up! I was getting tired of waiting. Oh, and don’t worry, your sister is safe with us.” “Who IS us?” “Oh, sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. Hi, I’m Albert ant, A.J. for short. OH, you’re a black-skin! I didn’t know that!” “Where am I? And what’s a black-skin?” “You’re in the infirmary in Dirt-Ant Mountain, and a black-skin is what we call ants that aren’t gray.” “Wait, you mean THE dirt-ant mountain? The mountain that dirt-ants call home?” “Yeah.” “Whoa! I thought you guys weren’t real…sorry.” “Oh, it’s okay. Personally, we’re used to ants thinking we don’t exist.” “Hey! Want to be friends?” “Okay, but I don’t know if the elder will be happy about it.” “Why is that?” “Oh, nothing, forget I said anything.” O…k… I thought this was weird, but decided not to comment. After all, I didn’t want to lose my friend right after I got him.
Chapter 3: The Tour of Dirt-Ant Mountain
“Ok, this is the library. This is the science room. This is the math lab. This is our- “Wait. You have what?” “Pretty much everything.” I later learned that these ants were very smart. They even grew their own food! Can this day get any weirder? I wondered. A.J. answered that question for me when we stopped in front of a metal chute. “Here we are.” “Where are we?” “At the elder’s home. I really want to introduce you to her. Just keep the friendship secret, Ok?” “O…k…” “Great. Here we go!
A.J wasn’t kidding. This was like a huge roller coaster ride. We had jumped into the chute, and were twisting at every turn. It felt exactly like I imagined riding that spiny thing would feel, except for when we gained speed. “This is my favorite part.” A.J. suddenly yelled. We made three loops, one after the other. You probably had already guessed that I got off the ride feeling very queasy. Luckily, I had a moment to regain balance, because A.J. stopped right in front of me. Then he halfway bended over, leaving me still standing. “What are you doing? Stop fooling around and bow!!!” He hissed. I realized that must be what they do to honor great people, so I quickly followed suit. I finally saw the elder, a really wrinkly gray-colored ant.
Talk about bad first impressions. “What is this black-skin doing here? Is he a new prisoner? If he is, than you know where he goes.” Her voice sounded as ancient as she looked. That prisoner thing didn’t sound too good either. I quickly spoke up. “I am Antonio Ant. I came from the colony not far from here. I got attacked by a spiny thing, which took my sister. Do you know where she is?” The queen didn’t look even remotely surprised, which surprised me. “She must be that peppy young black-skin. Albert, go to the prison and retrieve her, but tell them to hurry up.” This day was just getting weirder and weirder. Finally, A.J. reappeared, along with a scraggly-looking gray ant. I couldn’t believe what she said next. “Tony? Is that you? What happened? I want to go home. These ants are scarier than that centipede.” It took me a while to recognize her. It was my sister.
There I was, with 2 dirt-ants near me, in a mountain that was filled with very smart ants, and all I could think about was my sister and what they had done to her. Finally, the elder said something. “Albert, leave this place. I only need to talk to Antonio and his sister.” A.J. quickly left, and for a second, he seemed happy to go. However, I didn’t notice, as I was looking at the elder. She spoke, with that ancient voice of hers. “Dirt-Ant Mountain has come a long way, and I assume you heard the story those ridiculous black-skins call a legend? You haven’t even heard half of it. I shall tell you the true story…”

Chapter 4: The (True) Story of Dirt-Ant Mountain
“As you probably already know, Dirt-Ant Mountain was created by us, the dirt-ants. What you probably didn’t know is everything in between. Yes, we were abducted by humans, and we even know where we were abducted to. But that came a lot later, when we were halfway through the year. We, that is, the original 13 black-skins, were taken to an odd tall building, very far from the colony. Of course, we were very scared, terrified actually. But it turned out that we had nothing to fear. As I was saying, we were taken to that building, and I saw lots of humans, more than I saw near the colony. They were talking in a strange language that I couldn’t understand a word of, but I believe that they were talking about us. We were put in a huge container made of some kind of odd material. Luckily, it had tons of dirt, so we did the one thing we could do, which is build a new colony. All of us were taken out, one by one, but enough remained so we could build at the same rate. It was very odd, using our instincts in a building. But it was all we could do, so we continued working. Soon, we had a strongly-built colony, having rooms containing everything we need to live. We settled down, but we could still hear the humans babbling away in their strange language. When they finally stopped, it was pitch-dark, and I couldn’t sleep. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one, because I heard the voice of someone young, scared to death, yet normally confident. I later learned that it was none other than Albert, your best friend. He said, ‘I’m so scared. Why did the queen choose me to go with the scouts? I’m timid and probably wouldn’t do much good anyway. Please, someone, anyone, come and talk to me.’ I felt sympathetic so I tried to comfort him. ‘Don’t worry, I was one of the scouts in the battle my chosen father died in, so I know how you feel.’ His voice was more confident when he replied. ‘Well, now I know I’m not the only one awake. Are you scared too?’ We continued like this the whole night, and I managed to fall asleep when the early rays of morning shone through the window.
