My eyes opened and, simultaneously with an inhale, reality seeped into my mind after an indeterminate amount of time. I was in the fishing house, laying on one of the beds, the air was relatively warm and midday sunlight crept through the slits in the wooden planks. I turned my head and stared at the elephant in the room, or rather, the giant humanoid snake, who was rolled up in her tail and sitting on the floor. Her head rested on one of her arms and her eyes were closed, while slow breaths carried her tongue out of a small gap at the front of her snout; she was sleeping.

My eyesight wandered from the intricate pattern of black and yellow, that lined out shapes resembling eyes, down to her tail, where dirt and grime covered lines of beige color. Her hood was tucked in more tightly to her face and neck, the more rigid scales of the sides were colored black, contrasting with the almost skin-like shade of her frontside. The left edge of her jaw had a noticeable trail of dried yellow blood running down a fissure, likely created by a bullet. Small nostrils, reptilian-shaped eyes, broad shoulders, claws the size of my pinky finger, and at least six or seven meters of length, all painted this picture of an aggressive alien soldier, a monster made for killing.

But right now, she looked...peaceful.

Moving anything but my neck and head, however, revealed a more pressing matter. Everything in my body hurt. I raised my arm and it felt broken, I traced over my left flank and found burning pain, I moved onto my shoulder and traced the outlines of an inflamed bullet wound. But also something strange; the make-shift medical care I had applied previously was gone, no more hastily wrapped bandages that barely kept pressure on my wounds. Instead, there were neatly and tightly covered layers of relatively clean bandages, on my entire upper body. This also drew attention to the fact that I was shirtless and covered in a blanket, luckily, I still wore my underpants.

I do not remember how I got there, nor what the snake had done to me while I was unconscious. I should not have felt embarrassed that she saw me half-naked, she was an alien snake, not a human, and yet, I did.

My face still had dried blood covering my eye and cheeks, as well as many other parts of my body. My breaths took effort and it was more than a little painful to expand my chest.

I pushed the blanket down to my legs and tried to sit up. Immediately, a sharp sting on my flank notified me that this was a bad idea. I couldn't suppress a painful groan, as I let myself fall back down onto the mattress.

Within the second, the viper shot from her resting position and rose to almost the ceiling's height. A momentary look of surprised fear in her wide eyes, though it quickly softened and she shrunk back to a human's height. She locked those fluorescent blue globes with me, the thin black slits in the center looked like refined and polished obsidian.

"You're finally awake," she noted and looked down at my broken body.

I turned away and let out a deep and drawn-out yawn. "I suppose that that is thanks to you, you sure you aren't a doctor or medic?"

Her hood twitched and the lower parts, which were connected to her neck, seemed to relax. "No, I am not. I simply had a lot of time to get it right with you," she explained and something in her voice sounded off, an emotion I couldn't quite place.

"How long have I been out? And what do you mean, get it right?" I looked back at the viper.

"It is afternoon currently, so throughout the night. Your bleeding was quite intense, so I changed your bandages multiple times. You also did not do a very good job at wrapping yourself yesterday," she added as an afterthought.

"Did you undress me?" I changed the line of questioning.

Again, that particular order of changes in her features, the tugging at the edges of her hood.

"I had to get to your injuries," she hastily justified. "I folded your clothes, too," she motioned to my pants and shirt, which had been twisted and wrapped around one another. Not something anyone could consider folding.

"You tried," I smirked.

"It kept me busy," she admitted.

"How long have you been in here with me?"

"I never left, I needed to make sure you didn't throw yourself off the bed again. You spoke and moved in your sleep, I was worried you were dying," she looked to the floor.

"You stayed with me through the entire night up until now?" I clarified and she nodded.

"Can you hand me those painkillers?" I glanced at the bottle of pills on the nightstand.

The endless tail of the viper slithered from the ground and rose to the nightstand, wrapping around the bottle and bringing it to me. She was intentionally keeping a distance, that much was obvious from her position in the room. I grabbed the canister from the tip and popped it open, revealing a dwindling supply of the wonderous capsules. I would need to ration them if I wanted to get through the recovery period my injuries would take.

I threw one down my gullet and swallowed it down without hassle.

"You have a lot of scars," she noted, keeping her gaze transfixed on me.

"I do," I really didn't like the direction she could take this in, especially without a way to hide my forearms.

"You were a soldier even before the war, correct?" She inquired.

"You could say that," I sighed, at least she focused on other subjects.

"How old are you in human years?"

"Human years?" I chuckled before thinking back and doing mental math. "I would be either thirty-eight or thirty-nine, not too sure anymore."

"How can you be uncertain?" She prodded further, raising one of those scaly brows.

"Dunno, just haven't had to count in the past decade or so," I dismissed. "Why, how old would you be in human years?"

"I have been with Advent for seventeen years, before that, I was trained for fifteen. Any memories of my past are...blurred and unfocused, so I do not truly know." The snake let the forked tip of her tongue linger on her snout as she thought.

"Where do you come from?" I couldn't help but follow this line of questioning, talking to an alien about her past and possible home planet just sparked my curiosity.

"A world far away from here, many galaxies apart. I remember open, sandy planes, deep lakes of warm water, villages in caves, and underground burrows. But, as I said, I cannot recall anything specific before the elders arrived and took us into their collection." Her eyes trailed upward, presumedly in remembrance of her home.

"The elders, did they subjugate you like they were trying to do with humanity?"

"I...don't know. My people were more natural hunters, we didn't have the technology you did when the elders came. I doubt we could have fought them off like humans did," she adopted a more sorrowful tone.

"So you surrendered?" I felt breathing become easier, as the meds did their job.

