A Snake's Life

by Kenneth Arant

  "I'll—I'll just be going now." The large heat signature entered the clearing at a full sprint, and I got a good look at it before I started to flee. It was an Alpha Deer like the others. Well, it would have been, If the others were the size of an elephant and glowed like they had the fires of hell trapped within their eyes.

  Following a safe distance behind the much larger, more pissed off version of an Alpha Deer were two more Alpha Deer, and they looked almost like...

  "Went and tattled on me, did you!?" Apparently, the two from before had gone and gotten either the dad or big brother to come and fight their battle for them.

  The big one came to a stop a few dozen feet from me and the light burning in its eyes grew in intensity.

  "Um... Hello. My name is—" It roared at me, the sound reverberating through my bones like a gunshot. “And you obviously don't care!" It tried to stomp on me, but I managed to dodge around it at the last second.

  Weaving through its legs, and doing my best to avoid being stomped on, I got around behind it and bit into its left hind leg. The beast howled in pain and began to kick its legs out in panic.

  One of the other deer, while trying to help the large beast, attempted to bite me while I was distracted. It received a kick to the face from the big one for its trouble. The kick snapped the much smaller deer's neck and sent it tumbling into the river over thirty feet away.

  The big deer stopped thrashing around and looked between its front legs to see what it had kicked. Judging by the low growl that tore from its mouth, it saw the much smaller deer floating down the river.

  "I think that's my cue to leave..." I released the leg while the deer was distracted and attempted my getaway.

  I heard another growl from the big deer before I could make it more than five feet."...Damn it." Moving to the side as fast as I could, I barely dodged a massive hoof as it slammed into the ground in the exact spot my head had just occupied.

  "Think, think! What can I use to get out of here?" I weaved my way around the beast's legs, occasionally snapping at an ankle whenever it got too close. I needed to come up with a plan or I was going to die.

  The river caught my eye.

  " If I'm gonna do this, I only have one chance." I snapped at the big deer’s leg one last time before making a break for the river. My plan was to see how well this body could swim, while hopefully not dying from either drowning or the deer.

  I was moving my tired body as fast as I could when I noticed the other deer charging at me. I used my tail to propel myself the final few feet, and narrowly dodged the smaller deer's charge. I landed in the water headfirst and immediately started to sink. I tried to swim, but the current was too strong for my tired body to fight against. So, I relaxed as much as possible, and let it carry me downstream.

  "Hopefully, I won't run into anymore extra-large deer, for a while..."

  I could see the two deer chasing after me in the distance, but the current was too fast for them to keep up with me for long. I had managed to survive my first encounter with the Alpha Deer race.

  Chapter 4

  IT WASN'T LONG AFTER I escaped the Alpha Deer that I figured out how to swim. Except, unlike when I was on land, in the water I had to move my body side to side in order to move around. Doing the “caterpillar crawl” wouldn’t get me anywhere except a watery grave.

  I also quickly caught up to the deer the big one killed, so at least I had a snack for the road... er, river. However, since I couldn't swallow this one whole, I wrapped my body around it and pulled it along with me.

  I swam through the river for a long time before I'd had enough and wanted out. Though I didn't see any fish while I was swimming, I did see several underwater plants, so I could eat as much vegetation as possible. I didn't plan on straying too far from the river for a while.

  "Alright, I should be far enough away now. Come on snack, let's get to shore." Tugging my snack along behind me, I swam over to the riverbank.

  Once there, I had a little trouble getting the deer out of the water, but I somehow managed it after trying, and failing, several times.

  "You're heavier than you look. Did you ever think of going on a diet? Maybe dropping the whole meat-eating thing and eating grass... like a normal deer?" I asked the dead deer. What? I was bored and alone out in the middle of a strange forest. Talking to a dead body wasn't the weirdest thing I'd done today.

  Dropping the body at the base of a tree, I climbed up to a branch near the top to get some rest, and I ate some leaves while I was up there. After I cleared out a rather large area, I was able to look up at the night sky. It was... beautiful. I could see the innumerable stars shining brightly in the dark space above. And the two moons were... wait, moons?

  "I guess, I really am in another world." The two moons were on different sides of the sky. One was an extremely large bright orange moon, while the other was a much smaller green moon. After watching them for about an hour, I noticed it was the green moon that slowly followed in the wake of the much larger orange moon.

  "That's amazing." I watched the moons move across the sky for a few more hours before I called it a night and went to sleep underneath their light.

  When I woke up the next morning, my first instinct was to head down and eat, but the deer was gone. "Okay. Either the deer became an undead and left on its own, or there's another scavenger around. Either way, I’m not happy with the current situation," I grumbled.

  Moving around the tree, I tried to spot another heat signature, but I didn't see any. I was worried about being ambushed by something I couldn't see, so instead of heading to the ground to look for the scavenger, I moved along the upper tree branches.

  When I was confident the coast was clear, I slipped down from the tree. I searched for a while before I smelled the tell-tell scent of old blood. I’d smelled enough of the stuff during the war to recognize it anywhere. I followed the smell until I found the culprits. A group of rather large bugs was carrying the deer along the forest floor.

