A Snake's Life

by Kenneth Arant

  “Titan Boa, Tier 3.”

  She seemed to hesitate for a moment. “While that is certainly true, I doubt that’s all of it. There are certain variables that affect the actual ‘tier’ of a creature, even if the system that governs such things disagrees with us. You’re most likely closer to a Tier 4 beast than you are a Tier 3."

  "I’d like to circle back around to that ‘system’ you mentioned, if that’s okay?" At her nod, I continued. “But why do you think I’m closer to a 4 than a 3?”

  "I saw the way you ignored Aurae’s commands. That, coupled with your massive size and intelligence... well, you’d have to be close to, if not already, a Tier 4 creature.”

  “I see. And, what about this ‘system’ you mentioned. What is it?”

  “No idea,” she admitted, her shoulders shrugging upwards. “It’s just what we call the little boxes that pop up to inform you of a change. As far as I’m aware, no one knows how or why it works. Only that it does.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a heat signature trying to hide behind Granny's tent. It was too large to be Ayla, so I assumed it was one of Aurae's "followers.” "I see. Well, thank you for your help. I should get going before I cause any more problems for you and Ayla."

  "Where are you headed?" she asked after a moment of silence.

  "Hopefully, to find a way off this rock."

  "Mm...” She stood and walked to the side of her tent, then pointed at the cylinder. “That’s one of Yggdrasil's branches, and your way off this rock. When you get there, merely touch it and you'll find a portal that'll lead you to your next destination. I'm sure you can figure out the rest."

  "Thanks again, Granny.” I slightly bowed my head and moved past her.

  “Oh, and Torga?” She called after me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Two things. One, my name is Freja. Call me Granny again and I’ll smack you. And two, mind the guards at the base of the branch. They’re not as... accommodating as I am. Their job is to keep creatures like you from traveling to other planets. So be careful, okay?” I noticed the heat signature leave. It probably heard what it needed to and was going to get help. "Oh ho... Looks like I get to have that meal, after all." A phantom smile spread across my face. “I understand, Freja. I’ll be careful.” With that, I left the camp and started making my way towards the branch.

  I soon spotted the multiple heat signatures following me, and one of them happened to be missing an arm. "Well, well. Look who's here." I saw them congregate ahead of me, so I ducked down and circled around them. Once I was close enough, I glimpsed them hiding in the trees. "Trying to ambush me, eh?" I looked for the signature that was missing an arm and snuck up behind it. Then, I rose to my full height. “Boo,” I hissed into her ear.

  Aurae jumped at the sound of my voice and quickly spun to look at me. Well, she saw the inside of my mouth. I bit down on her head and neck before she could scream, tilted my head back and swallowed her whole. Then, I left the young elves waiting in the trees. "Consider this a favor to you, Freja," I muttered as I went on my way, while the young elves continued to wait in the trees. How long it would take them to realize their leader was gone, I didn't know, nor did I care.

  Chapter 11

  I TRAVELED FOR WHAT felt like days and only stopped when I was ready to sleep. Otherwise, I kept moving.

  I ate almost everything to cross my path, whether it was an Obsidian Beetle or the few large Alpha Deer I came across. None were spared from my stomach. Though I did make sure to avoid most of the humanoids I saw along the way. The few that did stumble upon me, as long as they didn't attack, I left alone. However, the four humans being dissolved in my stomach meant that wasn’t always what happened. They chose to attack me, so I ate them.

  I arrived at Yggdrasil's Branch on the eve of the fourth or fifth day since I’d left the camp. I immediately spotted the heavily armed guards Freja mentioned and, thanks to my ability to detect sources of heat, I noticed multiple sentries patrolling the forest around the branch.

  I rose up to get a good look at the branch and saw what I'd been looking for. "So... that’s the portal Freja was talking about?" A large clear ring was floating just before the branch and had approximately ten guards stationed in front of it.