"It never was called that, we were uplifted, taken into wars, mutated to fit into many world's climates, psionically ordered, and our culture slowly slipped away. The only things that remain are memories and our language, with no hope of ever returning." Her contemplative stare met my view again.

"So you're stranded here because the elders are dead," I concluded.

"Not just my race, but every other alien they have collected over their centuries of warfare. Earth will either be where dozens of species will become extinct, or find a way to adapt to humans."

"Huh," I scoffed. "Well, we're off to a good start, if yesterday is any indication as to how humans feel about forgiveness."

"But you are different," she interjected.

"Am I?"

Her expression shifted once more, to the distinct look of confusion.

"You tried to help us, you were almost killed for defending us, and now, you are making conversation with me. So yes, I consider you different," she concluded.

"They wanted to kill me because I found out what they really were, not because I put forth any sort of argument to trusting you. I was interrupted before I could say a single word about not killing you," I retorted.

"But...they took one of us away, to speak in front of the residents. I had assumed that was because of you," she squinted.

"It was...just not for the right reasons. I was questioned by the one man I thought I could trust, but it was a trap. They had spotted me entering the townhall, so I made up the lie that I talked to the viper on the right side of the room, the one missing a finger. She was never taken as a representative, she was killed because they thought I had talked to her," I explained and noticed the change in posture from the viper.

"What?" Utter disbelief in her voice.

"I was kept just outside when they collected her, but couldn't do anything."

"Why didn't you say it was me that you talked to? My sister...she was terrified," her eyes once again met the ground.

"Because I knew you could figure out that they weren't going to hold a fair discussion. I was hoping to give all of you a chance. What exactly happened to the others?"

It took the viper a few moments to recuperate. "I tried to make a move, but...but I failed. I wasted so much time, made so much noise, that the humans came in. At that point, I was...too afraid to try and help the others. I left them, I escaped as the only one. I lived, but they are all dead, dead because I was cowardly," she was more talking to herself than me at that point.

"You had little other choices," I tried to comfort her.

"What do you know about what I could and couldn't have done?!" She hissed and snapped back to me, her tongue flicking out rapidly.

"More than you know," I remained calm.

Silence filled the cabin, only interrupted by the slow shifting of scales against wood, with the occasional flick of her tongue.

"You smell terrible," she broke the oppressing tension.

"Yeah, figures," I rolled my eyes, if my stench had already reached my own nostrils, I couldn't imagine what I smelled off to her.

"You should wash your wounds and reapply the bandages," she advised.

"Well I don't see a shower around here, do you?" I replied sarcastically.

"No, that would be illogical. But the river is shallow and should have warmed up in the sun, plus, I want to wash off as well," she motioned to the door, where the slow river outside was audible.

"Don't you like...shed?" I inquired.

"I do, but that is no excuse to walk around filthy. Your blood will also attract predators and flies, as well as making it harder for me to smell threats. Your pheromones are seeping into every corner of my nostrils," she scratched at her snout.

"How did you even get me in here?" I spoke while sitting back up, suppressing the pain of my muscles.

"I carried you like I said I could," she explained briefly and backed off into the next room. "I know you said not to touch you but I hardly could have helped without doing so."

"Eh, not like I could have stopped you," I dismissed and used the walls to get up, again, only in underwear.

'She's just an alien, there is nothing weird about this,' I tried to keep my mind calm, as the snake leaned against the doorframe. I went to pick up my pants and shirt, unfolding the strange way she had huddled them together when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The snake was staring. Not obviously or overtly, just out of the edges of her vision. 'Ok, maybe a little weird.'

"You will need to undress anyway, let's just go," she noted.

"Oh, yeah..." I shook my head and, as quickly as I could, stormed past her and out of the door, a blanket as a make-shift towel tucked under my arm. Surely, my illogical attempt at getting dressed was the only reason she looked at me, right?

Despite the warm rays of sunshine rolling across my skin, a cold breeze ran through the valley, supported by the late spring atmosphere. Goosebumps ran down my body and I dreaded actually entering the surely freezing waters. But the snake was right, infections and all sorts of problems would emerge if I left my hygiene as it was. Speaking of, where was she?

"I'll be there shortly, I have to detach my armor," came from inside the cabin.

Luckily, I was already out of view because my face definitely lit up upon hearing that. I had already settled that she had seen most of me while I was unconscious, but now she would get in the water as well? The black alloy armor along her chest, upper back, and shoulders complimented the snake's form. I couldn't imagine what she would look like without it, and frankly, I wouldn't need to.

'She's a fucking alien, calm yourself you fucking xenophile,' I scolded myself mentally, as I made my way onto the pier.

I arrived at the edge of the wooden construct and observed the calm waters. Tiny crawfish and small fish babies populated the crevasses in the rocks, birds flew overtop me and landed in the various treetops. On the side of the rocky surroundings were pines, which desperately clung to the small patches where the rock had broken and allowed them to thrive. The air around the water was already noticeably colder and I knew even before dipping a foot into the chest-high water below, that it would be very fucking cold.

Maybe if I could just get in there, scrub off my body and get out, I could be dressed before the snake even got here. But no.

The door to the cabin shut and out came the, still mostly armored, viper. Though her eyes evaded looking at mine, rather the surroundings. But there was something else, too, a way in which her tail tip slowly swiveled counter to her movement, the four-fingered hands, that repeatedly didn't know where she would put them; the snake was nervous.

Again, her features were undoubtedly alien, there was just something else, too.

