Snakes in the forest

15. Snakes in the forest

I start running past the trees silently to find prey quickly. I don’t want to leave them alone for too long since one-person can’t see everywhere at the same time. There could be dangerous animals that are hard to detect, and they could hurt the children before Sarah can do anything.

Then again Sarah should be good at detecting them since she is a rabbit girl. They all should have good senses since they are partly animals.

Maybe I am just worrying too much.

The forest seems quiet again. I can’t hear the sounds from the children anymore. There are no living creatures near me. It is oddly calming to be here.

Maybe I should consider staying here even after the children get to a safe place. Well I will have a lot of time to experience how it feels to live here since the war has just started in the outside world.

I will have to take care of them until it ends, and everything becomes peaceful again. I suppose I shouldn’t keep feeding them only meat if they are going to live here for a long time.

I should start experimenting on the herbs to see which one are edible and which aren’t. My body should handle anything poisonous around here and even if it couldn’t I could use magic to get rid of the poison.

For now, I should just find some meat for them though.

I hear a sound.

I stop moving and listen to where it is coming from.

It is coming from the bush next to the tree. It is thick and I can’t see the inside of it without moving some of the branches that are in the way.

I go closer to the bush and suddenly something small and long jumps out from it.

I grab it in mid air and see that it’s a snake. It looks like the giant snake but it’s a lot smaller.

I squeeze it in my hand, and it stops squirming. I probably shouldn’t bring this. Susie would freak out again if she saw another snake.

I start moving again but I hear another sound and I stop again.

This time its coming from a tree. I look up and see another snake coiled around a tree branch.  

The color of the snake is different this time. It is light green.

The snake jumps at me and I catch it with my left hand and squeeze it to death.

Sigh. Another snake. Maybe if I skin them Susie won’t recognize them as snakes. Hmm. I should try to find something else.

I start moving again but soon I hear another sound. I didn’t want to think about this but if there are so many snakes in this forest then this might be the place where the giant snakes have been coming from.

Which means that the deeper we head into the forest the more snakes we will find.

Susie will definitely freak out. She might go on a killing spree and recklessly fight the snakes. If I go with her then Sarah will be unsupervised, and she might leave on her own killing spree.

If that were to happen the rest of the kids would be alone with no one to protect them.

Maybe I’m just overthinking this and the sound isn’t even coming from a snake. Maybe there were just two little snakes in this forest and that’s it. They coincidentally just ended up here and I managed to stumble on to them in this big forest.

I head toward the sound which is coming from the nearby tree. This time its coming from the ground near it though.

There is a hole under the tree and when I get close to it, I see that there are multiple snakes in it.

They are small though. Even smaller that the earlier ones. They are thinner than my fingers and I could hold them in my hand.

They look kind of cute.

They must be baby snakes. There are even egg shells near them, so they are really young.

This proves that there are a lot of snakes in the forest. Or maybe the two snakes I killed earlier were their parents and they are still the only snakes in this forest.

Oh.

That is not a good option either.

How will they live if they don’t have parents? Should I start taking care of them?

I don’t know how they live or what they eat though. If I take them with me Susie will try to kill them. I feel bad.

Maybe I shouldn’t feel bad since they would only grow up to be beasts that kill other living creatures. Even people.

I still feel bad. People kill other people too. At least the snakes are doing it to live. Maybe some snakes wouldn’t even kill people. I don’t know.

I leave the baby snakes alone and walk away.

I walk past few trees and hear a sound again.

I am glad. Maybe they still have their parents. I walk away from the sound quietly.

Soon I see that the trees are getting thinner. Then the trees get rarer and before I know it there are no trees in front of me.

It is an open area inside the forest. Not only that there are rocks here. Even the ground is made of rock. What happened to the soft ground with grass?

What a peculiar place.

I walk past the rocks and see that there is a hole in the middle of the clearing.

I look in the big hole and see that there are lots of snakes there. They are bigger than the previous ones too. They are about my size but double or triple my length.

The hole doesn’t go straight down so the snakes can easily get in and out of it.

They are hissing at me and slowly coming toward me. I suppose we are eating snakes tonight. I should also keep a few of them alive and start getting Susie used to the snakes.

If she can remain calm at the sight of the snakes then we should be alright.

Chapter fourteen Chapter sixteen