Lost at the Start

13.

Snake!

I'm standing in the living room of my house, staring at the same armchair we've had ever since I can remember. It's a subtle plaid to match the couch and the loveseat. But for some reason, all of dad's stuff stacked around it is gone, and it's in the spot it was in before he got another chair at K Mart and moved it over. That chair is gone too, I don't know why. But I also don't care.

I don't know how the scaly, reptilian thing before me got in the house—what with all the cats—let alone in here, in the living, on the chair... But I do know that I'm here, and so is it, having appeared like a cheap magician's trick. Except this snake is definitely not made of rubber. My eyes locked on it, I jump and accidentally back myself into a corner.

The arm sits a little bit catty-cornered, turned towards the TV, in front of the living room windows. There's an end table on one side, and a standing lamp on the other, just like there used to be.

My haste to get away made me careless. I'm trapped between the chair, the table, and the window less than two feet from my back.

I'm also fearfully certain by the way the creature is coiling up, despite my efforts not to agitate it, that it'll strike if I try to jet forward past it and the chair to the safety of the open room.

Granted, even if I can do that, I'll still have to worry about, you know, THERE'S A SNAKE IN THE HOUSE, but that's infinitely better than being in imminent danger of being bitten.

Truthfully, I don't really even know what kind of snake it is, just that it's scaly, and hissing, and scenting the air with it's tongue enough it can probably taste the fear boiling over in my veins.

I don't have a phobia of snakes, exactly, but that doesn't mean I can't be scared with one preparing to strike and staring me in the face.

Even so, I know that even a nonvenomous snake has fangs, and those fangs are still going to hurt and leave a mark if they sink into your flesh.

Somehow, something screams out in my mind, Copperhead! For the kind that it is.

I can't remember ever seeing a picture of one, but I feel like I know that I have, because I know Copperheads are poisonous, and I think they're also one of the few dangerous snakes in this State...But that doesn't matter, because something is forcing me to accept the fact that this cretin before me is one, and I can't argue.

The snake rears up and hisses more like a cat than anything else, opening it's mouth wide and showing me a horrifying glimpse of not just two, but four off-white, glistening, treacherously sharp fangs that are eerily clean for an animal like this.

Too bad I'm not wearing boots, because I'm definitely shaking.

Somehow, the monster seems to wriggle and writhe as freely as it could uncoiled, and edges slowly closer to me on the chair's cushion. It still smells the air vigorously with its forked, slender tongue.

I bite back a scream crawling its way up my throat and demanding an exist out my mouth while I ease backwards, inch by inch. Any sudden loud noises or movements will scare it, and then it'll strike, I'll be bitten, and then I'll start to die from the venom in it's fangs.

But...Wait...Why does that feel wrong? I know I'm in danger, but that thought doesn't seem to fit quite right in my head, and I don't know why...

Either way, I know I've had some dark days, and still do, but of all the ways there are to die, I can think of a million that would be better than succumbing to the effects of a slithering reptile's poison. Especially if it only struck because I couldn't put a lid on my own terror trying to leak out of me.