Scales instead of skin, though her face still moved a lot like a human's would, her hood resembling something like hair, despite its obvious connection to her expressiveness, and her eyes carried unmistakable intelligence. The concept that she was not only undeniably sapient but also intelligent and emotional had not eluded me during our conversations. At first, I had wanted to see what these Advent units would come up with to defend themselves, but the more the serpent and I spoke, the more obvious it became that she was much more than that. I knew that I was still missing parts of her expressions, signs that I hadn't discovered, I didn't know her tells, and I wanted to.

After realizing the amount of time I had squatted down and let my foot dangle off the pier's edge, I quickly rose and shook off the water. She had been right, the water had warmed, maybe from literally frozen to icy cold liquid.

"Uhm... Human ?" She sounded more uncertain as to what to actually call me, rather than the emotion I had discerned earlier.

"What is it?"

"This armor is normally only taken off in the base, by robotic personnel," she glanced to the ground, and her hood contracted. "I...can't take it off alone," she looked back up, only to meet my wrinkled features.

"No fucking way," I shook my head and turned on the spot.

"If I get in the water with it, my shoulder and head won't wash," she tried to bargain, but I wasn't even listening anymore.

Be undressed by the snake? Sure, she saved my life and I was critically injured. Have her stare at me exposed like this? She was an alien, I had just done something stupid, and she had already seen all there was to see. Get into a fucking river with her? Maybe. But I wasn't going to undress her.

"Not doing it," I continued to shake my head.

"Am I that disgusting to you?"

I sighed and bit my lip, 'you know she is just trying to get you on her side by playing that card, don't engage.'

"No, you are not," I admitted and turned back around. "It's just...you look a lot like a human in," I motioned to my chest, "those areas."

Her scaled brow wrinkled and her maw hung open for a second, revealing the row of tiny teeth within. "And that bothers you?"

"A little," my voice went high-pitched for a moment.

"I have not commented on the fact that I had to deal with your...strange anatomy while you were unconscious," she raised an accusatory claw in my general direction.

"What do you mean by that?" I crossed my arms on my chest, partly to emphasize my point, but also because standing still did me no good in the chilly wind.

"You are hairy, everywhere. Your blood sticks to everything and when you aren't falling out of bed, you scream at night." She listed off while sounding like she was proclaiming the most insane facts the world had ever heard.

I paused for a moment and let the serpent calm a little.

"You don't even have to touch me, there is a button and a latch you have to open, nothing more," she opened her posture and spread her arms.

I sighed again.

"Fine," I rolled my eyes and approached.

She was big, that was obvious, even larger than the others of her species that I had seen. But at that moment, she rested at about my height, though her torso and neck were much longer than mine. Once I had clarified that I would help, she spun around on the spot and presented the small latch on her backplate, in between her shoulder blades. Along her spine and over her hood ran a line of segmented metal armor, ending in a small, black surface. She had definitely taken off parts of the armor, such as the bracers on her forearms and the cupping helmet on her cranium.

"The latch needs to be pushed inward, then pulled to the left," she explained.

"And you couldn't do that with your tail?" I questioned, as I spotted the smaller handle within a bronze-colored latch.

"I can't see behind my back and my tail is not very good at actually feeling," she snaked the worm-like appendage upwards on the left side.

"Well, you better learn, cause I'm not doing this again," I pushed the handle in, then to the side, as instructed.

Immediately, the heavy alloy around her shoulders, upper back, flanks, and of course chest fell away and clattered onto the ground loudly. I had to take a quick step back, in order to avoid the plates hitting me on the toes. Luckily, she was still facing the other direction.

"How heavy are those?" I stared in disbelieve, noticing that the wood had splintered from the impact, though it left not a single mark on the armor itself.

"Standard viper unit equipment, the entire construct is designed for efficiency and protection, it weighs thirty-two kilos in total," she pointed at the two separate plates. "The spine-support adds another ten, while the bracers are only two each," she tapped her headcover.

"Your kind is still very fast and quiet, considering you're carrying all that," I noted.

"Our movement comes from our tails, anything we carry with our upper body is unaffected by our movement," she nodded to the many meters of snake below my feet.

"It itches, though," she added and scratched at her shoulder.

"Where is the button you needed me to press?" I asked, wanting to get the situation over with.

"On the end of the headcover, it's normally under a helmet cover, but I've already gotten that off," she tapped at the black surface on her head.

"Aaaand why doesn't it work if you do it?"

"Because I am not supposed to," she explained matter-of-factly.

I cocked my head to the side and furrowed my eyebrow.

"Advent didn't design these to be taken off by the units themselves, they need someone else to activate, I've already tried." She pushed her thin, scaled fingertip onto a small fissure in the metal and it blinked red.

"I just push there?" I inquired again and she nodded.

She shrunk once again, allowing me easier access onto her head. I found the same sensor within the metal and pressed my thumb into the small dink. It took a few moments before the black surface lit up green and a small beep rang out. I stepped back again, as the centipede-like spine armor of the viper collapsed onto the ground. These plates were more slick, thin, and lined in a tapering cluster of scaled metal.

The viper visibly shuttered and her hood stretched multiple times, as a drawn-out hiss escaped her throat. The scales beneath the armor were indeed dirty, lines of white scratches ran down the side, though they didn't seem to have damaged the scales.

"Thank you," she said in an overly polite manner. I shrugged and tried my best to avoid staring at the obvious.

She rose higher than me and twisted her body like a string being dried of water, before slithering determinedly to the body of water. Without fully turning to me, luckily.

The serpent's movements seemed so much quicker now, less rigid and almost like a fluid or dance of the sort. About two-thirds of her tail on the ground provided enough surface area to maintain an upright posture. Her tail slithered from side to side in a very snake-like pattern, while her body from the waist up barely swayed. Looking as if she could simply glide over any physical ground, she moved extremely fast.

I was left staring blankly, as she had already made it to the end of the pier, while her tail had barely just passed me.