  "You know what? It isn't worth the trouble it would bring if I attacked them," I thought. Deciding to leave the bugs to their prize, I headed in the opposite direction.

  Every now and then, I would see more of the large bugs. Their six legs and dark carapace stood out among the green of the forest.

  "I wonder how they taste?" The next time I found a solitary bug, I decided to find out and snuck up on it. It was in a tree about ten feet above the branch I was on. I slowly climbed up until I was behind the bug. It was even bigger up close. It looked to be about a foot high without its antenna, and over two feet long. It had a set of large pincers, which it used to strip the bark from the tree.

  "I'd rather not get bitten by those pincers, so I'll have to kill it quickly." Getting even closer to the bug, I waited to strike until it bit into the bark again. I tried to bite down on the back of its carapace, but my teeth couldn't pierce the armor-like shell. After my failed attack, the bug attempted to turn around. I stopped it by switching my target to one of its back legs. I grabbed it as tight as I could with my mouth and lifted it off the tree, then slammed it back down. Since I was unable to bite through its armor, and since I didn't want to take the chance of wrapping myself around it, I planned to slam it into the tree until it could no longer move.

  After about ten slams, the bug stopped squirming and was leaking a bright green fluid.

  "Is it dead yet?" I wondered. It was still twitching slightly, but that could have been residual energy moving through its body. I held it for another minute or two while being ready to slam it again. When it didn’t move, I wrapped myself around it and rearranged my head in order to swallow it whole.

  I was successful in my attempt, though the pincers were annoying to get my mouth around, and it now sat in my stomach like a rock.

  "I can already tell this one is going to take a while to digest." I moved on before one of the other bugs could see me and call for reinforcements.

  I traveled through the forest for another few hours,
until I found one of the most wonderful things I had seen yet. It was a large tree covered in red, star-shaped fruit. It had an overbearingly sweet scent even from my position more than a hundred feet away.

  "Jackpot!" Moving to the base of the tree, I found a few fruits that had fallen to the ground and ate them. The taste was extremely bitter despite their sweet scent, but it was still fairly good. It tasted like a strange combination of an apple and a lemon.

  "Hmm... Not bad." I ate another, then another. Before long, I had eaten all of the fruit lying on the ground and was climbing up the tree to eat more. Over the course of several hours I ate every fruit on or around the tree. Then, I ate the leaves as well. After I’d eaten the last leaf, I got the pop-up I had been waiting for.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  You have unlocked the following evolutionary path: Gluttonous Tree Boa

  Would you like to evolve?

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "No." The pop-up vanished and was replaced by another.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  You have unlocked the following evolutionary path: Gluttonous Titan Boa

  Would you like to evolve?

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "That’s a yes." The pop-up vanished, and yet, nothing happened... at first. Then a severe pain assaulted me. It was so intense I fell out of the tree and landed on my head. I writhed on the ground in agony as a milky white substance covered me, and I was left in the dark again.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Your evolution is underway, and a shield has formed around you until it is complete. Time remaining until completion is 23h 59m 47s.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Looks like I'm going to be here for a while. Oh well, at least I'm safe for the time being... Probably."

  Chapter 5

  I SLEPT THROUGH MOST of the evolution countdown, and only woke up to read the pop-up on the bug.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  You have eaten the following race for the first time.

  Obsidian Beetle: Tier 1

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  I dismissed the pop-up and went back to sleep. Not being able to see or hear anything for an entire day would have driven me crazy, otherwise. When I awoke for the final time, the pop-up I had been anticipating was waiting for me.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Your evolution is complete, and new skills and traits have been added.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  While that could be a good thing, I had a feeling it would become more annoying than anything else. I don't know why I believed that to be the case, but that’s what instinct told me.

  I dismissed those pop-ups so the next one would appear.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Name: Torga

  Race: Titan Boa

  Classification: Tier 3

  Skills: Minor Stealth, Heat Detection, Gluttony, Minor Durability Up, Major Strength Up, Lesser Growth

  Traits: Gluttonous +2, Growth +1

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  I focused on the new skills I’d gained, which prompted more windows to appear.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Minor Durability Up: Your ability to resist or completely ignore damage has reached its natural peak and will not decrease through time or age.

  Major Strength Up: Your strength has reached the peak for your race and has broken through the natural limit. Your current strength is double that of what could be considered the “peak” for your race.

  Lesser Growth: A rare ability only certain races may acquire. Your body grows by one foot every year you live.

  *Warning: Due to the Gluttonous trait, you also grow a small amount with every meal

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  As soon as I dismissed that last window, a new pop-up appeared in front of me. This one looked slightly different from the previous ones, however.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  *Warning: Your Gluttonous trait has gained a level. As a side effect, your stomach acid is now capable of dissolving some metals and you must now eat more often.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Damn,” I sighed in annoyance. “I was already perpetually starving, and now you're saying I need to eat even more?" I wanted to seethe at the injustice of it but knew it wouldn’t do me any good. My stomach chose that moment to make its displeasure known, as a loud gurgle echoed inside the tight space.

