Thank the gods.
I sit up then, making sure my head and neck are okay. They are, so I push to my feet just as I hear something half slither, half skitter across the floor behind me.
I whirl around, peering through the dim light as my heart threatens to explode out of my chest.
It’s too dark, though. I can’t see anything besides the wall near my face and a few strange, tiny red and white lights scattered around the room and through the air.
Please be a squirrel, please be a squirrel, please be a squirrel.
I repeat the words over and over again as I inch forward, arms extended out in front of me as I start trying to figure out the parameters of this place and, more importantly, find a door or a window. Some way—any way—out of here.
Another strange slither/skitter sound fills the air, and this time it’s so close to me that I jump to the side to get awayfrom it. Only to feel something weird and rubbery squish beneath my foot when I land.
Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods.
I swallow a scream as shivers work their way down my spine. Where am I? And what exactly is in here with me?
“Hello?” I call out, even though I’m pretty sure whatever’s making that noise isn’t human.
Sure enough, there’s no answer.
So, even though I’m terrified of what I’m going to find in here with me, I’m even more terrified of trying to get out of herewithoutknowing what I’m walking into. Yuck.
I’m also terrified of moving my foot in case whatever I’m currently standing on decides to take a bite out of my leg. So I very slowly, very carefully slip one arm out of my backpack and slide it in front of me so I can reach the front pocket—and my phone.
Once I’ve got it, I swipe the flashlight app on and then really, really wish I hadn’t. Because one look and I realize I’ve fallen into a giant—and I mean giant—snake den.
There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of the creatures all over the floor—curled up or lying over and around one another—and even more hanging from bars and cracks on the wall and ceiling. A couple of which are very, very,veryclose to my face.
A scream wells inside me, but I swallow it down. Snakes can hear vibrations, and the last thing I need to do is cause even more of a disturbance than I have already. Most of them are still wound together sleeping, but a few dozen of them atleast are wide awake and staring straight at me with eyes that glow an eerie red or white.
Which explains the weird lights I was seeing earlier.
On the plus side, this place does have a door—huge double doors, actually, with large snakelike carvings on both of them. Seeing them sends another eerie chill down my spine, because that means this snake den isn’t a natural phenomenon. It was definitely created by someone.
Someone whose home/office/torture chamber I have just accidentally invaded.
The only problem—okay, not the only problem, but definitely a big one—is I have no idea how to get out of here.
I run my flashlight over the ceiling, looking for the crack or hole that I fell down to get here. Then really wish I hadn’t, because now I can see just how many snakes are dangling above me, and the answer is several hundred more.
And they are all awake, their strange glowy eyes staring straight at me, their sleek, winding bodies hanging partly on a pole and partly in the air as they sway toward me hypnotically.
“Okay, snakes,” I whisper to them, though I’m not sure who I’m trying to soothe—them or me. “I mean you absolutely no harm. I just want to find a way out of here and go home, so if you would please—”
I break off as a strange grinding noise fills the air. Seconds later, the room slowly, methodically begins to change around me.
44.A Room with an Eeeeeeeeeeeeeew
THE FIRST THING THAT HAPPENSis the floor beneath me begins to widen on all four sides, the walls retreating as the room grows bigger and bigger with each second that passes. Not that I’m complaining—the longer and wider the floor gets, the farther the snakes on the floor get from me.
But the floor’s moving means the walls are also moving, and that is a very big problem. Because the poles above me—poles that are literally teeming with snakes—are attached to those walls. I look up, expecting the poles, and the snakes, to come crashing down on me any second. But it turns out the poles are growing too, getting longer and longer the farther away the walls get.
While that’s way better than the poles just collapsing on me, it’s still a problem. Because the snakes are starting to hissand undulate—surely a sign that they don’t like the way the poles are swaying and sliding at all.
Still, I take the fact that they aren’t currently falling on me en masse as my first win of this very bizarre morning.
With that thought in mind, I start moving toward the door. The exit doesn’t look so scary now that the floor directly in front of it isn’t covered with hundreds of sleeping snakes. But before I can take more than a step or two in that direction, the floor—and the walls—grind to a halt.