"Get in, or do I have to wash you?" She threatened and turned her head around.

I took the breath to respond, something, anything...But I ended with just closing my eyes for a second, muttering something under my breath, and walking forward.

She was already waiting at the edge and, when I arrived, had just dipped her tail into the water below. Immediately, she pulled back, startled by the near-freezing temperature.

"Oh, it's warmed up from the sun , what a perfect assessment you made there," I mocked the snake.

"Still better than staying like this," the viper shrugged and simply dived in headfirst.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Like the anchor of a ship being thrown overboard, with the tied-up rope still remaining on the ship, her upper body sunk, while the tail unraveled like a cord. Considering the water was only waist-high, I had assumed her massive body jumping in like that would surely land her a surprise meeting with the rocky bottom, but instead, she somehow seemed to float just below the surface immediately after entry. She had gone underwater, but now, she just curved her body entirely in wave-like motions and her snout remained on the water's surface.

I had seen snakes and crocodiles swim before, I just hadn't expected this gigantic alien to behave almost entirely the same.

She dived underwater, encircled herself, and eventually rose on her tail above the surface.

She turned to face the pier, and there it was.

Or rather, there they were. The two globes hung from her shoulders more than from her chest, letting a line of downwardly segmented scales run from her waist all the way up to her neck. This, combined with the lack of nipples or any sort of protrusion, looked a lot less like a human's chest, which put more than a few worries to rest. Still, she stared at me, and I stared back, though not in her eyes or face.

"Are they that distracting?" Her words snapped me back to the curiously looking viper.

"I...I am sorry," I stared onto the floor.

She sighed, or I guess hissed, then swam closer to the edge. "At least clean yourself," she sounded reprimanding, but I was not in a situation to talk back at her. For all I knew, she saw my staring as extremely invasive.

'Oh god, I hope I packed extra underwear,' I thought as I entered the water one leg at a time.

Freezing cold numbed my legs upon entry and my entire nervous system became confused if I was on fire or freezing to death. My hair rose up and so did a shudder run down my entire body. I shivered past the amused-looking viper and into the deep end, where my demise was sealed, as the water surpassed my waist. I had to stop for a moment and let my teeth clatter together.

A sound as if someone was sucking in air through their teeth, or more obvious hissing, emerged from behind my back. I turned slowly, to see the viper snickering with her long lips pulled into a grin that was far too wide. Her eyes squinted and the gemstone-like orbs were drowned out by the otherwise tiny, black slits, which had expanded to encompass almost her entire eyeball.

"W-w-what's so f-f-funny?" I tried to keep my voice steady but failed miserably. The clattering of my teeth and shudders of my body broke the syllables into far too many parts.

She stared at me for a second, then threw her head into the sky and repeating that cackling hissing, which I figured was her losing her shit. Her tail made waves, as it swayed back and forth like a paddle.

"I know humans react to things differently from me, but why is this part of it?" She asked rhetorically between series of hissing laughter.

I splashed her with water.

This seemed to stop her, if only because some got into her mouth. She looked back at me with an expression I immediately knew was offense, at least I had discovered what that looked like.

"I didn't think you were that petty," she spoke in a high-pitched tone, indicating that it was once again, not meant seriously.

"You're calling me petty?" I challenged.

She didn't reply verbally. Instead, I felt something long and scally wrap around my ankle. My eyes went wide and the last thing I saw before I was pulled underwater, was utter smugness on the alien's face.

My body wanted to take a breath, upon the sudden change in temperature, but I kept my mouth shut. Every muscle in my body activated and froze a second after. The pull around my foot had disappeared and I was free to emerge. The wounds had closed, for the most part, only a little bit of blood seeping from my shoulder, though they stung no less. Thanks to the water and painkillers, however, the pain was fairly numbed.

I gasped for air and shook my head free of water. Once my vision cleared, I searched for the snake, but she had disappeared. Surely she would have just dived somewhere, but with my head being as close to the surface as it was, the steady outcropping within the river became reflective. How had this massive alien just vanished beneath the water and become so undetectable?

I spun around a few times, trying to catch a long shadow, but found nothing.

There, the end of her tail. I followed the swimming and moving rope upwards, knowing that I'd find the snake at the end of it. She had winded herself further away, encircled me closer, then turned directly towards me. When I noticed she had in fact just kept behind me the entire time, I spun around and came face to face with her head.

How had she gotten this close?

Drops of clear water pearled off of her scales, as she leaned her head to the side just half a meter away from me.

"Caught you," her vertical pupils flicked to her tail. And it was true, if she pulled together, she would have me ensnared immediately. Yet, somehow, I did not feel threatened at all.

"And so you did," I repeated in a mocking voice.

"You will need to help me with my armor again," she said dismissively as if I would accidentally miss it and agree.

"I will not," I stated politely.

"I just need help getting the latch on my body armor on, I won't wear the spine-enforcement anymore, it is uncomfortable."

"And will I always need to help you with this entire ordeal?"I inquired.

"I just need to get it back on after I have dried. If you help me figure out if my tail can replicate the movement with assistance, I will gladly free you from your duty. But until then, I feel that it is only fair that you assist in this honestly trivial task," was she pouting? Yes, definitely.

"I thought yesterday you were all like, oh, please help me human , I didn't agree to undressing you," I retorted with an impression of her.

"That was before I carried you and flicked you up together for six hours," she motioned to the bandages, which were peeling off. "And I don't sound like that."

" Talk about petty, " I whispered beneath my breath, though the glare she shot me betrayed that she had heard.

" Ungrateful monkey, " she hissed back.

