Chapter 12: Chapter Ten: Deja Vu’d

I awoke with a start.

Accompanying my abrupt awakening, was a splitting headache. 

Definitely feeling some deja vu there. 

This time, when I attempted to open my eyes, I wasn’t greeted with darkness. Which is always a plus in my book. 

Instead of darkness, what greeted my sense was an unfamiliar landscape.

…Another dose of deja vu.

Surrounding me from every direction was sand. Sand like a desert. And I think it’s supposed to be hot? I can see some of the grains igniting some of the people walking around on fire. Which doesn’t look like the most pleasant experience ever.

Fortunately for me, it seems my snake body is equipped for this. Needless to say, I’ve definitely not been here before.

Time to retrace my steps again.

 Let's see, I woke up a seed in what I think is the Ninth level of Hell. I grew into a flower. And then again into a tree. Then my tree self spawned a snake, which I am now. After gaining mobility…I crawled up a giant’s leg and got thrown to the eighth circle. 

Wow, now that I’ve put that into concrete thought.. that was really odd. Like even odd for a fantasy world. 

Anyways, from there I traversed the eighth circle. Which in comparison, was a lot tamer? Obviously, there was the whole torture, doom, and gloom bits but I’m pretty sure that's standard fare with Hell. The highlights were definitely the helltiles and the Malebranche…wait that's it!

I was talking with Malacoda, the leader of the Malebranche when I got a splitting headache. She called Geryon, the dude with the three heads and a killer tuxedo to transport me. 

Meaning that I should be in the seventh circle. 

Okay. Cool. Guess that’s answered. 

I wished Geryon would’ve stuck around but he probably has duties to fulfill. Can’t fault a hard worker. 

After spending a couple of minutes observing the landscape and the burning people, I decided it was time to move on. 

Unimpeded by the hot sand, and having a serpentine body made travel surprisingly easy. It’s almost if my body was designed for this environment.

In around an hour, I made it to the outskirts of the desert. 

What I found as I reached the end was…interesting. 

At first glance, it looked like it was a regular forest. 

But that’s only at first glance. Looking further, the first thing that stood out to me was the color…or lack of it. The entirety of the forest was colored shades of grey and black

In other words, it was dead. The flora wasn’t the only thing that wasn’t only things that were deceased. On the branches of the trees were fresh body parts, blood still dripping from their wounds. 

It was gruesomely artistic, as the blood gave color to the otherwise monochromatic scenery. 

As I ‘admired’ the forest, I heard a faint noise. It sounded like a bird squawking. The noise repeated, getting closer and closer. Hearing it right above me, I turned my head upwards. 

What I saw was a massive flock of bird ladies floating above me. Harpies. They had a wide array of colors painted on their plumage. All were unsurprisingly pretty with human-like faces and hair replaced by feathers. 

Some of them had dismembered parts of bodies, in their talons, which was pretty unsettling. What was also pretty unnerving was their laser focus stares on me. 

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The group seemed to have a discussion, and after some deliberation, one of them separated from the rest. 

Suddenly she swooped down, scooping me up with her talons. Then she flew skyward again, joining back with the rest of the flock.

At first, I became a bit concerned that they were going to take me back to their nest for dissection. My worry was easied by the first stop the flock made.

 It was at a lake, which would have been quite nice if its shore wasn’t littered with body parts and the water didn’t look like blood. As we set down and I took a minute to gaze at the surroundings, I noticed the harpies looking at me with what seemed to be anticipation. It seemed they wondered if I liked the location.

I nodded my head, hoping that the simple gesture would convey my thoughts well enough.

If the coos and smiles were anything to go off of, the nod worked well. 

It continued on like that, with the harpies taking me on a tour of sorts through the forest. The last stop was at their nest, which they seemed very prideful about.  Receiving the nod from me, the harpies seemed to have erupted in celebration, dancing on the ground, in the branches, and even in the sky.

As the sudden rave died down, I was again scooped up and deposited on the other side of the forest, as the flock gave me a flurry of waves before flying off.

I set off again, moving away from the forest. Soon enough, I was halted by what looked to be a boiling river of blood.

I had no plans of taking a dip in there. That line of thought only continued as I noticed what was going on around the river. 

There were dozens of…centaurs focused on the water, bows aimed at the river’s surface. I was about to guess what they were looking for when a head popped up. Said head immediately received three arrows before submerging back into the bubbling liquid.

Behind the centa-snipers was a massive man with the head of a bull. A fudging Minotaur. Upon seeing the bull guy, I attempted to slowly slither away from the river. 

Unfortunately, there was no escape, as the minotaur sniffed the air, and then bellowed something to the centaurs.

For the second time in a few hours, I had all eyes on me. Of course, it didn’t stop at that. The minotaur promptly stomped his way to the river, waded through it, and blitzed over to me. He grabbed me with cupped hands. We followed back on the same path, as my headache intensified.

Apparently, a requirement to get the job as a leader of one of Hell’s sub circles is being a snake-reader. Much like Malacoda, the minotaur seemed to notice my anguish and placed me on a comfortable patch of grass some ways away from the river. Engulfed in the softness, I quickly fell asleep.

—⁕????⁕—

Sometime later, my nap was cut short. I opened my eyes to darkness and felt the inability to move my body. I couldn’t really feel that much at all, almost like I’d been numbed.

De. Ja. Vu.

This time was a bit different. I could feel the vibrations of someone’s feet hitting the ground under me. I could hear a bit of their conversation. 

From what I gathered, they were pretty ecstatic about catching some sort of super beauty and how much fun they were going to have with her along with the ones captured once they found a safe spot? 

I’m not sure why they would abduct a little snake like me if they were looking for pretty girls but I guess different strokes for different folks. Not that I plan on letting that happen.

Putting the vibration and conversation into perspective, it was pretty obvious I was being snakenapped…in hell. 

I figured I’d play dead until they put me down and then take my chance. After a couple of hours, they finally set me down and started to remove the bag they had placed on me. I was about to rush forward to strike when a familiar voice stopped me.

I’ll take it from here.

I felt my consciousness fade as Cute Ex Machina took over.