[Past]

"Care, just kill it! Please!" I desperately begged my best friend as she laughed at me.

"It's done, it's already done. Ann, get back inside." Caroline laughed but still disposed off the corpse of the hideous arachnid from my nightmares.

"You sure?" I still asked, just as an extra precaution.

"Anara Deniz, the spider is dead and in the garbage bin, now stop making excuses and get on the treadmill." Caroline urged in a motherly way, slightly annoyed but still with a smile on her lips.

I walked back inside the gym room begrudgingly as she patted my back, "Y'know, if I didn't know about your arachnophobia, I could say you were simply trying to avoid exercising."

I gasped in mock surprise, "I would never!"

"I know, you would do anything to get out of working out, but not today madam!" She sped up my treadmill and increased the incline, slapping my hand away when I tried to reduce either, "Your thighs need this, so no more excuses."

#

[Present]

The day was getting hotter with every passing minute or maybe it was me who was getting tired. I needed to rest. I knew I needed to rest. But where? Nowhere seemed particularly inviting. Almost every place was covered by either vegetation or moss and lichens upon which lay innumerable nameless bugs and microbes.

After a little while of contemplating I decided to stop and clear some space to eat a bite. As I neared a log and removed some fallen foliage to clear someplace to sit, I came to face a huge ball-like network of spiders, their number I could never even count, making me freak out and give out an involuntary scream and step back cringing.

My severe arachnophobia kicked in full force.

Going as far as I could from those tiny freaky eight-legged monsters involuntarily, I just took a few moments to calm my erratic heartbeat. I was surprised I hadn't gotten an instant heart attack. Trying to not even look in the general direction of my nightmare-inducing tiny monsters.

Once calm enough, I again tried to clear up some space, this time with hesitation and hoping to not get the same results as before. But fate wasn't on my side and I should've realized it already because I was so scared I couldn't even bring myself to scream this time.

There was an enormously long midnight-blue-hued snake-like reptilian lying in front of me, with its honey-hued eyes locked at me. Its widest width was more than my thigh and I am particularly gifted in that part of my body.

I finally snapped out of my terrified trance the instant the reptile started wriggling and gradually headed straight my way. Feeling slightly confident by its sloth-pace, I stepped back and immediately started running in the opposite direction.

Big mistake!

After a minute or two I stopped to take a breath hoping I had put enough distance between us for me to not encounter the animal any time soon. But I guess I should've realized by now, that lady luck wasn't on my side at all, because when I turned to see the path I had come from, the reptile was merely a few feet behind me hissing and ready to strike, crawling with astonishing speed.

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I stumbled and almost lost my footing. But managed to keep it and started running again faster this time and more conscious of the serpent chasing after me. I kept running until I could no more and even then every time I tried to see behind me, to know if I had lost the ophidian, it was still hot on my tail.

When I was about to give up the run, I realized I had already passed the same set of lavender-and-yellow bushes before, twice. Which certainly meant that I was going in circles and that was a bad thing. I needed to lose the serpent which seemed pretty hungry for me. But my limbs had started burning and were ready to give me up to the reptile in my pursuit.

I was never the athletic type, too lazy to exercise even. So, I needed to do something and I had to do it fast. But yet again the decision was made for me and I found myself stumbling on a thin twig on the forest floor. My breathing was heavy as I found myself facedown on the dirty moist ground. I knew I was in a danger zone regarding the ophidian following me but I had misinterpreted its speed and so when I turned to get up the serpentine had already caught up with me and was now mere inches from my face.

I could see all the crevices and pores, light and dark shades, and its thin, long, slippery purple tongue that was cut in half at the tip. My breath hitched. My pupils dilated. For a second I believed my end to be near. In sheer desperation, I turned my head to both sides on the lookout for anything that could help, since I could not reach into my bag pack to get the knives I had packed. My search brought into vision thin sticks, dried leaves and grass, and a sharp enough stone.

Without wasting a single moment I extended both arms and reached as the serpent noticed the movement of my arms. I seized the moment of its distraction and hit it as fast as I could right at its head. That made it lose its focus for a bit and I took that opportunity to smack it at the same place as many times as I could.

I was so busy trying to smash the reptile's head, I didn't notice its long strong tail headed my way as its body twisted around itself and tried to wrap around me too. The tail struck my shoulder and due to the surprise, I got pushed into the dirt.

Thankfully the ophidian was too busy trying to cover the damage I did to it that instead of attacking me further it tried to hide its head under its writhing body, the head which seemed to leak not red blood but some dark purple gooey stuff that reeked. But it wasn't dead and that meant I wasn't safe. I had witnessed its speed and wasn't going to take any chances.

I found a log nearby and started to crush the already injured head of the serpentine but the animal just won't die. It was so hard to kill, especially due to the enormously long body hindering my strikes. Even at times it would try and wrap around my arm to cease the strikes or even smack me the same way it did earlier.

At one time it even tried to bite me, showing its 3-inch fangs but in the end, I won. I smashed its head into a mince of meat, bones, and that stinky gooey dark purple stuff some of which I even got on my hands. But finally, I sighed in relief. I could finally catch my breath and possibly get a bite to eat before something else turns up to ruin this already ruined day.

My clothes were already rough and dirty and there seemed no point in searching for a proper place to sit and eat, there simply was the same moist humus and bugs and vines everywhere. I took some water from my bag and tried washing my hands but the obstinate gooey stuff won't get removed so easily. I almost used all my water supply to rid my hands of that stinky stuff. I took some of the delicious cuisines that I had packed and began to eat.

I was starving, so instead of manner-fully nibbling the mouthwatering delicacies, I attacked the meal and swallowed bite after bite, without really caring much about manners or anything.

About halfway through, my hands started to itch and redden. I realized that my hands had gotten a nasty allergy from the dark purple stuff of the serpentine and now my hands had started to itch. Frustrated I threw the half-eaten sandwich at some bushes ahead of me.

And it wasn't a surprise when a strange, less-hairy squirrel-like animal suddenly hopped out from behind them. I got startled but I noticed the same purple-ish gel stuck on the animal too, which drew its last breath right before my eyes.

I dragged myself a bit farther away to put some distance between the ophidian and its prior prey and myself and stared at their carcasses. That was definitely a reality. Sitting there on the dirty forest floor looking at the still-warm dead bodies of strange animals, only one thought was circling in my head,

"This is going to be a long day!"