Sadly, my sleep was interrupted by the humans, babbling away as usual. By the time I aroused myself, most of the ants had left to fulfill morning duties. Albert was almost the only one left in the sleeping chamber, including me. When I finally got up, Albert was getting ready to leave. He finally noticed me and said, ‘What took so long? Did the bed knock you unconscious? Come on, we’re late enough already.’ I quickly stood up and raced to catch up with him. He was seriously fast for his size. We exited the colony, only to be grabbed by a human. He stunk like spoiled turnips, which was bad enough, but then placed us in a chamber covered with gray-brown dust. It certainly wasn’t dirt, yet it smelled like it. All of a sudden, some of that odd stuff was thrown onto me. And according to the sprinkling sound, Albert was getting it too. After that, we got smeared with some odd sticky stuff, and then got thrown back into the cage. It eventually dried, but it felt very odd.
Sadly, the humans weren’t done with me. The turnip-man grabbed me again, but this time I was put in a cardboard prison.
I finally noticed an opening, but, having gone to picnics before, I knew I should be cautious. I followed it, and ended up in another chamber, this time with four paths. I was getting frustrated, but took any random path. I bumped directly into cardboard. Now I was getting mad. I decided to climb up the wall, but slipped. It was useless. I exited, but this time I took the northern path. I ended up in a chamber with three paths. I took all of the northern paths, and got out of that creepy thing. Then I smelled it. Grape jelly!!! I ran and buried my pincers in it, greedily taking bite after bite. Bad idea. I fell over, asleep.
This happened every day, month after month. Eventually, Albert bit turnip-man. Hard. Turnip-man dropped Albert, and he explored the lab. He noticed the places air flowed in, and examined them. He later told me that he thought about escaping when he was near them. The humans eventually caught him, but not until he explored the lab thoroughly. That night, he woke me up. ‘Hey, this is important. I think I found out how to get out.’ I woke up, but, as usual, I took forever. He said, ‘Follow me as silently as you can.’ Even though I desperately wanted answers, I followed. He led me outside, then to the edge of the strange wall. This wall was worn enough to climb. He went up, so I did too. What I saw was amazing. There was an endless maze of strange objects, scattered all over the floor. Albert wasn’t looking at those things though. He was looking towards the only place not covered with clutter. The only thing I saw there was a small, black, grate. He said, ‘That place over there looks big enough for an ant to squeeze through, yet small enough so that we wouldn’t get captured… the only problem is that, when we get out, what are we going to do?’ I thought and thought then replied, ‘We’ll think about that when we get out. Right now we should wake the others up. This could be our only chance to leave before the humans wake up again. It’s now or never!’
