Starry Night

sixteen

I freeze.

The snake is unraveling faster. I've disturbed its hidey-hole, and now it's lifting up its head, looking around for the person who dared to wake it up.

I have no idea what to do. I quickly flick a glance at the tunnel ahead, but I don't see Jungkook's headlamp right away, and I'm too scared to take my eyes off the snake.

Maybe I should stay still, as Jungkook instructed during the bear incident. Do snakes have good eyesight? It's can't smell me, right? Maybe I'm blinding him, and if I stay super still -

My headlamp flickers. This catches the snake's attention.

WHERE IS JUNGKOOK?

"Bad shrimp," I call out softly as the snake's head lifts. Its tail shaking, slapping against the rocky floor. That seems . . . not good. "Bad shrimp!"

The snake's head strikes.

I jump away. My headlamp flickers out.

Panicking, I scramble backward and bump into the wall behind me. My foot feels caught on something. I jerk it, and it doesn't help. It's heavy and . . .

Oh bloody hell, I'm dragging the snake! It's wrapped around my ankle, and I can't tell what's going on. I shake my foot around and that's when I realize that the snake was biting me. Its mouth is clamping onto my leg, just above my socks. I can barely feel anything - why can't I feel it? Is that poison, numbing me?

I scream.

Jungkook's light bobs into view. He's running toward me, and now I can see the banded snake wrapped around my ankle. It's huge. I'm going to die.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Jungkook says, holding up his hands. "It's okay. Calm down. Stop kicking."

I take in a sobbing breath and nearly fall down.

"It's only a kingsnake," he tells me in a calm but firm voice, dropping in front of me. "Only a kingsnake. Let me get it off. It's okay. He's just scared. I want you to stay still while I get him to release you."

I don't know what any of those words mean. He might as well be speaking in tongues. And maybe he realizes this, because he softly shushes me - or maybe the snake, I'm not sure. But his fingers are digging inside the snake's tightly wrapped coil, searching for the head, which is firmly attached to my leg.

"Shit," Jungkook mumbles.

"What?"

"Hold on," he says. "Are you in pain?"

"Maybe. Yes. I don't know," I say. It's sort of pinching me. Smashing me. Like my ankle is being slowly crushed. "Get it off of me. Please, Jungkook."

"I'm trying. It won't let go. I'm going to need to -"

"Kill it!"

"I'm not killing it," he says, unbuckling his pack and shrugging it off his shoulders with a grunt. "I can get it off. Just hang on. I need something."

He quickly unstraps the bear canister from the top of his pack and opens it, dumping it out some of the contents until he spots a tiny plastic bottle of blue liquid. It isn't until he's got the cap unscrewed that I recognized the bottle's contents. Mouthwash.

Angling the bottle against my leg, Jungkook pours a small amount in the side of the snake's mouth. The sharp scent of mint and alcohol fills the air. Nothing happens. Is he trying to freshen its breath? What the hell is going on?

He pours another few drops out. And suddenly, I feel the snake's mouth release me. Its black-and-white stripes shift, and it stiffly uncoils from around my ankle as Jungkook hold its behind its head and forcibly helps to unwind it.