A slithering sound echoed throughout the cave. The rats and mice squeaked like they were dying and just ran out frantically.

Yeah, something was coming. Something big.

Something really big.

Mom dragged me closer to her, while she kept a firm grasp on her bow. The thing was coming from one of the dark entrances on the other side but I couldn’t be sure which one. But mom pointed at one particular one, drew the string, and… crack! Shot.

The arrow blitzed through the air, jolting into the eye sockets of a snake as it crawled out of the darkness. A snake thicker than my head, and taller than Mom, while two-thirds of its body was still on the ground. Basically, it was three Moms tall! Yeah, probably not a great comparison but that thing was way over 7 meters in length and it was hissing like crazy.

Mom had only shot one eye, and though she tried to shoot again, the thing just swayed like crazy, dodging the arrows. It was intelligent and very agile. Constantly flicking its tongue out, the damn thing knew where we were at all times and what we were doing.

Given the size, I assumed it was an anaconda or something like that. But no… it was a viper. It didn’t have an extra head but it did have massive fangs. And they were sticking out!

“Careful,” Derek warned. “Get too close and it’ll paralyze you with its breath,” he coughed.

“Where’s that idiot when you need him,” Mom sighed. “Don’t worry, I know how to handle these things,” she again drew her bow. But instead of one arrow, there were four. Four!

Whip! Her arrows danced with the wind. The snake swayed on one side trying to dodge but the arrows curved midair, crashing into one another, forcing the last one’s trajectory far right… where it met the snake’s other eye and crashed into the thing.

‘Can arrows even do that?’ Mom was kind of… amazing.

The snake continuously wiggled, struggled and slithered. Perhaps it hurt that much? I once got some paprika in my eyes. Burned like hell. And this snake didn’t have eyes anymore. I could only wonder what the hell it was going through. However, we still couldn’t nonchalantly move closer to the thing. Particularly because snakes could sense heat with their tongues, and Mom somehow knew that. Probably experience.

She drew more arrows and aimed. Meanwhile, I’d lost track of Zena. She hadn’t attacked the snake and I didn’t see her anywhere either. What the hell was going on?

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Swish! Mom fired her arrows and again midway the last one changed its trajectory and hit the snake right between the eyes. It hissed and swayed its head around like a maniac- but just then… something dropped from the ceiling. A bat, a rat? No, it was a Zena!

Hah, jokes aside, Zena quickly sliced off the snake’s head and jumped away. The snake contorted into a coil while the severed head bit into itself like it was still alive. We maintained our distance. Apparently even the blood was paralytic.

Mom and Zena helped Derek back on his feet and together we slowly backtracked. “How come it didn’t eat him?” I said.

Mom gave me a rather weird look. As though this wasn’t the time to be asking that. “They prefer when you die and turn a little smelly…”

It made me cringe up and fall behind a few steps.

There was a problem though. The cave wasn’t wide enough to fit three people side by side, so they had to compromise. Given how massive Derek was, the only logical choice was for Mom to carry him… and she did. Zena helped, and I was oddly just behind them.

There wasn’t much in here other than just the bugs and with the snake now dead, we were more or less out of danger… crack… at least I thought we were. But then… the ground beneath me slowly cracked before my very eyes. Mom and Derek had already made it past the crack. While Zena stood on the verge alongside me.

“Don’t move,” Mom said calmly. “This happens from time to time, don’t move and it’ll be fine.” She was trying to get closer. “It’ll repair itself,” she said. Yet her voice shook. For the first time ever, Mom’s voice shook and she was sweating buckets. She didn’t sweat even moments ago when facing a snake…

No bad idea. At this rate she was going to just make the floor crack even more and take us all down.

I tried to move closer to her instead, slowly, slowly- crack! One feet went inside the damn earth, but only till my knee. There was earth beneath the crack. A sigh of relief escaped. They all basically relaxed….

Zena slowly moved aside while I took a second step.

And then… I fell.

I was wrong. There wasn’t earth there. Just some dirt that I’d mistaken as earth. And it fell along with me. Yeah, I should have stayed put like she’d said. Sigh….

“SOL!” Mom basically dived in, only to be pulled away by both Zena and Derek.

Her screams reverberated as the world turned darker and darker before my very eyes. I was falling, in slow motion, falling on my back, just like that time I got murdered.

And again, I was powerless.

My face twisted into a smile… and I didn’t even know why.

One second, two second, ten seconds… I kept on falling and falling without meeting the ground. At this rate… I was going to die. Surely, I was going to break something and-

Splash!

Cold. Cold water or something like water caked my body. It was light, awfully light and I went in, and in and I could breathe? The light of the ceiling, disappeared, along with Mom’s voice.

I kept falling through the unknown light medium; drowning deeper. It was too dark to see but it felt like heavily aerated water!

Splash! I heard another splash- did Mom come after me? No, it wasn’t from up, but rather down?

Argh- I fell on the ground with a thud… my head hurt. But not as much as I thought it would. I massaged my head and stared around. Too dark to see…. But the darkness did clear up little by little. The first thing I noticed, was the water above my head. Or rather, the water-like substance. It was floating?

And the next thing… another hole in the wall… another entrance.

‘Well, this can’t be good.’