Limitless Evolution As a Snake

I flare my hood like I just read ”How to Be a Snake” on Pinterest, which isn’t very impressively wide because I’m more garter snake than king cobra, and I bare my fangs a smidge, because I assume predators bare teeth. Mine are hidden anyway (I don’t plan to bite anything, plus the gargoyle’s stony back is not big on dental hygiene).

Fifteen seconds. The swamp water gently slaps me and something bubbles somewhere behind me, probably swamp soda.

I’m losing it. Literally losing my mind over a mossy rock. The rock is winning at being a rock.

[System: you’re doing that thing again.]

What thing?

[System: overthinking, facial twitch, philosophical eye wars with a statue. It’s a staring contest, not a TED Talk.]

I am staring! I am staring sooo good.

[System: no, you’re auditioning for ’Snakes with Anxiety.’ Just. Stop talking and stop thinking.]

Alright, fine.

The gargoyle glares back. Its eyes are empty pits of shadow and random swamp reflections.

Twenty seconds. Thirty.

Nothing happens, obviously. It’s a rock, and I’m a wish. Con wyvern with no eyelids. We’re in the dumbest showdown ever, and somehow I’m treating it like prime-time doom.

A minute and then two.

The swamp is so quiet, tongue flicks slower, almost yoga-level mindful.

Then something shifts.

Not the gargoyle (still rock). Something in me un-kinks, the panic shrinks. Overthinking power-down. I’m just here, in this swamp, staring at a century-old frowny face that doesn’t care I can’t win.

It’s kind of soothing. Dumb, but soothing.

[System: nice. Proper serpent zen, very well done.]

I didn’t even do anything.

Still locked on stone. Stopping feels like defeat, and I refuse to lose to literal rock.

Also, I think I’m actually-

Suddenly the water behind me EXPLODES.

One second I’m in the world’s dumbest stare-down, next there’s a geyser of black sludge three feet behind my tail, like someone dropped a piano in a pond and the splash smacks me like a soggy wet towel. I launch airborne before my brain even buffers.

I land five feet away, tangled coils everywhere.

What the actual fuck?

The Sewer Gator. Only fitting name; huge it was massive. No, prehistoric-lizard-god massive. Its scales are oil-slick black-green, crusted with swamp moss like natural armour. That moss looks less decorative and more ”I’ve lived here since dinosaurs cried.” Its snout is a battering ram studded with teeth so huge and wrong they look like someone flunked Alligator 101 and decided more is more.

My fangs unclench by instinct. My venom glands perk up. My brain screams ”GLIDE,” because running is for bunnies, gliding is for flying, flying is for not being deleted.

I speed sideways, wings snapping open like an embarrassing party favour, and for one flawless second I’m above water, breezing the surface. I think, maybe I’ll win-

The gator teleports.

It doesn’t chase; hell, it doesn’t even swim. One second it’s not there, next second it’s jaws yawn under my tail like a black hole. It hisses a freight train air leak, and I involuntarily sniff swamp, meat, and chemical horror.

I whip uphill. Wings snap uselessly. I smack down into the swamp ten feet off, coils already slithering like caffeine-fueled noodles, because at this point I’m basically.

Oh Jesus Christ, I’m dying soon.

[System: Oi mate I recommend you fuck off that corcs about to eat ya.]

THANKS, SUPER HELPFUL.

[System: No worries, happy to help]

The gator charges. It ploughs through water like a serial killer blender.

Nah, I gotta get out of here NOW, Old Mate. Why are you always trying to kill me?

[System: It builds character!]

Maybe slithering like a maniac will help me live another day.

[System: Maybe using literally any of your skills might help you, or are you a masochist and like getting hurt? that’s fucked.]

I hit the church wall hard, scales scraping against wet stone, and I’m climbing slithering kind of like spider pig, I don’t care how, I’m just going up, tongue flicking frantically, tasting stone and old mortar and my own terror, and below me the gator’s jaws slam into the wall where I was half a second ago with a impact that shakes the entire ruin.

The gargoyle, my former staring contest partner, wobbles on its mound and slides another inch into the swamp.

[System: MATE. GLIDE ISN’T GONNA CUT IT, YOU NEED TO SHOOT SOMETHING]

Shoot something? Right. The ballistic mouth chamber gun mouth thing.

The thing where I have a literal gun in my throat. The thing I’ve never actually used in combat because I’ve been too busy jumping off buildings and having staring contests with rocks.

The gator is directly below, half-submerged, those yellow eyes fixed on me with an intelligence that is absolutely not supposed to be there. It knows I’m trapped. It knows the church wall only goes so high. It knows, and I know, that I have exactly one move left before it either climbs after me or knocks the whole fucking wall down trying.

My throat locks. The ballistic chamber engages on instinct, scales in my mouth rearranging, and I feel the chamber of the revolver click; hell, I felt that right through my entire skull.

I take aim, and when I say aim, I just went AHHH with my mouth like the I’m a fire a laser meme from 115 years ago, and the gator opens its mouth, and I fucking hope the prick also doesn’t have a gun in its mouth or I’m fucked.

I fire.

The recoil hits me like a truck. My entire body jerks backward, slamming into the wall behind me hard enough to crack more stone, and the round, a hardened scale, sharpened like an arrow, shoots down toward the gator’s open jaw at what feels like actual bullet speed.

It hits the inside of the gator’s mouth and bounces off with a sound like a penny hitting tile.

The gator doesn’t even flinch.

[System: WELL. THAT DID FUCK-ALL, looked cool though!]

NO SHIT!

[System: Do you wanna look at the skills currently on the shop? I can freeze time, apparently; I didn’t know that.]

YOU CAN FREEZE TIME? I’M BEING CHASED BY A PREHISTORIC ALLIGATOR WITH A PERSONAL VENGEANCE AND A DENTAL PLAN FROM HELL, AND YOU’RE JUST NOW MENTIONING THE PAUSE BUTTON?! THAT WOULD’VE BEEN HELPFUL.

[System: Shh, inside voice ya fucker, remember zen.]

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