Limitless Evolution As a Snake

She leans in, so close her breath fogs my vision. A tight whisper escapes her, laced with relief and disbelief. ”Holy shit. You look like hammered dogshit.”

She’s not wrong- brutally honest- but I don’t blame her. I’m in pieces.

I try to choke out ”help,” but before I finish, she’s already sliding her fingers under my chin like she’s checking if I’m spoiled milk.

”Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she hisses, brow furrowing. ”I knew you were alive. I fucking knew it. Oh my god, what did they hit you with a car?”

When she presses on my right ribs, pain blindsides me, and my vision goes white. I nearly bite her hand without meaning to.

”Her fingers flinch back from my scales, her voice shrinking. ”Sorry. This is going to suck, but–”

She doesn’t wait for me to agree. With trembling arms, she tucks one under my neck, the other under my shoulders, and in one lurching motion hauls me upright.

My head flops over her shoulder like a dead raccoon, but somehow she holds me.

My head lolls, giving me a broken view of the alley. A flickering orange streetlamp paints everything in sickly strokes: torn garbage bags, gaping holes in a dumpster, and a long, wet smear of crimson that I dimly recognise as mine. She grunts, breath puffing in the cold, and starts dragging me backward. Each crack in the concrete my tail snags sends a fresh spike of agony through my ribs. She winces with every jolt, her panic a tangible heat against my scales.

[System: Oi. You’re awake, good on ya. Don’t freak. You’re at forty-three per cent blood volume loss. If you hallucinate, try to enjoy it.]

I want to die.

She glances over her shoulder, eyes wide with fear—then steels herself and keeps pulling. ”You’re heavier than you look,” she pants. ”What do they feed you, man?”

I try to answer, but my jaw just hangs open, tongue lolling uselessly. I can taste her on the air—a sharp chemical tang of stress sweat barely masked by something cheap and fruity. She suddenly stops, bending over with her hands on her knees. ”Okay,” she gasps, sucking in air. ”Just—just hang on. Don’t go dying. I mean it. That would be super inconvenient right now.” Her voice wobbles, half-threat, half-plea.

I want to tell her I’ll try, but of course nothing comes out.

She pushes on, dragging me into a back street lined with overflowing trash cans. Her head whips left, then right, scanning the empty block.

With a grunt too big for her body, she hooks an arm around my neck and heaves me over her shoulder. Her knees buckle under my two-hundred-pound weight, but she holds.

She’s maybe five feet tall. Her face is gray with effort. Her tiny wings buzz frantically at her back, useless, as she stumbles toward the main drag.

I’m a dead weight on her back, flopping like an undercooked lasagna. The agony in my side fades to a distant roar, replaced by a strange floatiness. Neon signs smear past, slashing pink and blue while engines hum and people blur.

At some point I black out again. When I come to, I’m being manhandled up a narrow stairwell that smells of wet dog and battery acid. She curses under her breath, slams open a battered door, and we tumble into the apartment beyond.

The air inside is warm, thick with the hum of a space heater and a muffled drumbeat from a radio. She eases me down, my face planting into something soft and vaguely musty—a shag rug the color of old cheese. She flips me over. My head swims as I take in the chaos. Clothes and blankets cover every surface. The ceiling is so low I could scrape it with my snout. If I had arms, I could touch it. Which I don’t. Still.

[System: you’ll get them eventually and remember those t-rex arms? so good!]

This whole place is one room, maybe half the size of Lyra’s shack. A bunk bed is crammed against one wall, the bottom mattress buried in pillows and a faded unicorn comforter. Mismatched Christmas lights are taped everywhere, some dead, others blinking erratically. A K-Pop poster covers a crack near a lonely hot plate. As my eyes adjust, I spot a name scrawled on a few textbook labels scattered on the floor: Cherry. The girl Cherry drops to her knees beside me, panting.

She brushes hair from her eyes. Those eyes are huge, irises a metallic red. She stares at my cracked ribs like she’s about to dissect a frog.

I want to say something- thank you? Sorry for bleeding on your floor? But the words won’t come.

Cherry inhales sharply, presses her fingers together, then whispers, ”Okay, you’ve got this, Cherry. He’s just a big lizard, and you’ve done harder things.”

So, Cherry. Sounds like a stage name, but when a girl with broken horns saves you from bleeding out, you don’t really get a vote.

She vanishes for a second. A crash, a bang, a few curses, and she’s back with a tiny first-aid kit and a roll of toilet paper.

The kit reads FREE FROM THE BANK in faded gold letters. She rips it open.

Three pad-sized bandages, two alcohol swabs, a single cold pack, and a tube of glue.

”She stares at the pathetic contents of the kit, her voice cracking. ”Oh god. We are so fucked.”

She tears toilet paper into squares and mops at my side, patting gently like she’s cleaning spilt wine off a table. I flinch but she whispers, ”Sorry, big guy,” like it helps. She works fast, muttering: ”Okay, the wound’s open... snakes don’t get stitches, do they? Tape. Tape is good. I’ve got tons of duct tape. Saw an Undercity mech-head use it to patch a ruptured fuel line once. If it’s good enough for a war-rig, it’s good enough for you, right?”

Her hands shake, but she stays focused. She pulls the superglue out, obviously not medical grade.