  A sudden feeling of claustrophobia hit me. I started thrashing around inside the darkness. My body felt heavy, much heavier than it had ever felt before, and it had grown bigger too. The darkness seemed to press in on me and I knew right then and there that I was ready to get out. No, I needed to get out.

  My head hit something hard as I swung it to the side and a crack appeared in the darkness.

  "Guess that's my way out," I decided. I slammed my head into the hard thing again and again, with each hit making the crack bigger. The darkness finally shattered, and I heard what sounded like a tree falling over.

  Lifting my head out of the milky-white shell, I began looking around for whatever had knocked down a tree, but I couldn't see anything nearby. Then I looked back and spotted the fruit tree lying on the ground and saw how close the shell was to the trunk.

  "Did... did I do that?" I had hit the shell on something hard in order to get out, but... was I that much stronger? Deciding to try out my new body, I raised myself out of the shell and lifted my head up... and up... and up. "I guess, it wasn't kidding about the size of my new race." By bracing against one of the nearby trees I was able to extend to my maximum height. Fully stretched up, I could almost grab one of the uppermost branches. And my weight was nothing to scoff at either. I tested it by knocking my head against a branch, and the branch easily broke off—a testament to just how heavy I was, as I could climb across those branches before my evolution.

  "Maybe I'm the one who should go on a diet.” Though there was nothing I could really do about it, I was much more concerned about predators now that I couldn't hide in the trees. “Hmm... I suppose I should also test out how strong I am. I’d hate to end up on the wrong side of an Alpha Deer’s stomach because I didn’t know my limits.” The last time I’d had the misfortune of running into one I barely got away. I might not get so lucky next time.

  I wrapped my body around a tree and squeezed as hard as I could. It groaned and protested for a few seconds, then—*Crack!* The tree was crushed beneath my new body and collapsed as soon as I untangled myself from it.

  "Well, that's certainly useful." Though I shouldn't need to break down trees often, I was going to assume that most creatures were easier to break than a tree.

  "Now, I just need to know what my next evolution choices will be and I can be on my way.” A few seconds later, a pop-up gave me the new list.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Consume 1,000lbs of anything to unlock: Basilisk

  Consume 1,000lbs of anything and a creature of Fire to unlock: Flame Basilisk

  Consume 1,000lbs of anything and a creature of Wind to unlock: Wind Basilisk

  Consume 1,000lbs of anything and a creature of Earth to unlock: Earth Basilisk

  Consume 1,000lbs of anything and a creature of Water to unlock: Water Basilisk

  Complete the requirements of all other evolutions to unlock: Elemental Basilisk

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Well, I can easily consume a thousand pounds of food, but what are the creatures it wants me to eat?" I wondered aloud.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  A creature of the Elements is something born into an area saturated with that magical energy.

  For example:

  A Large Alpha Deer is a creature born of an Earth saturated zone.

  A Wyvern is a creature born of a Wind saturated zone.

  A Mermaid is a creature born of a Water saturated zone.

  A Flame Salamander is a creature born of a Fire saturated zone.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Hmm, looks like I'll need to have a round two with that bi
g deer. I'll worry about the other creatures later." My goal was to find that deer to unlock the Earth Basilisk, then find the other listed animals or animals like them in order to unlock the other evolutions. However, I only had one thing on my mind at the moment..."I'm so hungry!" I complained.

  Moving to a bit further up the tree I’d broken earlier, I found a section that had been completely broken apart after the fall and started eating the pieces. Then I snapped off the remaining branches and ate them as well. "That took the edge off, but I'm still hungry." I moved out of the clearing. My destination was the river, which I would then follow back the way I’d come.

  "I need to grab a few of those Beetles as a snack for the trip." Though hunger was a major part of my decision, I also wanted to be as large as possible when I ran into the Alpha Deer again. "That reminds me—didn’t the window mention that eating would cause me to grow with every meal? I wonder by how much?" I had yet to notice a big change, but I didn't want to suddenly grow ten feet because I ate a branch, either. "Eh, I'll figure it out later, I suppose." This stomach of mine was going to be a problem in the future, I just knew it.

  Chapter 6

  I RETRACED MY STEPS through the forest and managed to find my way back to the Obsidian Beetles. With my new size and strength, crushing and eating the beetles was easy, but also left me unsatisfied. Because of my new size the bugs barely filled me up. Even then my stomach acid was dissolving them at a rate that I couldn't hope to keep up with. So, I reintroduced tree branches to my diet in an attempt to slow down the hunger pains. That helped a little, but no matter how much I ate, it was never enough to completely subdue the pain.

  I left a path of destruction in my wake as I ate everything in my path. Beetles, tree branches, not even the smaller trees were safe. If I could swallow it, I ate it.

  When I finally reached the river again, I chose to move along the riverbank so I could continue to eat anything unfortunate enough to get in my way. Awhile later, I detected a heat signature up ahead. It was small, but I was so hungry I didn't care how big it was. It was food, and that’s all that mattered.