I'm alone in this forest, I'm alone. So far everything is quiet and calm. I've hid from some overly dangerous ones and escaped death from herd runs. I don't even know what I'm doing here," Raten sighed. He sat on a root that stuck out from a tree in thought and boredom.
"Oh well, I will just have to keep going. If I don't fight a beast, I should find my way back home." He said. He whistled and resumed walking. His weapons had dark blood stains on them. He was bruised a bit, but he was fine.
"Is Kiyan okay?" His mind wandered back to his brother. "If I haven't faced anything yet, then he's probably fine." He thought and kept whistling.
"Oh the sun, how you take away darkness with your light, the beautiful rays that wake me up in the morning, so contrasting to the night. It wraps me in darkness, I feel as though I'm mourning..." He sang and whistled while walking with no direction.
"Where do I go? What step do I take? Left or right? Different paths, day and night..."
While he sang rather hoarsely, but still a bit charmingly, a beast was watching his every move, following him silently from the woods.
"What am I even singing?" He placed his arm on his forehead and then looked ahead. "Oh well," he shrugged and carried on with his song. "Day and night.. day and night!~"
"D-Day and n-n-night?" He stuttered as a large shadow was suddenly cast over him.
In front of him was light but he was suddenly covered by darkness.
*Hiss...
His skin crawled at the hissing sound of a snake. Raten didn't even look back and just bolted running. He moved his legs as fast as he could, trying to create distance between him and the beast.
While running, he turned back to get a glimpse of what he was running from. What he got instead was a spike in adrenaline. He moved faster than he thought he ever could after laying eyes on the creature.
"What in the seven seas?!"
It indeed was a snake, but no ordinary one.
The scales of different colours and slithering body led up to three heads. Three heads each of different snake species. The head on the left was a viper, the head on the right was a python and the head in the middle, a cobra. All connected to a brown-black-blue long body.
On each head grew a single large horn that curved backwards. It was at least thirty feet long and was unnecessarily large.
Raten's sudden instinctive running helped a bit but there was next to no gap between himself and the serpent once it moved. It was all heads on his tail.
"Come on legs, run faster!" He urged himself to push past what adrenaline was already giving.
While he ran as fast as he could, the snake barely moved quickly. At intervals, a head would bare its fangs and try to bite down at him. He would move just in time, avoiding his death.
*Hiss..
They carried on trying to go after him one by one. Raten reached a log that fell by a small stream. He jumped over it and landed in the water, causing a splash, but still kept going.
The snake head that tried to bite down on him again, had connected its fangs with the log of fallen wood instead. The serpent forced its fang out and kept going at Raten. Raten who had looked back saw the state of wood that was there.
Just calling it venom would be an understatement. Whatever left the fang of that snake was very toxic. The log of wood shriveled up immediately and decayed.
"Oh please, heavens, anyone, anything, save me, I don't want to die here." Raten pleaded while still running away.
"Curse you father!" He shouted. Well, he was already cursed.
"Curse you twice!"
He was going deeper and deeper into the forest. Looking back and avoiding death while running, Raten was thinking of ways to get out of this situation.
"I can't outrun them, I cannot even hide from them. If I try to run anywhere other than ahead, I get blocked by one of the heads. It's almost like they're leading me somewhere. I would rather not find out where. What should I do?" His thoughts were all over the place.
"What do I..?" He tripped on a root of a tree that stuck out from the ground and fell.
"Oh no. No, no, no." He immediately turned to see the three-headed snake upon him. He was breathing hard and was sweating profusely. Was it from the long run, or was it from fear? He couldn't tell.
"There's only one way."
After analyzing the situation, he had an idea of how he could defeat the snake, or at least survive it.
As soon as one of the heads came down at him, he pulled out his weapon. He lifted his hands, and with the sickle like blades, he blocked the serpent from getting to him.
Raten's hands were almost in its mouth completely. But he strongly held on. The head that was being held back was the cobra. Raten soon realized he was in a precarious position.
He was laid on his back, barely holding his own against the cobra that kept pushing down on his blade to get him. The other heads, he had no hold on them whatsoever and they immediately moved. Each coming from both sides.
"What do I do? What should I do?" Raten watched the moving snakes from the side of his eye. There seemed to be no way out for him. Either one of those two gets him, the one in the middle does, or all three of them.
The saliva of the snake dripped from its mouth and landed on Raten's face, but rolled off with the sweat that had formed already. From all corners, Raten could see he was on the path to his end.
The boy couldn't hold the snake much longer as both his arms fell horizontally, giving the beast's mouth a little scratch. While his arms fell, the snake then bit down on his head.
The snake lifted its heads afterwards but there was no one in sight.
"Whew, that was lucky," Raten breathed a sigh of relief. He was underneath the snake, yes. But moved in time to not get swallowed in or bitten.
When his arms fell, the three heads rushed in, that was when the opening showed up. Because they knew of the venom they carried in their bite, the heads from the side had hesitated so as to not harm the one in the centre which also halted in motion for a moment. At most a second of time was spent and that was enough for Raten to see his saving grace.
He quickly rolled down to the snakes underbelly. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked up.
The snakes returned their attention to the boy that hid in their shadow.
Raten felt trapped and indeed he was. He was seen by one of the snakes. It immediately moved the tail and grabbed onto Raten's ankle.
"Huh?" Raten noticed the scaly tail that had wrapped around him. "Crap!" He realized what had happened. He was caught.
The snake wasted no time and began tying him up with its tail. Raten lifted his hands so as to not get them trapped. He needed his weapon after all. But, what could he do?
"AARGHH! Come on, die, bleed or something!" He gritted his teeth as the hold from the diabolical three headed serpent was squeezing the breath out of him. He constantly tried to cut through with the blade, but not even a scratch was made.
"The scales are too tough." He struggled to breathe. In front of him, all three heads stared him down. A cobra, a python, and a viper.
Raten struggled hard to get free but the snake squeezed even harder. He could swear he felt his ribs begin to crack.
*Hiss..
The python opened its mouth and pulled Raten in. Raten looked into the opening of his new home.
He could barely breathe at this point and just stared at his death in its ridiculously large mouth.
"Curse you three times, father." He gulped
___________
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