Limitless Evolution As a Snake

And dabs at the torn flesh beneath my hood. The sting makes me want to roar, but she pats my cheek and Her broken horn-stumps twitch. ”Nope. You can do this, snakey or whatever you are. I believe in you.”

Her wings jitter behind her as the lights flicker pink, then blue, then pink again. My vision swims, and for a moment I see her face doubled, tripled. But whatever Cherry’s doing her best, and somehow, that might just keep me alive.

She wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, leaving a streak of my blood across her face. She doesn’t notice. She’s too busy digging through the kit for something to tie off the wound. All she finds is a single Band-Aid with a picture of a duck on it. She slaps it on my chest, nods like she’s solved a math problem, and sits back, exhausted.

[System: Solid effort, mate. She’s not a doctor, but she’s got more sense than most of the nurses I’ve had. If you make it through the night, buy her a drink.]

Cherry’s gaze drops from my face to the spreading crimson stain on her rug. She looks like she’s about to cry. ”Don’t die,” she says, voice tiny. ”Please. I really don’t want to be alone again.”

My jaw works, trying to form a reassuring smile, but the world collapses into black before I can manage it.

———

The first thing I hear is Cherry’s voice, cussing up a storm and calling someone ”a dumbass reptile.” The second thing is the click of a lighter, the sizzle of a stove or something, and a smell like burning plastic.

My vision feels like an old Nintendo, colour-washed, blurry, every edge smeared like a toddler got hold of my retinas. For a second, I think I’m already dead and stuck in a weird cartoon of my own life. Then pain spikes through my side, sharp and hot, and I realize I’m still in hell, just with a better decorator.

Cherry’s face looms over me, teeth clenched, sweat pouring down her forehead as she tries to thread a needle with shaking hands.

It’s not a medical needle. It’s one of those chunky ones from an emergency sewing kit. There’s a stray piece of pink thread dangling off it, as she pulled it from a child’s toy.

She yanks the cap off a bottle of vodka, takes a swig, then spits half of it onto a wad of toilet paper. ”Sanitise, bitch,” she mutters, dabbing my wound. It stings so bad I nearly pass out again.

[System: Proper job, mate. She’s improvising. If you survive this, you’re buying her a kebab and a drink.]

Cherry stabs the needle straight into my side. She gets maybe a centimetre in before she gags and pulls back. ”Nope. Nope nope nope. Sorry, sorry, just-just don’t die, okay?”

She tries again. This time, she gets the tip under the edge of my scale and starts to pull. The needle scrapes against my scales, a hideous sound against armour that isn’t meant to be stitched. But Cherry’s got this insane focus, like she’s going to force the universe to bend to her will if it kills both of us.

I can’t move. I can only watch her hands. They’re slick with my blood, but fresh crimson beads well up along her knuckles where she grips the thread too tight. She doesn’t seem to notice, just keeps wrapping my side in neon tape and gauze until I look like a rave-themed mummy.

She leans in, really close, checking her work. Her breath is sweet and sharp, like cotton candy with battery acid. She’s crying a little, but she doesn’t stop.

”Her breath is a hot promise against my scales. ”I’m not going to let you die; you’re the only one who ever didn’t try to eat me.”

My jaw grinds, a raw, dry hiss scraping from my throat. It was supposed to be her name.

She takes it as a compliment, smiles, and pats my cheek. ”You’re so stupid. You’re so, so stupid.”

She goes back to her clumsy sewing. At some point, she drops the needle, can’t find it, then just shrugs and staples the bandage closed with a tiny office stapler.

[System: If you feel a sudden urge to moult, now would be the time, as it’ll fix you right up. Also, try not to get infected. She’s doing her best, but it’s not pretty.]

I want to laugh. I want to tell Cherry she’s doing great. Instead, my body decides to throw a fever, and suddenly the whole room is spinning.

I see flashes: Cherry’s face, twisted in panic; the ceiling, with a chunk of paint missing shaped exactly like Australia; my own blood, everywhere. At one point, I see the ghost of my dead roommate from my human life, waving at me from the top of the bunk bed.

Time stretches. I’m in and out.

Sometimes Cherry is there, feeding me water with a plastic straw.

Sometimes she’s asleep, curled up next to me, her hand on my tail. She mumbles about her mom and how she always said ”Never trust a snake.”

Sometimes she’s in the bathroom with the door open, sobbing so quietly I almost can’t hear it over the roar of the space heater.

I dream that I’m being eaten by a dozen small drugged fairies, but they’re all wearing the Captain’s face, and they’re arguing about whether to serve me with hot sauce or mustard. Old Mate is there too, in a referee’s jersey, yelling at them to ”get on with it, ya bloody cowards.”

I come to, once, with Cherry perched on top of me, both knees pressed into my ribs, needle held high above her head. She’s got a headlamp on, and she’s squinting like she’s about to perform brain surgery with a chopstick.

”Hold still,” she says. ”This is going to suck.”

The needle is backwards and she’s holding it by the point.

I realise, in that split second before she stabs, that I might actually die here, not from the Captain’s hammer, not from a bullet, but from a tiny girl with zero medical training and too much caffeine.

She jabs.

Everything goes white.