  " Freja was right. They’re not playing around." Instead of allowing myself to be seen in the sunlight, I moved deeper into the forest to watch the guards for a while. The clear sky around the branch would make sneaking through the portal almost impossible, which meant I needed to come up with another way to get past them.

  The snapping of a twig drew my attention away from the branch and into the forest to my right. I turned my head and saw a patrol heading in my direction. I slowly moved out of their way and resettled into a comfortable position to continue watching their movements.

  I watched them circle once, then I started counting how long it took them to make a rotation around the branch. I watched them head farther into the forest several times, but they always came out after a few minutes.

  "If I try to take out the stationary group while the other is out of sight, then I'll only have a few minutes to kill them and get through the portal." As I was watching them, however, I noticed something standing in the forest to my left. "Or, I could always go with plan B." It was a stray Alpha Deer that had either gotten separated from its group or was a scout looking for food. Either way, it reminded me of what Ayla said about the deer being vindictive.

  With that thought came a plan... Why do this myself when I could sit back and let something do it for me?

  I smiled as I moved towards the lone Alpha Deer. “Time to see if the brat was right, and you really are a vindictive lot.”

  Eren Leotris

  EREN LEOTRIS HAD BEEN assigned to this post along with the seventeenth regiment of the Lusan Kingdom to prevent any of the native animals from making it through the portal. He was walking next to his longtime friend Shaun Baldove. The two of them were part of the unit patrolling the forest and were currently walking along the southernmost side of the branch.

  "Hey, Eren?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Why are we doing this again?"

  Eren rolled his eyes at him. "You know why, Shaun. We were drafted, so we're stuck here for another three months."

  "Do we really have that much time left on our draft orders!? I thought we were down to a few weeks, at most?"

  "Yes. Now, be quiet before something notices we're here," he whispered.

  "Nothing is going to happen, Eren,” he scoffed. “We've been here for six months and haven't seen a damn thing apart from those elves that came through a few weeks ago." This earned him a glare from Eren.

  "You don't know that. What if your blabbering alerts a group of Alpha Deer, or silver city forbid, a large one?"

  He rolled his eyes at him. "Oh, no—not the dreaded Alpha Deer. Whatever shall I do?"

  Their commander turned up just then. "You'll die if you keep up that attitude, boy!" Now, most people would heed the commander’s warning. The man had been stationed here for years and obviously knew what he was talking about. But Shaun didn't see it that way.

  "Is the great Commander Evart scared of a few deer?" Shaun mocked.

  The commander stepped up to Shaun, and though he was a few inches shorter, he was much more intimidating than Shaun could ever be. "Aye, I am scared of the demonic beasts," he said harshly, before continuing in a much quieter voice. "And if you ever encounter them yourself, I guarantee that you’ll fear them as well." He turned away and moved to the front of the group.

  "Enough lazing around!" Evart shouted. The men jumped to attention and saluted.

  "Aye, Sir!" they shouted and continued their patrol. They made it halfway around the branch before they started hearing the screams.

  "Double time, men!" the commander yelled.

  They hoisted their shields and sprinted the rest of the way around the branch. What they saw there could only be considered a war zone. Bodies lay everywhere as a group of
Alpha Deer feasted on them. The few guards that remained alive were desperately trying to protect the bodies closest to them from the Alpha Deer’s hunger.

  The commander drew his sword and charged, which prompted the guards to shake themselves out of their stupor and copy his actions. They followed their commander into battle as a group of greenhorns who’d never seen combat, but they—or at least Eren—was determined to see it through and come out the other side a veteran.

  Commander Evart became a whirlwind of death as soon as he pulled his sword from its scabbard. He hacked and slashed his way through the feasting Alpha Deer. Each slash cleaved heads from their bodies, each stab pierced a vital organ. And only after they reached the surviving members of the seventeenth regiment did he slow down enough to start barking out orders. He told them to pair off and take on the straggling deer, while he directed the remaining portal guards to tell him what happened.

