Unexpected sunlight burned into my eyes. I blinked rapidly to try and adjust. After a few moments of pain everything started to work properly. I placed my hands over my face and scrubbed. That’s when I noticed my face didn’t feel quite right.

Irubbed my hands slowly across my face as I tried to figure out what was wrong. I frowned and pulled my hands off my face and inspected them. Yep those were definitely hands. Just not my hands.

I wiggled my fingers and the clawed and scaled digits above my face gave me a nice little finger wave. I squeezed both hands into the one finger salute and sure enough the dark brown monstrosities gave me the sass back. As cool as they look, like some monster movie cosplay, I’m pretty sure those are attached to me.

Well shit. I decided to ignore the current problem and have a look around. Moving my head felt weird though. Like I had an extra hundred pounds of neck or something. That can’t be good. I ran my new and scary hands down my neck. And down. And down. I had gained all the necks it seemed. It wasn’t that it was just super long, just longer than it should have been. It was wide too. Like I had two big ass sails stitched to the side of my head.

Well at least I still have a neck I guess. A ripped as fuck neck. I could feel the muscles flex and bunch as I tried to move it. I figure that if I’m gonna freak out I might as well check out if the rest of my body was as crazy as my new neck.

I took a deep breath and placed my new monster hands against what felt like grass and pushed myself up. It took decidedly less effort than I assumed. I felt both terror and a kind of elation. Pretty sure Yurel fucked with my body cus I felt swole. I don’t think I’ve had a single muscle in my body since puberty.

Since all I had been really doing up to this point as stalling I decided to just man up and check out what I was working with. Boy I really wish I hadn’t. Clawed hands connected to arms covered in the same kind of almost brown almost black scales. Too much fantasy kicked my brain into thinking of a fucking dragon and I just about pissed myself on the spot. I barely remembered in time that those arms are attached to me and I wasn’t about to get murder hugged by an apex predator.

My brain happily reminded me that dragons aren’t real but I just pointed out the scaly appendages currently waving in front of me. After that my brain just shrugged and gave me the finger leaving me to figure it all out myself. With my brain on vacation for the moment I did the only thing my body wanted to do. Flee.

Of course as I went to take a step to run screaming for my life I instead managed to trip and fall flat on my face surrounded by the sound of hissing. I froze. Totally sounded like a snake. I had one memory of snakes and that was from a movie. Something about not moving and not being threatening and they will leave you alone. So I did the obvious thing. I flailed around.

It wasn’t my best moment but it did serve to make me notice that I wasn’t moving anywhere as I tried to crawl away. With my giant new monster arms I figured I could drag my ass to safety but nope I didn’t even budge. It felt like I weighed ten times what I used to.

I was fighting with myself for a moment when I realized that I wasn’t actually scared. I paused as I thought about that. Probably should be terrified. Giant hissing sound and new monster arms should come together to make an epic meltdown but instead I was just reacting to my own thoughts not really feelings.

I drummed my new fingers on the ground as I tried to work through how I felt. Pretty good actually. Like I had the best sleep of my life combined with eating all my favorite food with no stomach problems afterwards. I frowned and looked at my arms as I pushed myself back up. If my arms were different…. I had to check the rest of my body.

Damn I just keep going. There has to be at least eight or ten feet of scaled monster ass attached to where my legs should have been. I scratched my neck as I looked down and back at the pile of what looked like snake coils I was pretty much sitting on. Or attached to. A rather scary thought that I just accepted. I had a few ideas of what was happening. Either dreaming or the crazy banker had drugged me and was doing unspeakable things to my body as I went through his wonderland.

Something tastes like dirt. I blinked my eyes and realized that it was in fact dirt that tasted like dirt. Not really sure how I managed to get facedown on the ground. Or how that ground was now torn up. I must have fainted. Suddenly turning into a giant snake monster was probably too much for my blood pressure. The torn up ground was a little worrisome. I was not a still sleeper even before this. While that wouldn’t be a problem normally, I seemed to be throwing a lot of weight around now.

