A great deal of time passed before the little snake awoke again, accompanied by a ravenous hunger and maddening thirst. With a weak flick of its tongue the Softscale could sense that the familiar stench of death filling the hollow had intensified, the dampness had grown more oppressive and the water level had risen ever so slightly, even the inexplicable chill seemed to have grow more vicious.
The little snake was in quite the wretched state, seeming closer to deaths door than it had ever been since its birth. It slithered pitifully toward one of the last two remaining corpses, using the last of its strength to fill its withered stomach with a corpse. It even gulped down the putrid marsh mud, having digested its last meal long ego despite its comatose condition.
After eating it lost consciousness again, then awoke and swallowed the last of its siblings, not daring to touch the water despite its burning thirst and passed out once more. When it awoke again if felt weaker than it did before, its thirst was largely to blame, however even digesting its food was spending more energy than was recovered. The hollows pervasive chill seemed to have invaded its entire body, entering its muscles, marrow and even its mind, weakening it even further.
The hollow could be considered quite small and was no larger than a human chest cavity, however to the baby Softscale which had been small and weak to begin with and had not grown in all this time, it was large enough. It traveled back and forth, losing consciousness at times, awakening weaker than before, yet it could not find any food.
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When it once again entered the dip containing the clutch of eggs, instinct led it to an inert grey egg, it then fallowed its instincts and began its attempts to swallow it. The bones in its body creaked and cracked as it attempted to accommodate the eggs extreme proportions, seemingly about to burst.
When the egg shell finally broke down in the snake’s stomach only a wisp of life was left in the hatchling that had miraculously survived till now. With the loss of the shell, the unspeakably nauseating sludge inside filled the little creatures stomach, managing to curb both its hunger and thirst, adding a second wind to its nearly extinguished life.
One by one the eggs were devoured, even the broken shells, until all that was left was the little snake in the middle of the dip with its unsatisfied hunger. The hollow was empty, the only food, which was poisonous, and the exit were both on the other side of the moat. Even if the little snake had the eyes to see them and knew that one of the deathly smells in the air was poisonous mushrooms that it would eat anyway, it would dare not cross those waters.
As thirst and hunger grew, the little snake became weaker and weaker, coiling in upon itself to preserve as much energy as possible. When its state returned when it had awoken after eating its last kinsman something odd occurred, something suspiciously close to an idea, that went beyond instinct, vaguely formed in the little snake’s mind.
It slithered weakly to the moat, ingested enough mud to nearly double in size, then drank from the moat, drinking deeper and longer than last time, ignoring the sense of danger that burned in the back of its mind. It retracted its head and tried to slither away, only to fall limp as it entered a state uncomfortably close to death.