I turned away from the viper and scratched off the last remaining patches of blood, then dipped and splashed on my hair and face. Over the few minutes, my body grew almost completely numb to the cold, though when I finally stepped out, the wind sent unending freezing temperatures against my skin and through into my bones.

I pulled onto the pier and dried myself off with the blanket, before wrapping it around myself. The snake swam circles around the small pooling of water, while casually glancing to me every now and then.

Without another word, I turned and went back into the cabin.

Luckily, I did have extra clothing in the backpack, which the viper had very obviously rummaged through the previous night. I quickly changed my undergarments and slipped back into my clothes.

I entered the living room and observed the signs of a tumultuous night. The table in the middle had been widely cleared of the previous decor, a crumpled pile of completely soaked bandage fabric, and small medical scissors were also caked in my blood. This made me pause. She had taken care of me, despite me giving her a lot of shit. And if it was true that she had no medical experience, then she had definitely tried her very best to keep me alive,

There it was again, that sting of guilt that reminded me I was not talking to someone deserving of hatred.

I returned to find the viper doing what I could best describe as basking. She sprawled her long body over the entire pier, letting the glistening drops of water slip off her hydrophobic scales. The sun reflected off of the intricate pattern on her back, which highlighted the undeniably fascinating combination of color and shade. I approached slowly and walked over her tail to her front.

"If you want me to help you, then let's do it now," I looked into her turned expression.

"It's just getting warm, I need to regulate my temperature," she dismissed and laid down. "You should too, it's comfortable in the light."

I sighed, 'Come on, be nice.'

"Sure," I plopped down onto the edge of the pier and entered a cross-legged seat.

She raised her head to the side in utter surprise. "No comment?" She inquired curiously.

"Nope," I continued to look out onto the river.

She let her head sink back down onto her arms and enjoy the sunlight. After a minute or so of silence, I had to come to terms with the fact that she was right, the sun felt nice on my skin, the soft wind blew at me in the back of the neck and the running water echoed a nice backdrop. Combined with the occasional tweeting of birds, high up in treetops, and the blue sky above, I found myself breathing more calmly.

I leaned onto my hands and faced upwards, watching a flock of birds fly in an arrowhead formation above. Small and thin clouds swam across the sky as if they were debris in water. The sun was warm and directly above us, indicating that it was turning afternoon.

But, at the end of it all, I looked back down to the reptilian woman to my side. Her body slowly rose and sunk, as she looked out onto the opposite shoreline. I tried to follow her eyes and ended up seeing a family of deer in the underbrush. They looked back at us and made a run for it, presumedly seeing the massive snake as a potential predator. And to think she was worried about my smell attracting dangerous wildlife.

"Do you have a name?" I interrupted our silent observing.

"You refuse to tell me yours and now you are asking for mine?" She turned again, giving me this sideway glanced.

"Not what I asked, I wondered if you had a name. You know, something I can pronounce," I reiterated.

"Oh," she pondered for a second. "No, I don't. If I had one, I don't remember. I was either called by my unit number or sister," she replied.

"Sister?" I inquired.

"My species refers to each other as sister or brother, since we operate in hives," the viper explained.

"I don't think I've ever seen a male viper before," I noted.

"That is because they are few. Due to the difference in size and combat potential, the males were of little use in the Advent lines. They serve as commanders or used for genetic harvesting, but there aren't a lot left."

"So female vipers are bigger?" I concluded.

"Yes, we are also more adaptable to the elder's modifications," she added.

"Do you want to have a name?" I brought the topic back.

"Certainly, I just...haven't come up with something appropriate," she sounded very enthusiastic.

"Well, if you figure one out and are willing to share it, I will tell you mine," I flashed a quick smile.

At first, I think, she didn't believe me. But after a second or two of not following it up with a remark or sarcastic gesture, she fully bought it and began looking in non-descript places. Like many humans would, she needed to occupy her eyes while thinking, meaning I could practically see the cogs turning in her head.

"Don't need to hurry though. It has to be a name you actually like. The offer will still stand tomorrow if you want to sleep on it."

"Alright," she affirmed.

Another period of uninterrupted silence followed, with all its pleasantries and a momentary distraction. A squirrel ran down the side of a tree next to us, seemingly oblivious to the giant colorful snake; though I had experienced just how stealthfully they actually were. My vision traced the small mammal, as it quickly flicked back up into another tree, as a bird of prey announced itself above.

Slowly but surely, the bright orange above us turned a darker shade and lessened in intensity. The water became a sea of glistening specks of light, that danced in rhythmical fashion along the more shallow parts, while appearing as a solid surface at the edge of the pier. I let my head rest against my shoulder and gazed upon the display, which projected its shifting colors onto the opposite shoreline.

"What was earth like before the invasion?" The viper broke the silence.

"Right before, or in general?"

"The last year before," she settled.

"Hmm," I thought back. "I only know about the more personal events through media. It was a year where people decided to take religious beliefs to the maximum, organizing terrorist attacks during active festivals and the sort. I heard about a few plane crashes, saw a live shooting on TV, but I had no connection to any of these events. I was busy in my work and with the heightening of terror within the land, I was assigned for missions that aren't recorded by these news stations."

"You worked in secret, didn't you have a family?" She asked, her expression speaking highly towards her interest

I paused and looked away for a second, taking a breath in.

"I...used to. They did me wrong early in life and I chose to walk away," I explained briefly.

"Why would they hurt you, I thought families for humans were closer than what my species have," she inquired.

"Huh, if I could ask them, I would maybe know. As it stands, I doubt they are alive, lived in Washington when the invasion started. If I had kept contact, I could have warned them that something was happening, but ey, that's hindsight for you," I scoffed.

"What is hindsight?" She asked.

"When you make a choice in a moment, but get different information later on, then look back onto that choice, knowing that there was a...better outcome," I tried to define.