I flicked my tongue out to get rid of the local dirt taste and I saw my tongue wiggle out. Forked and thin, it was very obviously not my normal one. Of course it made sense added to the rest of the changes. I’m a giant ass snake just have to expect snake things.

Interestingly I could actually taste the air. My tongue flicked in and out a few times and sure enough I got the impressions of things around me. It wasn’t actually very helpful at the moment since I didn’t know what anything was supposed to taste like in the first place. I played around for a minute tasting the air just to get a feel for what it could do when something new licked into my mouth. It was familiar but I couldn’t place it until I felt the footsteps.

I didn’t hear footsteps. I felt them through my body up to my head. Like some form of snakeysense telling me danger was coming. I spent a long moment thinking about that. I wasn’t sure if that was a normal snake thing or if I was even more of a monster than I thought. I was interrupted from my thoughts as a group of people rounded a small rise close to me that I hadn’t even realized lead downward.

I should have taken the time earlier to look around but I had been a bit preoccupied at the time. I let out a deep sigh which caused my tongue to flicker out. It was an interesting experience to watch my tongue wiggle around in the air. I may have spent a bit too much time watching my tongue flick up and down, in and out because by the time I looked back at my new guests they had all jerked to a stop and were staring at me.

As I looked at them they started to talk amongst themselves softly and make hand signs. Nothing I really understood and they were too far away to hear. I looked them over as they apparently had a group discussion. They looked kind of pathetic. I counted around a dozen poorly dressed and dirty people of both genders and all kinds of ages. There were two in front wearing what could only be some type of leather with rings and stuff I had no idea about but the rest were wearing mostly patched together clothes. It looked like two cosplayers carting around a group of potato farmers. I would have laughed but I noticed the weapons.

Swords, daggers, spears, I even saw a bow when one of them moved. Just a whole bunch of pointy pokey things that normal people didn’t carry around. No guns though. It didn’t really take a gun to poke holes into someone until they stopped moving though. I had a bad feeling they weren’t going to just talk and be friendly.

My fears were confirmed rather quickly as the two in the front split up and the whole group followed to slowly started to circle me. I had thought that maybe the reason I was this giant snake thing was maybe because that was like the normal race or something but seeing these humans I started thinking maybe not so much. I probably looked very much like a monster to them which could only end badly. The thought barely left my head as one of the men in the back, who seemed to have never known the love of a razor, pulled his bow off his back and drew an arrow.

Well shit. I frowned, or as much a s snake face can frown, and ran through my options. Diplomacy was probably the best one. I don’t really know how to fight and getting poked full of holes just didn’t seem like fun. I had already been threated to be killed once today. If it was even still the same day. Something to think about later. I raised my hands slowly palms facing out in the universal sign of don’t shoot me I’m unarmed. I opened my mouth but paused as I wondered if I even had vocal chords. Or if my snake tongue could articulate words. Might as well try.

“I come in peace.” I winced slightly at how bad that sounded. Not just the fact I said something so cliché but also the fact that while my voice seemed to work just fine, everything was raspy and hissy. Sounded like a blown air hose. Or a snake. One of those things I should have just expected. Nothing to be done about it now.

To my surprise though the people stopped moving and started shouting among themselves. I had a bad feeling shoot up whatever I had for a spine in this body as they shouted. I didn’t understand a word they were saying. And if I couldn’t understand them could they understand me? As if in answer to that self posed question one of the two leaders in front pulled his sword off of his back and gestured to me while saying something to the untended mass of hair that was the marksman.

I hoped he was telling him to put the weapon down. I knew it wasn’t. Which is why when the guy turned back towards me and broke into a dead sprint I knew I was about to get shot. My brain was working through that thought over and over again. I’m about to get shot. With an arrow. A fucking arrow. My brain decided enough was enough and just quit working for a minute. This is normally when I would get scared or start talking or something. Instead I just felt cold.

