A World Of Treason and Tides

Chapter 33: Yellow Mass of Scales

I slowly turned my head around, but somehow was not surprised to see the giant three-hooded serpent looming in front of me.

Frightened, yes, but not surprised.

I wanted to scream, to leave that place but Kia had frozen all over—she did not make any sound, did not make any movement—she only stared at the giant reptile in front of us. I knew I needed to be calm, that any show of fear on our part could trigger the serpent, but that huge mass of yellow and grey scales was affecting my serenity.

Bringing all three of its heads in front of me, the serpent hissed.

I closed my eyes while Kia staggered backward. It was too close, all three of its forked tongues too near—it hissed again. Gripping Kia tightly, I opened one eye—its tongue moved and rested a few centimetres away from my opened eye—I held my breath and shut my eye close again as if closing my eyes would make the serpent disappear; as if holding my breath would make the foul stench emanating from the creature go away.

I still had the two bones I picked clutched in my hand, but lifting my hand to stab in its eye—it was impossible when the serpent was so close to me—it could bite me anytime, and not to mention it had three pairs of eyes. Hundreds of thoughts were going on in my mind when I realized that the creature had not bitten me yet, but why would it delay?

The hissing sound could not be heard too—did it go away?

I opened my eyes once again, but the serpent was there. However, its heads were turned sideways, not towards me— towards something else.

That was the time. I nudged Kia to swim upwards and move back, as far away from the reptile as possible—if we were up enough, we had a chance to escape the situation without any hassle.

But what was the serpent looking at? I did not know if any other harm was lurking in the shadows of the water, and I did not even want to know—I needed to get out from the doomed place as fast as possible.

Kia started to swim upwards, thus attracting the attention of the serpent again. I should have known. Groaning internally and without delaying any further, I jabbed a bone through one of the heads of the serpent, wincing as I did so.

A second later, I was knocked out from Kia's back, tumbling into the endless water; and Kia was tossed onto the seafloor by a whip of the reptile's long, hard tail.

Floundering in the water, trying to regain my balance, I looked for Kia. Luckily, she had been thrown far away from the dangers around us and now it was just me, the serpent and some other creature hiding in the shadows.

Coughing out mouthfuls of salt-water I had ingested and at the same time trying to calm my raging and drumming heart, I started swimming, making my way behind the serpent while avoiding the flailing tail of the venomous creature.

I did not want to kill the creature. If I could, then I would have escaped without harming it—but the enormous size of its tail (that was now squirming like a maniac) had blocked every other way of my escape—if I went upwards, it went upwards; if I went sideways, it went sideways, following me everywhere as if it was my very own shadow.

I stabbed the body of the serpent with the other bone I had, but little did I know that it would turn into a crazier version of itself and the serpent would start chasing me towards my doom.

Gathering two more bones from the sea-floor, I swam as fast as I could while being chased by the yellow mass of scales. I knew I was going in the wrong direction, towards more cold, dark water—that I needed to go in the opposite direction if I wanted to get back to the Starwater Canal—but something was there that had previously garnered the attention of the serpent—