We raced inside and bit everyone awake. They were not very pleased, I’ll tell you that. We got outside and soon assigned jobs to the other 11 ants. There were the ladders, the scavengers, and the scouts. The ladders were assigned to only the toughest and strongest ants, making them become living ropes to the floor. The scavengers were to find thread and a twig for everyone. The 2 of us were scouts, looking for any sign of the humans stirring. When all of the jobs were assigned, we moved out. Eventually, we had everything we needed to get out. Everything went to plan until just after we made sure everyone was there. Then a spider turned up. He screamed, ‘I hope you guys like battles ‘cause if you leave this place, you’ll have to face one! I’ve been watching you guys and now I can show you something that will bust your antennas clean off!’ He then showed us a picture of skull and crossbones on a bottle. To all ants this means, Poison! No! And I had an idea of what this meant. Those people were going to poison gas the colony and us with it. This was bad…Really bad. ‘What’ll we do? If we go, we’ll be poisoned. If we don’t…’ ‘Wait. Who said we would go back to that terrible colony. Who said that we couldn’t build our own? No body, that’s who, I say we find a nice place and build our home there.’ Albert, like any brainy ant, found a loophole. ‘I say that first we find a place to stay while we build our new colony, but before that, we should pay a visit to our old one to at least warn them of this.’ The spider replied, ‘Well if you want to do any of this stuff, you better hurry. It’s almost morning.’ So we stuck with Albert’s plan and escaped, warned, and all of that stuff he said we should do. Our old colony stuck with us, saying that 115 others might come in handy. We eventually settled down in this place, and the other ants went nearby. The rest is told in their legend of how this place came to be. The end.”
I was so involved in my thoughts that I jumped when alarms sounded. The Elder grew whiter than any dirt-ant I’ve ever seen. “No, not them, not now!” she whispered as pounding rattled the door. I was about to ask who when a tearing screech ripped across the room as two gleaming pincers tore the door in half. Thirteen spiders with red hourglasses on their backs scampered around the room, either tearing stuff apart or spinning webs on the ceiling. But the worst was yet to come. For then, two dark red spiny things scampered in, carrying the ugliest spider I’ve ever seen. He jumped off and said, “My dear, I’m sorry we’re late. The troops insisted we grab a small snack before arriving.” To that the Elder replied, “Can’t this wait until after they return home? They don’t need to see this, Arachne!” The spider laughed and said he was hungry now. So he shoved her aside, and screeched, somehow calling all the ants in the colony to come to the elder’s chamber.
“Hmmmmmm…….I think I will take… those two!” He said, pointing directly at us.

Chapter 5: Back at the Colony
Ariana, Tony’s chosen mother, first noticed something odd when she saw the spiders swarming across the plains. Then she realized that Tony and his sister had been off exploring for a long time. That’s when it hit her. Tony and his sister must have been antnapped!!!! I must call the colony to save them! She thought, and ran the entire path to the colony. When she got there, she ran straight to the queen snapping at several ants, “Get out of my way! I need to see the queen!” Finally, she burst through the chamber doors and made her way to the queen’s throne. “Your majesty, I’m sorry for the sudden entrance, but this is an emergency!” The queen looked at Ariana in alarm. “What? What is it? What happened to Tony and Anterra?” “They have been antnapped, your majesty, and antnapped by spiders” The Queen looked, if possible, even more alarmed. “This is the legend all over again! We must prepare the colony for war! We must stop this threat! We must save my children! To war! To WAR!!!”
Chapter 6: The Spider’s Prison
All of the other ants moved over as two of those terrifying spiders headed straight for us. They then bound us tight in their horrid webbing, and threw us onto one of the spiny things that had carried that ugly spider that was their leader. Luckily, we weren’t the only ones that had this rough treatment. A.J. and a couple of other dirt-ants were being taken away as well.
The spiders burst through the solid walls of the colony, heading out. The last thing I saw was my mother, a single black dot on the horizon.