"So, in hindsight, you regret not having helped them?"

I looked down onto the serpent, who was leaning on her elbows and stretching her neck upwards.

"I regret a lot of things about the weeks leading up to those events, not telling a group of people who considered me dead that aliens might invade soon, is not one of them. I don't think they would have even believed me."

"What do you think will happen in the future, knowing that aliens cannot leave anymore?" She stared out onto the river, asking almost absentmindedly.

"Strange question," I noted.

"And you don't want to answer?" She turned to me.

"Humans far smarter than me and with a lot more time and books have tried to answer that question for centuries. I have nothing new to add," I dismissed.

"Still, I'd like to hear it. You are the first human I have actually had a conversation with, I want to know how you see things," she continued.

"Hmmm," I hummed for a second and looked up, trying to organize my thoughts. "Considering everything that has transpired over the past days, I am a little more certain in a particular aspect of my view of things. Before, humans made rules and regulations, we came together to agree that certain acts and rights are universal to every human, because our consciousness made us a grander being than everything else on the planet. We put in place human rights and defined crimes too grave to be forgiven. But now, especially after what happened to all of you, that you regained your own separate consciousness, I think it is undeniable that very little separates us from you."

"Consciousness is the deciding factor, then?" She surmised.

"Among others, yes," I agreed.

She returned to her gazing with a contemplative stare.

"What about you?" I turned the question around.

"I am stranded on an alien planet, have been threatened to be killed for the past two days, locked in a cage, and lost every single one of my squad who might understand what is happening," she sighed. "But it is not all bad. The wildlife around me, the nature which I feel with every sense of my body, being able to...think. I find it fascinating," she concluded.

"The wonders of experience, huh. If we go by the human definitions, you could be considered an optimist," I explained.

"What is that?" She asked.

"An optimist is someone who sees the world as worthwhile, as inherently positive." I never said I knew anything more than surface-level philosophy, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Then I am an optimist," she announced gleefully.

"Whatever you wanna be." I smiled.

"We should get your bandages reaffixed," she rose slowly.

I immediately looked away, as the globes on her chest were pulled to the ground by gravity, as she pushed herself off the ground.

"You humans are so...secretive towards everything." She noticed me avoiding looking at her.

"Look, I just...don't know if I'm being offensive to you, I'm sorry that they're just...hanging there," I pooled all my focus to maintain full eye contact, as the serpent waited for me to stand up as well.

"Offensive to me ?" She let out a snickering hiss. "You can look all you want, there is nothing about them I feel I need to hide, the only reason my kind doesn't go around without armor or clothing is that humans always seem transfixed by them. Rumors were even spread that they were venom glands, in order to make humans more comfortable around us," she huffed at the seemingly amusing statement.

'Great, they're actually tits,' I rolled my eyes.

"Can we...change the subject?" I stated plainly.

"Sure, you're the one that brought it up," she said, her tone indicating that she hadn't quite let it go yet.

"How about we eat something, I'm starving," I suggested.

"I have already caught and eaten a few of those small, furry creatures earlier today before you woke up," she explained. "But I saw some food in your bag that interests me," she added and began slithering to her armor.

"You ate a squirrel?" I asked as I followed the viper.

"That's what they're called? I suppose so, the tails were hard to deal with," she continued to reminisce, as she picked up the separate plates, which were connected at the chest.

As I imagined the visual of the snake chasing a squirrel up a tree and promptly gulping it down, I could avoid looking at her, as she placed the metal back over her chest and held it in place.

"Are you going to help?" She turned her backside to me and looked over her shoulder.

I sighed and approached. Getting the armor on was easier than getting it off since I simply needed to secure the latch and pull the handlebar back out.

"Thank you, now I'll help you," she pulled the edges of her lips up in a smile and slithered back to the cabin, the plates of her spinal support in hand.

"I think I can bandage myself this time," I retorted and followed.

"Last time you tried, you wasted two rolls, let me do it," she insisted.

"I was almost dead when I did that."

"You were delirious, yes. Still, I think I can do it better than you," she pushed the door open and slithered inside, after adjusting her height to the lower ceiling.

"We'll see," I dismissed and walked alongside her into the living room, where my supplies were laid out.

Her tail, however, slithered past me and wrapped around the bag of medical supplies, then pulled it away from me. I only looked after it, as she snatched it from the long, dexterous limb and held it there demonstratively.

"Take off your shirt," she demanded.

"You know, the amount of time I have spent around you at least partially naked is longer than I have spent dressed."

"Do I need to undress you then, or will you hold still?" She cocked her head to the side.

I only rolled my eyes in response. She raised an impatient eyebrow and I turned around, then slipped out of my shirt. Again, there should not have been anything embarrassing about this, we were allies out of circumstance, alien and human, there was nothing embarrassing about this.

And yet, the snake's expression shifted from a slight smirk to a low hiss, which turned louder and louder, until she sounded like a gas valve. Her eyes grew larger and her long mouth pulled up in a very wide smile, which revealed the tiny teeth within.

"Why do you change color?" She held back the hissing fit

"I what?" I said before realizing what she was referring to, I was blushing.

"Your face, it turned pink just now," she reiterated.

"No, it didn't"

"Yes, it did."

"Just...get it over with," I raised my arms, exposing the numerous wounds.

"Is it because I saw you mostly naked?" She continued to prod, as she unwrapped the first roll of bandages.

"Shut up," I tried to filter out her unending snickering, as the massive body of the viper circled around me, tightly securing the white cloth around my waist.

