I arrived at night at a village in the middle of the jungle. The forest was dense and dark.

All kinds of cries and noises emanated from this hostile jungle.

From every nook and cranny, a monster or predator could emerge.

"Help! "I screamed.

I was broken, at the foot of a cliff surrounded by jungle, and I could feel my life slipping away. Yet I had a future and a promising destiny.

I cried over my situation and the death that was slow in coming.

I begged,

I regretted

I called daddy, mommy.

But they were far away. I was on another mountain and had fled, hoping to become human, to find a magician or a sorcerer who could at least give me a humanoid form, or maybe like Mom...

Alas, I had inherited everything from Dad. All his features.

I had to become huge like him.

He had white scales and I was all black.

Mom had given me a conscience and feelings, emotions that my species has little or none of.

My existence was painful.

Climbing trees, lying in ambush and catching mice, rats and small mammals or fish that I couldn't chew or taste, only swallow.

I was an abomination and I hated myself... I knew I was from somewhere else, from another world, but I had to face the facts.

Dad's "acquaintances" were like him, demons... and they didn't play.

I wanted to make friends, to know people, to explore the world, and I hoped that if I worked hard I'd be accepted, but I was...I looked like a Gabonese viper, 8 meters long and grown up, I'd be like Dad, a meter in diameter with a head the size of an elephant's head. What's more, my canines were protruding and very poisonous.

How I wanted to be like Mom. To have hands, legs and a beautiful, soft face like her.

Fortunately, I had a voice, but my despair filled her with grief, not knowing what to do with me other than love me, and Dad, Orochi, a local deity, was upset that I'd given up my looks. He wanted me to become like him, a deity from another mountain.

I took refuge in the village Buddhist temple, weeping and begging the monks and exorcists.

In Buddah's eyes, I was a human soul trapped in a snake's body, and the priests could neither seal me nor punish me for any crime.

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The Omnioujis, or exorcists, put me in the temple with young disciples, so I could learn to read and write. It was hard, terrible and using a paintbrush with the tip of its tail wrapped around it and drawing without moving forward or moving the body was a challenge.

The other human children were terrified and nobody wanted to be my friend, let alone play with me. They were scared because I was a snake, and then they were scared because I was venomous and threefold because my father was Orochi and any attack on me would mean ending up in his stomach. My father was no longer a human in his diet. In fact, anyone who mistreated my mother or "married" her to Orochi ended up in his stomach. He wasn't even close to an exorcist. He calmed down when we formalized his marriage to Mom, who made him promise not to eat any more humans and that, in return, the monks would leave him alone. But he'd hissed in my ear that if anyone hurt me, they'd pay... I loved Dad and adored him, but he scared me too. And I was afraid of becoming like him.

Eating someone repulsed me and ... my body repulsed me too.

What convinced me to leave were father's "acquaintances" who reproached me for being and acting like a human and not a demon. That I belonged with them rather than on the mountain, where no one would listen to me, even if I went on a rampage.

That's what Dad feared. I was sensitive and would even cry when I had to kill to eat, because I'd get sick and my stomach would burn when I ate vegetables like her or cooked meat, which I enjoyed above all else.

Swallowing a prey whole revolted me, yet my body and instincts made it go away on its own, but my mind couldn't, couldn't anymore.

I prayed to Buddha instead of Father... who couldn't do anything anyway, even with his magic. He couldn't transform himself into a human. But if it was possible or if there was a way...I would pray to the mother of snakes, Tiamat...Orochi, Buddha. But nothing happened. Just my tears falling.

I was a viper, a monstrous cobra without a flat neck, with big eyes and a few facial muscles that allowed me to show my emotions and the gift of speech.

I was heartbroken when, after several days in the temple courtyard, I overheard boys telling the monks that when I spoke or moved, I terrified them and they wanted to change seats for fear of being bitten. But I never bit anyone.

Then they organized a trip to the mountains to pick flowers and plants to make tea and incense.

Everyone left, and I had a hard time keeping up, and without my hands on the bare, wet stone, I slipped.

I called for help and nobody came.

They watched me tumble down the rocks and end up crashing into the bottom of the ravine on sharp pebbles.

I felt broken and cried.

It was getting dark, but I knew it was daytime...

NO... no... I don't want to die.

I want to live. I want to live. I am...?? Who am I?

Then I opened my eyes and I was in the jungle, I was green and in the middle of poisonous brambles.

I wanted to scream, but only a roar came from my mouth and...and...I had legs...2 winged legs and 2 hind legs.

I...I was no longer a snake .... I was something else... Someone else...

I cried PAPA!!! MAMAN???? PAPA OROCHI!!!

But only my echo answered, and the gigantic brambles, terminated by equally large flowers, answered my cries by moving out of my way.

But there was no path...

only brambles and thorns as big as spears following each other with poison.

My poison.

AND my poison beaded from my teeth and melted even the rock.

I felt as if I'd grown ten or twenty times, as I made my way between endless rocks and crevices, as if in a valley carved out of ravine after ravine in a mountain invaded by a dark, black jungle.

I was lost, elsewhere, and everything was like a dream of another life, another self, but my instincts told me that I was the king of the mountain, that, like Dad, I was the Viper God, the god of poison, but I had my heart, my feelings, and my humanity...I was Brilliant, the mad scientist...

Then I became... MIR??? And I had, no I felt another presence beside me.

It was me. And I was him.

And as I turned my head, I saw that I had 2 heads and 2 necks. I was a black and green dragon!

I was darkness and poison. I was Mir!

My memories merged and I had several lives inside me, as if I had been just one person, and now I was the last 2 at once.

I was confused.

"Who are you?" I asked and answered myself. "I am the Emperor."

"The Emperor of the Night"!!!!