Chapter 26: Market Basing

III

It didn’t hurt. It took me a moment to realise the two headed snake, with spiky crowns about each end, didn’t actually cause me any pain when it bit down into the meat of my right hand. Looking at the injury curiously, I saw a thick black liquid slowly oozing from the two pinpricks the fanged creature’s bite had caused. That felt… wrong somehow.

Shouldn’t my blood be red?

The tense situation around me seemed to tip over the edge at my outburst. Where before, the two parties were at a standoff. When I cried out, the ‘Street Kid’ (as they called themselves) must have assumed that Doger and his boys had done something to harm me.

The band of delinquent, disparate desperados started at the grown ups. Unarmed and outnumbered, the robbers decided to retreat but not before their leader called back:

“You’ll regret this! The Ringmaster will hear of this Barbu, don’t think this is over.” The voice grew more distant as the riled-up kids rallied and routed the riffraff.

I ignored the commotion. Picking up the creature by the scruff of one neck - the other head swung round and latched onto my thigh struggling desperately to injure me but again, it didn’t hurt. This creature was fascinating.

A dark greyish black in colour, this thing could hide even without its invisibility. The only giveaway would be the snake’s eyes. They glowed an ominous red with anger as it thrashed desperately in my grasp. I found it rather cute. The sharp and angular angles of the pointy coronas around each of its faces made it seem like a tiny dragon… whatever that was.

A part of me thought there was more to it however. I half wanted to cuddle the thrashing reptile and half wanted to dissect the thing and learn its secrets. A part of me thought the dichotomy incompatible, but that part of me was thrust away as one half won out.

Once the thugs had been run off, the malnourished militia returned to investigate the newcomer - me.

“I’m sorry about him,” the chief of the children said, offering me a hand. When he saw what I was hugging however, he jumped back - nearly losing his flatcap in the process.

“Putrid Purity’s Pustules!” he exclaimed upon seeing the double ended snake - latched at one end to my leg and at the other to my neck. I looked up from the cuddly little guy to see what he was so excited about. Around me was a ring of poor children; all keeping their distance for some reason.

“What in the false heavens is that?!” the ringleader asked, with a mix of curiosity, disgust, and fear. I looked up at the stranger, my eyes sparkling, excited to introduce my newest pet.

“This is Cuthbert,” I said, thinking of the name on the spot. Proceeding to wrench one of the vicious and confused heads from my neck - leaving a pooling mass of black streaming out of the ripped opening - I thrust it towards my saviour in an attempt to get the creature to play with him as well.

He jumped back further. The others prepared their weapons - pointing them at me. I looked about at them wildly, not knowing the reason for their sudden betrayal.

Seeing the genuine fear and lack of understanding in my eyes, flatcap bade them lower their arms - approaching slowly with hands outstretched, palms down. He stopped just beyond the range of Cuthbert’s striking distance; not that he needed to. The serpent, although I tried holding it by the neck and pointing it towards my new friend in offering, was struggling to twist in my grasp and latch back on to me. The thing was adorably clingy.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“How do you feel, are you okay?” he asked with concern, as he set his metal pipe on the ground, to show he was no threat to me.

“What do you mean?” I responded, cocking my head. “Why wouldn’t I be ‘okay’?”

“That snake, that’s biting you, I think it’s poisonous,” he said, clearly not really knowing what to do or say but pressured into doing something by the presence of those that looked up to him.

“Venomous!” I snapped back, not knowing where the sudden impulse to correct the boy had come from, “ And I’m fine. This little test subject can’t hurt me.” The second of the two compulsions had taken its turn and I looked at the creature, unable to wait for it to spill its secrets and for me to spill the things guts.

“Actually,” I went on before he could respond - speaking in the voice of a fearful child. “I do feel rather–”

☠

I woke up and the first thing I noticed was that the headache that had been terrorising me had somewhat abated. I still didn’t know who I was however.

I looked about, twisting my head from left to right, curious to find Cuthbert but not overwhelmingly so. I found I was in a bed… of sorts. More a pile of slightly stale straw with a ratty, moth-eaten blanket covering me. My two wounds were both bandaged with cleanish looking rags, with only one or two stains.

A thought flickered across the front of my mind, swimming up from its foggy depths, That will cause an infection, but it was gone before I could ask what or why or how. Dismissing the errant thought as I knew not its veracity, I continued my servaling of my surroundings.

It was cold. Looking up, I could see most of a ceiling far overhead. Holes the size of… something slightly smaller than myself… were numerous. Snow fell lightly, down from the cloudy night’s sky - landing in patches on the floor of this place.

Abandoned warehouse? Another thought wondered but didn’t elaborate when I internally expressed my curiosity. With slight annoyance, I was forced to, once more, forget the thoughts that both were, and were not, my own.

I was in a spot devoid of the fluffy white stuff, and, turning my head around, I saw there were a number of other children sleeping in other dry spots - most younger than the gang I had briefly met.

I saw light above, in a room that I thought might be a foreman’s office? A place that overlooked the floor from near the high ceilings.

Abandoned factory? The unwarranted ideas were starting to get annoying so I chose to ignore them.

Seeing that my pet/specimen was nowhere in the immediate vicinity, and that the inhabitants of the lower floor were all sound asleep, I got up - somehow remembering how to operate my body. I sought to satisfy my curiosity.

Climbing the rickety wooden staircase that was exposed to the whole room, I headed up, towards the flickering orange candescence. Voices began to resolve as I crept towards the overseer’s room - trying not to wake the sleeping children below.

“What are we gonna do, the Ringmaster will drive us out of town once he finds out we attacked one of his men,” one rather young sounding girl complained with evident fear.

“That won’t happen,” the voice of the boy who had offered me his hand responded, sounding very much sure of himself, “We have a deal with that circusfreak - we don’t set foot on his side of town and his men don’t operate on the wildside,” he insisted, though even I, still several steps from the door, could hear there was uncertainty behind those words.

Wildside, is that because this side of town is closest to the Wilds? One half of my mind wondered.

Of course it is, you overly emotional dolt! The other responded viciously.

That wasn’t good, it was bad enough that I was hearing voices - but now they were talking to each other. Deciding to pretend that didn’t happen, I continued my oddly quiet advance, wanting to thank my saviours and ask if they’d seen Cuthbert.

“I don’t think that’ll matta,” a slow and ponderous voice said grimly, to which the only response was silence. I pushed open the door.

That voice, so crude and inelegant - speaking so slowly. Probably belongs to an idiot with more muscle than mind, the colder of the two voices scoffed.

Don’t be so mean, you can’t possibly know that, the other retorted.

“Get out of my head!” I yelled, tearing at my hair in desperation. The room's three inhabitants, sat on upturned crates about a candle, turned in shock to the newcomer who had barged in and started screaming.

They looked at me as if I were crazy. Why?