We were taken to a place that was so dark; we couldn’t even see using our antennae. If it wasn’t for the spiders dragging us along, we would have been hopelessly lost. All of a sudden, the spiders stopped, and threw us on the hard ground. Some lights came on, and we could see where we were. Not that there was much to see besides webbing. I noticed that the floor was solid wood. We were inside a hollow log. A young spider scuttled up to us with its pinchers wide open. I thought it was going to eat us until it began to cut the webbing that was binding us. As it was doing its job, I heard it muttering, “This is wrong, so very, very wrong. It’s barbaric to eat other creatures that work just as hard as we do. I don’t care if mother says they have no feelings. It’s still so very, very wrong.” I noticed the spider was a girl. I worked up the courage to something no ant has done before. “Actually, we do have feelings.” I said, “We are very scared. Tell me, what are they going to do with us?
Chapter 7: The Final Secret
“Ack! Y-you can talk!?” The spider exclaimed.
“Yes, we can. And from what I understand, your people are going to eat us. And what was going on back at the mountain?” I asked. “You mean you don’t know!? Wow, and I thought I had problems…”she replied. “I don’t know what…?” “That dirt-ant mountain has a terrible secret…involving us.” She said, looking ashamed. “WHAAAATTT? But how? The elder told me everything… right?” I said to A.J. “ummm, not exactly…” he replied. “Well what is it?” I pressed. The spider replied this time. “Ever since that one spider helped the ants, the leader chooses 10 ants every dry season to eat. Shall I tell you the rest?” I was horrified, but I had to learn this last piece of information, so I nodded. “Ok, then…one night, our leader went into the elder’s bedchamber. He threatened her to give up 10 ants, or his entire army would destroy the colony, and eat all of the ants. The elder was frightened at this, but asked why, and the leader replied that his very son had saved their lives and because of this, he deserved a reward. But that spider wasn’t so the leader didn’t deserve it. The elder didn’t know this though, and nobody would tell a spider that he was wrong, so she had no choice. Eventually he came every dry season to choose some more food, and that is why this happened.” A.J. was white, and the ants started panicking. We needed a way to stop this, fast. Surprisingly, the spider felt the same way, and joined us. But how were we, 10 ants and a spider, going to defeat the king of this log full of spiders? My question was going to be answered very shortly, by a very unexpected person. “Tony? Are you there? Don’t worry, we’re here to save you and put and end to this.” My sister spoke up. “Mom? Please help us!” Then came the spider’s turn. “Use your pincers to make this hole bigger!” when that was done, they all squeezed through the less-than-large hole. We happily squeezed our mom, and ran through the gate. The queen spoke, along with the elder. “It is time.” They said together. Time to save the ants!
Chapter 8: The End of the Log-Spider Kingdom
We began down the hall, to the spider’s royal chamber. We got a BIG surprise there. All of the spiders were there, wearing fierce colors. It began. On all sides, there were spiders and ants attacking each other.
Many of the spiders were defeated, but our army was practically destroyed. The queen signaled, “Tony, you’re our last hope! You must defeat the king!” Now it was my turn! A.J. joined me, running alongside. He was carrying 2 sharp spider pincers, and passed one to me, saying “This might come in handy!” It did. We found the king, and engaged in a furious battle. He attacked us every chance he got, even calling in his two spiny things to attack. Finally, A.J. ran in and stabbed him in the heart. Unfortunately, he got hit by the king’s pincers doing so. They both fell to the floor, defeated.
Epilogue: The Mourning of the Hero
The war finally ended when the king was defeated. All of the remaining spiders fled. I carried the defeated corpse of A.J. to the others, telling them what occurred. The elder and all of the dirt-ants cried very loudly. The queen and my colony wept as well. When we returned to Dirt-Ant Mountain, a great funeral was held for the savior of the land, and he was buried in a crystal tomb. On the way home, my sister noticed me looking sad. “What’s wrong, Tony?” she asked. I replied, “A.J. meant a lot to me. Even though the war was won, I have lost.” She said, “Tony, look at the sky!” I looked, and in the stars I saw the pattern of an ant.
I cried tears of joy. Even though he was defeated, I could still remember him. I knew he would remember me, too.


THE END