As much as I would have liked to avoid this situation, I would not have done nearly the same quality of work as she did. When my abdomen wound was completely covered, she moved onto the next point of interest, which was my shoulder. The MAG round I had been hit by was made for armor piercing, meaning it had cut directly through my flesh and exited the other side. Her thin, clawed finger traced over my skin very gently, only brushing lightly against my sensitive wounds. Her claws were cold, but the scales were warmed up from the sun.

I tried to hold still and not to follow her with my eyes, as she slithered around me multiple times. Though a few times, she sought my eyes with the void-like slits in between sapphire color and I met her gaze, though we both immediately looked to a random corner of a room once the moment was over.

"There," she cut the last piece of fabric with her claws, then backed off and admired her work.

I looked down and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, it was nothing short of exemplary.

"Huh," I rotated my shoulder, discovering that she had stayed away from beneath my armpit, enabling me full mobility. "And you learned all this from just experimenting on me?"

"I have studied human anatomy for many years, I am familiar with your limitations," her expression spoke of pride.

"So what are you, a scientist doubling as a combatant?" I asked as I put my shirt back on.

"No, I am a simple combat unit, an old one at that," she replied and put the rest of the supplies back into the plastic bag.

"Old? You said you were about the same age as me. I know I'm not in my prime, but I wouldn't consider it old. What kind of lifespan does your species have?" I asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"I...don't know," she admitted with a flustered tone. "I just know that I am the oldest viper that I have ever seen, meaning that most don't make it to my age."

"Well, do you feel old?"

She looked into the corner of her vision and paused for a second, literally feeling out the correct response. "I feel tired," was her answer.

"How long did you sleep yesterday?"

"I am not sure. I eventually passed out when you stopped bleeding, but it was already morning by then," she thought back.

I bit onto my inner lip, as another cold cocktail of guilt seeped into my head.

"How about this, I cook us something and you just lay down a little," I suggested in a warm tone.

She squinted and gave me a sideways glance as if trying to gauge if I was just messing with her. Though she found nothing but genuineness on my part.

"I don't want to go to sleep just yet, but I will take you up on that offer. I will be outside and enjoying some of the remaining sunlight." She slithered back out.

"Sure, do you like tortellini?" I asked half-jokingly, as I unpacked the pouch of dried food.

"Never heard of them, I'm sure they will be fine," she finished up and left the cabin, her tail trailing behind her.

I grabbed two packets of the vacuum-sealed bags, unsure how much the snake would be able to eat. I searched the cabinets for the small, portable gas stove, which I knew was left in the hut. The equipment here would be of more use to us than be left here and be taken by the inevitable looters that would ransack this place. With the gas and miniature stove, as well as a metal pot, in hand, I walked outside and to the river to collect water.

The snake had coiled loosely around herself on top of a few bigger rocks, further down the shoreline, her eyes trailed me, as I went to the edge of the water. I filled the pot halfway and attached the small canister to the entry point, then lit the gas with one of my matches. Upon lighting, I lowered the oxygen and placed the pot on top of the foldable claws of the portable cooker.

I unpacked the creations of pasta and meat, then dropped them into the pot. I remembered the only important lesson about cooking them, which was to not let the water boil, simply use it to heat up the food. I squatted down and swirled around the pot a little, while my view drifted to the viper once more.

As the sunlight changed its shade once more, so did the patterns and colors of the serpent shift. The brighter yellows swam together in a fluid mosaic, while the black outlines of the eye-like pattern grew into abyssal darkness. The whitened underside of her tail and stomach stood out as the one unchanging patter, though the more hardened and rigid-looking scales of her stomach reflected the golden light of the sun perfectly back at me. She was turned away from me, gazing into the distance with those amazing...

'Amazing? What am I doing?'

I snapped back to reality with a series of blinks. I was trying to be nicer, yes. But essentially staring at her like some wonderous being felt...wrong. Not because she was an alien, but because she was a person in my eyes. And I was looking at her like some manipulable animal, someone I could get on my side with kindness alone. This was a problem I was familiar with, I didn't see people this way, I saw them as either useful or not. Interactions were annoying, contact was always forced or reprimanded, I could either use them or I acted so pissed-off that they left.

It had worked so many years before, I could not stop at this moment. Could I?

I was in danger and this had kept me safe before the invasion, it was what allowed me to survive my last few missions during the invasion, and I had employed it afterward during my time in the camp. And now I was in far greater shit than any event at the camp, and now I decide to let down my guard; the fact that she was an alien only reinforced the idiocy of this all.

No, I could not possibly allow myself this. I was not only responsible for myself, too, I had to take care of her. I had already agreed to help her and, despite the change of circumstance, I still wanted to uphold that promise. They had been done wrong and under threat of great and unjustified harm, so getting them aid was only logical to me. The previous day was a series of unfortunate events and, if I couldn't help them all, I could at least get the one out of here.

Get her out, yes, become obsessed with interacting with an alien from a world, galaxies away? Was that what I wanted, was it insatiable curiosity about such a strange concept, or just the fact that she was... fun interacting with?

Uncertainty, unease, worry, my thoughts could barely find a point to hold onto, as the train of overthinking carried me into a different place. My mind fell backward through a tiny window, slipping past the light and any semblance of control, my breaths felt incredibly cold and barely reached my lungs. I stared vacantly into the distance, as I failed to contain my own head. I felt weak for letting it happen, for seeing the edge but being unable to step away.

I was losing myself and I hated it. I fell and failed to grasp onto the world around me. The visuals around me became muted, then blurry, and eventually completely dark.

'Come on, breath. Breath!' The last bit of remaining conscious thought yelled out in my head.

I breathed.

I blinked.

The world returned through a tiny slit, in which I saw fire.

I stuck my hand out, knowing that this was the one chance I had.

