Oh, those snakes

— Ali-issia…

— Yes, my dear, I'm here. Come to me—I'll warm you up.

The girl rises slightly on the bed and smiles. The darkness in the corner thickens and laughs softly.

— I-I don't fe-eel the co-old.

— I know, but it's definitely nicer to sleep here than on the bare floor.

— You don't kno-ow how much…

— Gayar, come to me.

A heartbeat. A wind that stirs short, fair hair. A thick black snake, softly and tightly coiled around a naked female body.

— I'm he-ere…

— Such a clever one.

The girl lies back on the pillow and gently strokes the quieted snake. Slender fingers touch the ridged scales

on its forehead. The single bright scale between its eyes glimmers with crimson sparks. The snake watches the girl intently and tensely with two black, cold mirrors.

— You're tooo ki-ind, Ali-issia.

— People should be kind.

— No!… ye-es… but you are not a pe-erson.

— A person. The most genuine one.

A smile, warm and pleasant like fresh milk, lights up the girl's face, and the snake begins to tremble finely. The smile immediately fades, replaced by confusion and agitation.

— Gayar, are you unwell? Cold? Maybe you're hungry?! Let's…

— No!!

Black coils wrap tightly around the fragile female neck, preventing a deep breath or speech. The flexible, heavy snake spine presses her arms against her body. The long black tail carefully draws the soft body into its terrible embrace. Horror spreads through the light brown eyes. In the dilated pupils, a triangular snake face is reflected, cold-bloodedly and just as attentively watching its victim.

— I-I… will ki-ill you, Ali-issia.

The snake opens its maw and softly touches the cheekbone, gently and unhurriedly piercing the skin and biting through the cheek and jaw. The girl squeezes her eyes shut, desperately opens her soundless mouth trying to say something, struggles in the vise, but all in vain. The snake injects venom under the skin, and a light pink fluid enters the bloodstream, quickly spreading throughout the body. A tear, clear as mountain ice, streams from the beautiful, fading eyes. The girl convulsively shudders. The human organism fights death with all its might. The snake does not unclench its jaws, does not stop the continuous flow of venom; it watches. It watches the dying person.

In six and a half minutes, Patrick—a boy from the servants—will enter the room. He will be the first to scream and call the adults into the room. Eight minutes later, the naked, mutilated body of the dead girl will be wrapped in a sheet and taken far from royal eyes. Two hours later, the corpse will be loaded onto a cart and taken towards the border mountains, where it will be thrown from the cliffs into a gorge. Sixteen seconds later, the body will fall into a cold river and be carried by the current deep, deep, to the very heart of the mountains. There, it will wash up on a sandy beach, where it will lie on cold sand, half-washed by icy but crystal-clear water. And somewhere, half an hour after that, eighteen-year-old Alissia Hale… will revive.

— Ah!

The girl jumped up and immediately scrambled backward, getting out onto the shore. It was cold and wet all around. She looked around, but was surrounded only by stone and water disappearing into a crack in the floor. No passage, no turn, no opening in the walls—smooth underground vaults.

— Hey! Anyone! What's happening?! Gayar!

— Ye-es?…

A dark layer of air on the water's surface concentrated in one spot and took the form of a long black snake.

— Oh, Gayar, you're here. What happened? I had such a nightmare, as if you coiled your rings around me and squeezed so tight that I…

— Di-ied?

— Yes… that…

For the first time since waking, the girl looked more carefully at her snake. Her heart pounded, and her breath, as is fitting with fear, became rapid and shallow.

— Gayar? So, was that for real?

— I-I lo-ove you, Ali-issia.

— Gayar! You!

The snake's maw opens aggressively in response to the jerking and protest. The girl freezes, the tips of her lips tremble, her eyes glisten with tears. The maw slowly closes, a shiny tongue licks the salty drops.

— Don't cry…

The snake's triangular head rubs against the cheek of the finely trembling girl, lowers to her ear.

— I-I wa-ant to ea-at you. I-I wa-ant to pos-ssess you.

