It wasn’t even slithering on the ground, its head raised, weaving back and forth in the air as if it were swimming toward him.
It flicked its tongue out.
Sol stared at the snake. The snake stared at Sol.
"Oh, fuck me," He finally squeaked.
The snake suddenly lunged.
He rolled instinctively and threw himself to the right just as the blue blur struck the spot where his head had been a second ago.
He scrambled backward on his hands and heels, kicked a cloud of dirt into the snake’s face, and scrambled to his feet.
"Ahhhhh!"
He ran. He ran like he had never run in his life. He ran with his arms flailing, his dignity completely abandoned, screaming internally (and maybe a little externally, he didn’t know or care). He tore through the grass, leaping over roots, dodging thorns.
He didn’t look back, but he could hear it... the terrifyingly fast swish-swish-swish of the predator closing the gap. It was faster than him. Much faster.
It was gliding over the top of the grass like a blue arrow, closing the distance with unnatural speed.
He vaulted a log, crashed through a thorny bush that tore at his skin, and skidded down a muddy embankment.
But he was no athlete in his past life, so he hit the bottom and scrambled up, but his foot caught on a root.
And...he went down hard.
He sprawled face-first into the dirt, the air knocked out of his lungs. He scrambled to turn over, elbows digging into the grit, panic turning his blood to ice, just in time to see the blue blur launch itself from a rock.
It landed a few feet away, coiling instantly, rearing its head back. The neon rings pulsed. The fangs dripped. It was the kind of biological weapon that didn’t just kill you; it melted you.
There was nowhere to run and even if there was he couldn’t.
The snake hissed, a sound like steam escaping a high-pressure valve. It drew its head back, preparing for the kill strike.
"Move!" Sol screamed in his head, but his body was frozen.
Sol squeezed his eyes shut, throwing his hands up in a futile gesture of defense.
"Think! Do something!" his mind screamed.
Just as the snake opened its jaws, flashing white fangs, a memory slammed into Sol’s mind. The hut. The woman. The command.
Free Use.
He didn’t have time to think. He didn’t have time to doubt. He poured every ounce of his terror and willpower into his chest, activating the hollow cavity. He felt the Ash Gray energy surge up his throat like bile.
"SCRAM!" He roared, thrusting his hand forward, his voice cracking with pure terror.
The air seemed to ripple.
He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the bite, for the burning poison, for the end.
One second passed. Two seconds.
Silence.
There was no pain.
Sol heard a sharp hiss, followed by the frantic rustling of grass moving away from him.
He cracked one eye open.
The neon blue snake had stopped mid-air, twisted violently as if it had hit an invisible wall, and was now slithering away in the opposite direction at full speed. It looked... terrified. It was fleeing as if Sol were the predator and it was the prey.
Sol slumped back against the dirt, his chest heaving. He stared at his trembling hand.
"It... it worked," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I told it to leave... and it left."
He stared at his trembling palm. He realized then that he may had fundamentally misunderstood his power. It wasn’t just about persuasion or seduction. It was Command. He could impose his will on living things. If he told a beast he wasn’t food, the beast believed it.
"Holy shit," Sol breathed, a manic grin stretching across his lips despite the fear. "I can command beasts,"
He lay there, his chest puffing out, watching the deadly neon snake slither away in terror. He felt invincible. He felt like the king of the jungle. The rush of the Ash Gray energy was intoxicating, a high better than any drug. He was the master of reality. He was the—
GRUNT.
Suddenly there was a low, wet, guttural vibration that came from directly behind him. It sounded like two boulders grinding together inside a stomach full of gravel.
His smug smile instantly froze. The hairs on his arms, which had just settled down, shot back up like electrified wire. The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
He realized two things instantly:
That grunt definitely didn’t come from a snake.It came from something that made the ground shake when it shifted its weight.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
He didn’t even look back to see what the hell it was. He didn’t try to use his power, because he had used all fucking power on that snake earlier.
He just sprinted.
He launched himself forward, his legs pumping like pistons, his lungs burning as he sucked in the humid air. He was fueled by pure, unadulterated terror. He vaulted a rotting log with a scream trapped in his throat, crashed through a thorny bush without feeling the sting, and nearly slid down a muddy embankment.
"Nope, nope, nope!"
He was also in tears by now. Actual tears of injustice leaked from his eyes, mixing with the dirt on his face. The kind you shed when you’ve been chased by everything from squirrels to beasts and you’re starting to suspect nature has a personal vendetta against you specifically.
But he still didn’t stop running, and thankfully whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t fast. Or maybe it just didn’t care enough to chase a skinny appetizer.
He didn’t stop until his legs gave out. He didn’t even know whatever the fuck was behind him left.
He burst into a rocky clearing, tripped over again, and sprawled face-first into a patch of soft dirt between two large boulders.
He lay there, gasping, heaving, drenched in cold sweat. His legs were trembling so hard they were vibrating against the ground like tuning forks.
"I..." wheeze "...hate..." gasp "...nature."
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the vast, indifferent blue sky, waiting for his vision to stop spinning. He checked his limbs. He was alive. He hadn’t been eaten, crushed, or poisoned.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Finally, the panic began to recede, leaving him exhausted and covered in dirt.
He sat up slowly, wiping the grime and tears from his face. "Okay. Okay. I’m... alive."
He looked around the quiet clearing to get his bearings. It was a small, secluded spot surrounded by sharp rocks. And there, growing out of a crack in the stone right next to his hand, was a scraggly, unassuming bush.
He blinked, his vision finally clearing.
Hanging from the branches were small, curved, bright red berries.
He sniffed the air. Sharp. Acrid. Pungent.
But still, just to be sure, he reached out with a trembling hand and plucked one, threw it in his mouth and cried out...half from surviving back to back chase and half from merciless sting of chili.
A broken, hysterical laugh escaped his lips.
"The chili," he said, still chewing them, as if to take revenge for his sufferings "I almost fucking died... for you...."