Limitless Evolution As a Snake

One of the golems, a big lump of grey rock standing by the door, pipes up in this gravelly voice. ”I don’t smell anything, boss.”

The boss doesn’t even look at him, just swings one arm out and whacks the golem across the head so hard a chunk of rock chips off and clatters to the floor.

”Of course you don’t smell anything, you idiot, you’re a rock.”

I almost laugh. I actually almost laugh, right there hidden in the cables with my life on the line, because that was genuinely funny and my dumb human brain doesn’t know how to shut off at the worst possible times.

The boss’s eyebrow lifts, just one, and his black eyes start sliding across the desk, slow and methodical, until they land right on the back of my monitor, right on the cords, right on me.

”There’s an uninvited guest in here,” he says, and the whole warehouse goes dead silent.

The fairies stop buzzing around their little table. The wolf women, who’d been lounging by the crates a second ago, freeze mid-stretch. Even the golems stop shuffling, heads creaking around like they’re trying to spot whatever he’s talking about.

My heart, if I even have one anymore in this tiny body, feels like it’s trying to punch its way out through my scales.

[System: MATE, MATE BIG WARNING! HE’S LOOKING RIGHT AT YOU. ABORT. ABORT.]

Thanks for that, extremely useful, love the timing on that one, I can tell! Oh god I can’t breathe...

The boss reaches down toward the monitor, fingers long and clawed, moving slow like he’s got all the time in the world, like he already knows exactly where I am and is just enjoying the moment before he grabs me.

I KNOW OLD MATE HE’S FOUND ME. DO I RUN DO I DIE DO I SQUEAK DO I-

Before I can decide on any of those very good options, a firm hand closes around my body and lifts me straight up into the air.

Oh fuck. Old mate, yep this is it. It’s been good. Tell Lyra I love her, tell her I’m sorry for dying as a snake in a mafia warehouse, tell her-

[System: oi oi nah yeah nah calm down, i dont reckon he means any harm, hed have squished you already if he wanted ya dead.]

That is somehow both comforting and not comforting at all.

The boss holds me right up to his face, turning me this way and that, examining me with those bottomless black eyes like I’m some kind of specimen he’s never seen before.

”What do we have here?” he mutters, more to himself than to me. ”He’s invisible but visible; is it even alive?” He pokes my side gently with one claw, and I flinch so hard I nearly fall out of his grip. ”Just a baby, huh. Fully snake, no arms, no legs, but little hands? What the hell, where did you come from?”

I look up into those cold black eyes and try to explain, try to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a string of tiny useless hisses.

The warehouse stays dead quiet, everyone watching, waiting to see what happens next.

Then the boss lifts an eyebrow and just starts laughing.

It’s a full laugh, loud and sudden, and the second it hits the air, the wolf women start laughing too, and the fairies buzz with little tinkling giggles, and even the golems make this weird grinding chuckle sound like rocks scraping together.

Then the boss whips his head around and yells, ”Shut up,” and every single one of them goes silent instantly, like someone flipped a switch.

I go rigid in his hand.

SYSTEM WHAT SKILLS DO I HAVE WHAT CAN I DO RIGHT NOW.

[System: uh. bugger all, mate. You’re like a baby eel size; maybe try looking cute.]

Superb. Truly. A+ system, really pulling its weight. I can’t feel my tail; can snakes not feel their tails? Is that normal? That feels like it might not be normal. Okay. Okay okay okay I’m fine! I’m completely- my scales are doing something weird. They’re doing a thing, old mate. Why are they doing a thing? Oh no. Oh no. I’m going to pass out in a mafia boss’s hand like a fainting goat, and that is going to be my cause of death, not the claws, just...

The boss turns me around in his palm again, studying my nonexistent limbs with something like genuine confusion. ”What’s up with your little arms?” he says, poking at my tiny trex hands. ”It’s like you tried to become me and failed.” He tilts his head, eyes narrowing. ”Are you one of my kids?”

I need to escape. I need to escape; I really need to escape. I’m going to die in the palm of a five-foot-three mafia boss who keeps severed fingers as toys, and I never even got to steal his coffee.

He lifts me right up close to his face, so close I can see the little flecks of grey in his black eyes, and then he does the last thing I expect. He sniffs me. A big long sniff, right down my whole body, nose practically dragging along my scales like I’m a bakery item he’s deciding whether to buy.

His whole face changes. The confusion melts right off and something soft and warm slides in behind it.

”Yep,” he says, nodding slow like he’s just solved a math problem he’s been stuck on for ninety years. ”Hes my son.”

The warehouse doesn’t laugh this time. Nobody makes a sound.

SYSTEM WHAT DO U MEAN I SMELL LIKE HIM

[System: yeah nah mate no idea, don’t look at me, I just do the numbers.]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU JUST DO THE NUMBERS THIS IS A BIOLOGY QUESTION!

The system says nothing else. Just leaves me hanging there, mid-crisis, dangling from a man’s fingers while my entire concept of self quietly catches fire.

The boss brings me even closer, tilting his head, and his voice goes soft in a way that does not match anything else about him: the scars, the claws, the finger jar sitting somewhere behind him on a shelf I really don’t want to think about right now.