The pain didn't register at first, only warmth, so I stayed still. Then my vision returned within less than a second, while the nerves within my hand screamed fire. A desperate inhale finally filled my empty lungs and my sight returned to normal. I was spat back out of the hole of terrifying thought and left in reality, where I had just burned my palm against the cooker.

"What are you doing?" I spun around, my heart skipping a beat. It was the snake, staring at me with a sideways expression that spoke of...worry?

I took a second to compose myself and avoided eye contact. Before turning off the flame and saying. "Food's done," I raised the pot of heated water and stood up.

She looked me directly in the eyes, her gaze felt scrutinizing. I subtly placed my hand on my waist, so that she wouldn't see the wrinkled skin. I returned her look, though mine was fake. She glanced to the tortellini and I saw my way out.

"I'll have to dump the water, then we can eat, there are some bowls in the hut," I explained and spun around.

She didn't respond, but I heard her slithering off towards the cabin, as I carefully poured the water back into the river. The entire time, my heart beat against my eardrums in a frantic code, which spelled out, 'fuck, what did she see, why did you do that, do you want to look like a fucking crazy person to everyone you meet within the first day of actually meeting them?'

"Found them," the viper announced confidently from the hut's entrance.

I turned and she had indeed collected two ceramic bowls, which she proudly displayed in both hands.

"Did you also see utensils? Like a fork or a spoon," I asked over the small clearing.

"Hold on," she glanced into the building from the outside and let her enormous tail slither inside. The clanking of light metal and a few cupboards announced that she used the appendage as a grabbing tool on everything while directing it from a distance. A few moments later, she emerged with two forks encoiled in the relatively thin tip. "Do you want to eat outside?" Her tone betrayed not if she was still on the subject of what I had done to myself.

"Sure, the rocks will work," I nodded to them and made my way there.

Walking was still not entirely free of pain, but I managed at a slower pace, which also allowed the viper to catch up. She swiveled back and forth, then came up on my side, keeping pace. Strange, her speeding up or slowing down was the same series of movements, just faster or slower, like someone just repeated the same animation. Her head remained level with mine and, unlike how one would expect, considering the movements, she didn't sway at all.

I caught a singular glance into the vertical slits of black, surrounded by specks of blue color, which were broken into strands of snow-like white along the outer edges. I snapped away again.

She arrived at the small boulders first and took the same spot as she had before, then waited patiently for me to also take a seat. I crossed my legs on an adjacent stone and motioned for her to hand me the bowls. Her torso simply seemed to float across the gap, while her tail remained corked like a spring. I was a little taken aback by the fact that she could suspend herself this way, but remembered what she had said about their tails being their main center of mass.

She handed me the bowls first, then a fork and I, not knowing how much she would end up eating, decided to split the pot into four total portions.

"We each start with one and if you are still hungry, you can take three," I explained, as I poured some into the containers.

"You need to eat as well, we will split it equally," she proclaimed.

I didn't respond and simply handed her the food, then sat the pot onto the nearest straight surface. "See if you like it, first."

I flipped the fork around and began eating, the taste of the pasta was stale, but the meat was a nice addition. I looked up from my food, as I heard clanking. The snake was in the process of holding the fork like a toddler holding a pencil, clenched in her four-fingered fist, stabbing at the slippery pieces of food. I couldn't help but chuckle at the giant killer snake struggling to eat with utensils, but that ever-present reminder of guilt pierced me soon afterward.

She finally stabbed one of the pieces, like a spearfisher would do to a salmon, and held it up high. "Ha!" She proclaimed in triumph.

The smirk remained on my lips, as I quietly observed the viper opening her maw. The first time I had actually gotten a close look at her, I saw the small row of inwardly bent teeth, the hole in the bottom of her jaw, where her tongue would emerge, and the pair of fang-tips, which were protruding from the roof. She let the tortellini fall onto her jaw, closed back up, and began chewing.

I had never seen a snake chew before. I had expected her to just swallow, even a human could have done so, but no, her mouth moved like a grinder up and down. As she tore into the inside of the pasta with her tiny teeth, her eyes widened and I noticed her tail begin to swat against the rock slowly.

"You like it?" I inquired.

She finished up and nodded quickly, before looking back at the fork with dismay.

"Don't bother, no one cares here," I assured.

"I'm sorry, I don't think they made these with my fingers in mind," she set the silver object onto the rock.

As I went back to eating, she simply picked out singular pieces, by sticking them onto her claws. Though this soon devolved into having eight tortellini on her hand at one time, then snatching up the row consecutively.

She of course finished first, I was a slow eater. I spotted her hungry eyes flick to the pot and couldn't stop the smile spread to my lips.

"Come on, take it," I grabbed the handle and rotated the rest over towards her.

She focused on the contents, then glanced over to my bowl, which was still half-full.

"I will hunt for us when I get the chance," she promised in return and grabbed the handle with her tail. Her scales brushed against me for a split second and my heart reacted accordingly.

I flashed the serpent another small smile, then focused on just eating. Slowly, the light of the sinking sun drew the shadows of the opposing shoreline into stretched shapes. The water, complemented with the lessening noises of birds, and whistling wind, created a nice audio background and painted a serene scene. I finished my meal only moments before the viper cleared the last bit of food out of the pot directly.

I set my bowl down and leaned back on my arms.

"I have thought about my name," she announced and I turned toward her.

"Will you tell me, then?" I prodded.

"Hmm," she mused and put a claw to her chin. "You first," her lips curled and she stared back at me.

I remained in my position, head at an angle to the side and a slight smirk on my face.

"Hello, my name is Luis. Nice to officially meet you."

The viper gleamed and cleared her throat, then straightened her posture.

"Hello, Luis, I am Isra ."