  "I don't know, Sir!" one of the men managed to gasp out.

  "What do you mean, 'you don't know'!?"

  "It’s the truth, Sir.” The lieutenant, and the man in charge of this group of soldiers, spoke in between heavy breaths. “One moment we were all standing guard, as usual. And the next thing we knew a headless deer body came flying at us. Luckily, we managed to raise our shields in time, but the blow knocked most of us off our feet.”

  “Hit us like it’d been fired from a damn cannon,” a third man groaned. His arm was clearly broken beneath his leather arm guards.

  “Right,” the lieutenant agreed. “And before we could stand back up, we were already under attack by these beasts."

  "A headless deer?" Commander Evart asked. A sense of horror was dawning on him. A few seconds later, his worst fear was realized when he spotted the headless deer lying on top of a dead soldier. "This was a planned attack. Everyone, stop killing the deer and get through the portal. Right now—” The last deer fell to the ground before he could finish his order. And that’s when the ground began shaking.

  "Oh... Fuck no!" the commander yelled. “Get through the portal, double time!!”

  Torga

  "OH, FUCK YES." I'd seen the large Alpha Deer walking through the forest since before the battle began but didn't actually expect it to join the fray. Until I bit the head off the lone deer and threw it into the mix.

  The large deer crashed into the soldier with the fanciest armor first and speared him through the chest while the soldier was trying to defend a taller man. It was soon joined by numerous Alpha Deer reinforcements, and they made quick work of the surrounding soldiers with their hooves and horns. Only a couple of the guardsmen managed to escape through the portal before the deer could get to them. By the end of the battle, the big deer's legs were covered in blood and bodies adorned its horns like some kind of sick decoration. And it was continuing to take out its anger at losing the lone Alpha Deer on the fallen human corpses.

  "Don't worry... You'll be joining them soon." I launched myself out of the tree line and slammed into the deer's side. I bit into its neck, wrapped my body around it, and almost instantly began to crush the air from its lungs. Though it tried to throw me off, I was easily able to hold on until I could get a good grip on its throat with my teeth. I twisted my head and ripped a large chunk of its flesh off; blood sprayed onto my face for a few seconds before I felt the deer’s body trembling. A few seconds after the blood shower began, it fell over and remained motionless.

  "That... that was too easy." I stared at the corpse beneath me. I wasn’t sure what I felt—horror, excitement? My stomach twisted in pain. Hunger, I felt hunger.

  "What do I eat first?" Deciding that it didn't really matter since I was going to eat everything anyway. I started with the human bodies as an appetizer, then the large deer and its accessories as the main course. And I ate the little deer for dessert.

  I decided to only enter the portal after my meal had digested, because even after eating such a large meal, if I could feel it digesting at a frightening pace, I was ready to sleep. So, I circled my body around the branch and went to sleep. "I hope the next world has one of the creatures I need to evolve... and that it's delicious." I drifted off with that pleasant thought in mind.

  Chapter 12

  I WOKE UP SOMETIME the next day and began to observe the portal. As far as I could tell, it was just a clear ring floating in front of the branch. It lacked any identification markings that would give me some clue as to where it led, so I was going to need to be extremely cautious moving forward, lest I get ambushed on the other side... or die because it dropped me into a hazard zone.

  "Where will you take me?" I wondered. I moved up to the portal and realized it made a slight humming noise, though it was so faint I could only hear it once I'd gotten close to it. I leaned my head closer until my nose was brushing against it. And that was my mistake.

  A strong pull instantly began to affect my body, almost as if the portal had its own gravity field. First, my nose was stretched until it was pulled inside, then my head followed, and my body was pulled through. None of this hurt, though it was incredibly disorienting.

  Once I was inside the portal all I could see was a kaleidoscope of colors, and no sound seemed to exist in this place.

