Limitless Evolution As a Snake

I don’t know how to think right now. Thinking requires a brain that isn’t currently drowning in its own venom, a heart that isn’t stuttering every third beat, lungs that remember how lungs are supposed to work. Every thought that tries to form just gets swallowed up by static, by the sound of Lyra saying my name over and over, like if she says it enough times I’ll have to answer.

There has to be another way. There has to be some loophole, some workaround, some cheat code I haven’t found yet because I always find the cheat code; that’s the whole point of me, that’s my entire personality distilled down to one fact—I win, I always win, I don’t lose people, I don’t lose anything, I collect, I hoard, I keep.

[System: There’s no loophole. I’ve checked. Believe me, I’ve checked six ways from Sunday, mate, and I don’t like this any more than you do. But the ledger doesn’t care what you like.]

Somewhere in the dark behind my eyes I can feel it, actually feel it, like a hand made of ice reaching into my chest and closing around something warm, waiting. Waiting for me to hand it a name.

A number blinks red behind my eyes, floating there like it owns the place.

00:15.

00:14.

Thirteen seconds to figure out who gets to keep breathing and who doesn’t, and my brain is too busy trying not to shut down to work out something that important.

[System: Clock’s ticking, champ. Might wanna pick someone before it picks for you.]

Pick someone, right easy for you to say. Just reach into the list of people who trust me, who bonded with me, who let me into their bodies and their lives because I asked nicely or because the venom asked for me, and just point at one and say that one, take that one, leave the rest alone.

Lyra’s voice is still going in my head, still calling my name, and for one horrible second I actually picture it, picture the bond snapping as a wire pulled too tight, picture her dropping to her knees in the middle of this shit with her hand pressed against that red snake tattoo like she can hold the mark shut with her palm. Green eyes going wide, then empty. Silver hair pooling around her like she’s already lying in a coffin nobody built yet.

My stomach does something ugly, and I don’t even have a stomach right now, not really, not in any shape that should be able to feel sick, but it does it anyway.

Then Cherry, oh my god, my poor Cherry. I see her too, whether I want to or not, kneeling over me in dads whare house with her broken horn catching the neon light, tail going still for the first time since I’ve known her, eyes stuck on whatever colour they land on last.

Mouth open like she’s about to apologise for dying, because of course she would, because that’s exactly the kind of thing Cherry would do, say sorry for inconveniencing me with her own death.

00:12.

My throat closes up around nothing. There’s no venom left to swallow, no air left to waste, and still my whole body tries to flinch away from that image like flinching hard enough could unmake it.

[System: I know this sucks. I genuinely do. But you gotta give me something, mate, or the big boss’s gonna take its pick, and trust me, it doesn’t play favourites the way you do.]

Take its pick, great. Love that. Love the idea of some cosmic god dick head reaching into my life and grabbing whoever’s closest, whoever’s easiest, while I just lie here twitching like roadkill that hasn’t gotten the memo yet.

00:11.

Okay. Okay, okay okay, think, actually think, don’t just spiral, don’t just picture dead women in your head like some kind of sick slideshow, think about the actual math here, the actual weight of it.

Lyra. She’s mine, she’s bonded, she’s dependent on me in ways that go past just liking me. Without me, she’s already halfway to falling apart, so isn’t losing her just... losing something that was already breaking? This isn’t a fucking option. She isn’t an option.

That’s not me being cold; that’s just facts. That’s just the shape of the situation. Except the second I think it, I hate myself for thinking it, because that’s not facts; that’s me trying to make her death easier to swallow by pretending she was already dying anyway, and she wasn’t. She’s alive right now, calling my name, probably terrified, probably has no idea I’m sitting here doing cost-benefit analysis on her heartbeat.

00:10.

Dad, Raymond. The old man’s got an empire, got soldiers, got enough enemies lined up that losing him wouldn’t even be that surprising to anyone who knows the family business.

But losing him blows up everything I’ve built underneath him too: the casino, the debt, the whole rickety structure I’m standing on top of like an idiot who thinks he built a house instead of a house of cards.

Hana. Loyal, steady, would probably let me sacrifice her without even blinking if I asked nice enough, and that thought makes me want to throw up more than any of the others, because that’s exactly why I can’t do it. Punishing loyalty by cashing it in first feels like the ugliest kind of math there is.

[System: Fun fact! Just got word from the big boss that Hana does not count.]

Why the fuck would you tell me then?

00:08.

Cherry’s not even on the table. I don’t care what the bastard in the clouds wants; I don’t care what Old Mate says about six ways from Sunday, there is no version of this where I open my mouth and give it her name. That door’s not just closed; it’s welded shut, and if the whole system wants to argue with me about it, I’ll argue back with my fang’s.

Which leaves me here, drowning, with a clock hitting single digits and every option in front of me feeling like ripping out a piece of my own ribcage.

00:07.