— Gayar…

— It's a pi-ity, that I-I am not a pe-erson…

The snake raises its head and for a moment presses the very edge of its snout to the woman's compressed lips.

— A pi-ity…

The black coils weaken, unwind, and the girl collapses weakly onto the sand, covers her face with her hands, and cries. The darkness around her sways with blurred outlines and now and then covers her thin shoulders, as if trying to warm or comfort.

— You-ou are a taba-alt, Ali-issia… Taba-alts do not li-ive a hu-uman li-ife. They belong to the darkness.

— No!

The cry comes out ringing and is immediately caught by the echo, but soon dies away among the damp stone. The darkness stirs, but the snake continues to exist in the form of shadow and smoke.

— For all the pe-ople in the ca-astle, you di-ied. Your bo-ody was carried he-ere, but you-ou cannot es-cape. You are a pri-soner.

— Stop it! Gayar, stop it, do you hear?!

The girl sobs, pleads, screams.

— Why are you doing all this?! What nonsense is this?! You—love me?!

Tightly clenched little fists dig into the wet sand, and the scream echoes through the vaults again.

— And I hate you!!

The darkness recoils, as if burned, crawls away from the victim shuddering with sobs.

— Ha-ate… me?

— Yes!!

— That's so unple-easant.

The snake gathers at the water's edge, lays its entire body on the sand. The triangular head sways, shiny eyes look with reproach and incomprehension.

— Bu-ut you-ou al-ways lo-oved me…

— Until you became like this! Until you started scaring and biting and… tormenting!

— Tor-menting… So that's ho-ow you see it all…

The girl decisively wipes her tears and again pounds her fist on the ground.

— Let me go! Gayar! You must obey me!

The gaze of the brown eyes loses confidence and begins to dart over the light gray grains of sand.

— Probably… I… After all, I am…

— Whoo?

A hiss sounds nearby, and cold, damp air blows in her face. Words get stuck in her throat, and goosebumps run over her body. But she gathers her courage and stubbornly, or rather, with her last strength, says what she never wanted to admit and never even allowed herself to think.

— A tabalt…

Thick, dense darkness fills the entire small cave chamber. Sounds disappear, the whole surrounding world vanishes, except for her own breathing and the loud, bell-like beating of her heart.

— Fi-inally admi-itted it… I…

The snake softly touches the tear-wet cheek with its tongue and gently rubs its head against it.

— Ali-issia… my Ali-issia… my tabaa-a-alt… o-only mi-ine.

— Gayar…

— We-are co-onnected… by bo-ody, so-oul, he-eart.

Tears simply stream from the girl's eyes, weakened and tired from the emotions she has endured. She no longer wants to think or decide anything. She just wants to fall and sleep. She falls onto the sand and closes her eyes. Night falls for her.

The underground river murmurs quietly. In the distance, the thin squeaking of bats is heard. Small pebbles scrape, grinding against each other. On the shore of the tiny cold beach, a girl sleeps. Her breathing is heavy and deep, she has nightmares. And beside her, frozen like an immobile, sculpted statue, is a black shadow snake—a shadow serpent, named Gayar by her, which means "savior." The snake does not move and does not take its eyes off the pale, tired maiden's face.

The "Savior" unwinds its coils and carefully transfers the girl onto them, covering and wrapping her with its large, dry body.

— So-ome day I will be-ecome a pe-erson, Ali-issia… I will be-ecome… and then…

The triangular head touches the white neck. The snake opens its maw slightly. The wet forked tongue rests on the skin and slowly travels upward from the collarbone to the ear.

— I-I will pos-ssess you, Ali-issia… I swe-ear…

Somewhere high in the sky above the mountain peaks, the sun shone, and the wind busily carried fluffy white clouds to the north. Young grass grew lushly and richly green in the floodplain meadows. And somewhere deep underground, darkness coiled in rings lurked and tightly held a person in its embrace. And the cold water carried a vow down the valley under the stones. A vow that would never be kept…

04.14.2017