I twisted my upper body sideways on instinct and heard the clap of the bowstring right before the scraping sound of the arrow as it slid across my chest and bounced away. I continued my spin and my coiled body followed me as I flicked out my tail and caught the runner right in his legs. My tail was almost the thickness of his chest it seemed as they collided and he was thrown completely off his feet and rolled ass over head dropping his sword in the process.

I calmly grabbed him up as he rolled towards me and bit him. Not really sure why but I did. I struck quick and pulled back to see holes in the armor around his neck. He started shaking and frothing at the mouth almost immediately as I casually tossed his to the side. I didn’t feel any pain from the arrow impact so I assumed that it hadn’t actually cut me. I ran my eyes over the rest of the group as they jerked around. Some moved as if to charge me but most just held their place as they looked to what I guessed was the last leader in their ranks.

I decided right then that I didn’t want to die. I had made that choice before to Yurel and I still stood by it. I don’t know why I’m being attacked but I refuse to die to these… peasants. The disgust and anger I felt was new but I just ran with it. The group of would be murderers seemed to have made a decision as they worked to slowly surround me again. I could almost understand the words they were saying now but it didn’t matter. The gurgling noise from beside me slowly petered off as the man I bit lost the fight fir his life.

My tongue flickered out as I tasted the air. He was still alive for now but it wouldn’t be long. His sword sat in front of me where he had lost hold of it in his stupid rush for death. I picked it up. I didn’t want to have to bite every person here.

The blade must have been of poor quality. There was no shine or luster. It looked pitted and rusted and weighed as much as a stick. I flicked the blade and it rang like metal though. It would do. I wrapped a hand around the hilt as I looked over the group that had attacked me. Unprovoked. I didn’t even have a weapon when they attacked me.

I did now though and they didn’t seem to like that much. I waited for their suicidal charge but they hesitated. All eyes had locked on to the corpse beside me. He was indeed cold meat now as I looked over him. His body seemed normal in one instant and then without warning it crumbled into dust which danced on the air for a moment before disappearing. All his belongings remained but his body was just gone. Maybe I was a monster. It doesn’t matter.

My body seemed to agree with me now. As the last of the dust flitted away I slithered forward right into the group that had been trying to flank me. I moved faster than I thought and I had made it into the group and out the other side before I even had a chance to stop myself. My new sword followed me out of the group as well trailing a new red ribbon that dripped. The screaming started right after that as I turned back to where I had been. One man was on the ground and his arm was just missing.

Something inside of me is broken. I know it. I should feel fear or remorse or something for having hurt someone so badly. I only feel annoyance that I don’t know how to use a sword better. Making them suffer isn’t what I had planned. To that end I moved forward to end the screams but just as I did I felt an arrow slam into my side.

I glared at the offending weapon as it lay where is rebounded. It looks like even a direct hit wont go through my scales. I raised my eyes until they locked with my friend the unshaven archer. He seemed to panic and freeze up as we stared at each other. I turned and ignored the screaming cries that sounded strangely like prayers now as I slowly slithered my way towards my new target. He did seem completely frozen as I slid up to him. Everyone else also seemed equally unmoving. I tilted my head as I stared into his eyes. He was terrified.

“You can scream now.” I hissed at him and for a second his eyes seemed to snap back into focus. And then he screamed. And he screamed even more as I lifted him from the ground with the sword I had impaled into his chest. He clasped his hands over the wound like that would really help. I dispassionately tilted my blade and he slid off with a sickly wet sound. I didn’t need to know to use a weapon if my prey just sat and waited patiently for me. Speaking of prey, I turned back to the rest of the group.

As my hairy friend bled out behind me I moved on to make new friends. The one screaming on the ground was a good start. I understood what he was saying this time but thankfully he quieted down without his head. A few of the group chose that moment to rush me. They barely had time to add their voices before they were silenced. The rest started running.

It was their best idea they had so far. It didn’t save them. I am faster. Much faster. No legs means no tripping. No looking at where I have to place my feet. They fell one by one, some from their own feet most from the sword planted in them. I cut down the final one and as silence reigned I turned back to the field and watched the dust rise from the corpses.