  "Where... am I?" A pop-up answered my question.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Welcome to the Bifrost

  Please select your next destination from the available branches.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Hmm... Alright, let me see the choices."

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Iorus: A majority of this planet is covered by water, and only three islands exist.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Wait, is that it?" Although I was slightly happy that I had a higher chance of finding a magical water creature in a world that was mostly water, I would have preferred a non-water world first. Swimming in a river was awkward enough as it was, never mind trying to swim in an ocean.

  "Oh well, Planet Iorus it is." The force returned and started pulling me along.

  I’m not sure how long I was inside the Bifrost, though it probably wasn't a small amount of time. Eventually, a clear ring formed in front of me and my body was pushed through.

  After reforming on the other side and clearing my head of the disorientation, I looked around and saw buildings that had been built around the branch in a circular pattern and expanded out into a sprawling city. It would have been an amazing sight... had it not been in ruins. The buildings were made with white stones, which had been overrun by moss and other vegetation. Most of them were still standing high, with the tips appearing to brush the clouds that passed overhead.

  "What is this place?" A pop-up appeared.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Welcome to Planet Iorus

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Well, I suppose that tells me where I am, but not what this place is." I moved around the branch to get a look in every direction. After a few rotations, I believed I had at least some idea of which way I should go. On the portal side of the branch was the ruined city; on the other side was a sheer cliff that led to the ocean. "That's... a long way down," I muttered as I pulled my head back from the edge. I’d been looking over it for a safe way down, so I could try my luck at finding the water creature I needed. But after a few minutes I decided to circle back and head deeper into the city. "There's got to be a way down, somewhere..." I resolved myself to search the city until I found one.

  I explored the city for days, sleeping when I felt like it and just enjoying the fact that for some reason, I wasn't constantly craving food. The city was an amazing sight; skyscrapers dotted the cityscape, and it seemed as if a beautiful vista could be found around every corner.

  "One day, if it's still here, I'm going to bring Sarah here to see it. She would love it here." I distantly wondered why this place, this beautiful paradise, was left to ruin. Where did the inhabitants go? But I decided it probably didn’t matter. Besides, all this thinking was giving me a damn headache. From
what I'd seen since arriving, this island had everything. The ocean was an endless supply of food, and I could see fish constantly jumping out of the water below. Massive gardens filled with food were scattered around the island, and yet... no matter where I looked, I hadn’t found a way down, or clues to where the previous inhabitants went.

  It was like they just up and disappeared one day.

  "Come to think of it, this place could have been a prison for all I know.” If you replaced the iron bars with all the food you could eat, perfect weather, and scenery a painter from back home would kill to see... though that did bring up the question of why anyone would turn this place into a prison... or why I even brought up the prison idea to begin with. My vision began to grow blurry. “Fucking headache,” I sighed. "I'm not sure I actually want to know. But, I need to find a water creature. So, I guess I'll find out eventually if I want to or not. If I was going to search the ocean for that creature, then I had to leave this place. Even though I didn't want to. Wait... don't I want to leave?” The thought hit me like a ton of bricks and my headache intensified sevenfold. "Maybe I should go lie down for a while. Actually, yeah, that sounds like a great idea.” I slowly nodded my head to avoid making it hurt any more than it already did. "That's what I'll do.”

  I moved through the city until I arrived at my favorite sleeping spot—a grassy hill behind the branch that had a truly breathtaking view of the ocean. Once I was there, I laid down and allowed my head to dangle over the edge of the cliff. I don't know why, but for some reason, I really enjoyed looking at the water below.

  "Maybe I should just jump?" I wondered aloud, already semi-delirious from pain. Instantly, my headache worsened, and I grew dizzy. "Alright, alright. Jumping is a bad idea. Got it." I tilted my head away from the cliff. The farther back I leaned, the less my head seemed to hurt. However, something in me screamed that I needed to do something, anything. A feeling of panic settled in that was so intense it made my body shake. Instantly, everything became clear and I knew what I needed to do.