I grew up in a farming family. My parents grew a variety of plants and made an honest living. They wanted me to live on the farm, grow their crops, love them, things of that nature. They wanted my life to be their life. They wanted me to be them. I was still very young when I ran away for the first time—just 9. The city seemed like the logical opposite to the farm, so I escaped there. It turned out not to be the place for me. I got scared of the people. They were cold and mean. I hid in an alley and cried for some time. At some point, I looked up, and there was a small snake on my foot. It had moved so slowly, so carefully, I hadn’t even felt it.

It looked me in the eyes… It was tired. It rested its head on my leg. It flicked its tongue out, and it said, “Thankssss.” My father had warned me about baby snakes; they were reckless with their venom. But I had never felt so calm. It slithered around my limbs for hours. But the city had a curfew, and a guard found me. He yelled and screamed words at me but I was curled in a ball and covering my ears. All I could hear was the snake. It whispered to me… “kill him… kill him!!.” The man grabbed me by the shoulder, and without thinking, I lunged at him with my hands at his neck. He looked at me in confusion as my 9-year-old hands struggled to grab half of his neck. He was holding me up by the shirt, dumbfounded. And the snake was so slow… so careful… he didn't notice it slither out of my sleeve. He didn’t notice it until it bit him right on the side of the neck.

He screamed and dropped me. From the floor, I saw him rip the snake off his neck, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it. It crunched under his boot, and I felt my ribs explode. He stomped again. And again. Each time was more painful. I ran, and I pushed him. And to my surprise… he fell… crumpled over in fact. He looked at me, his face like a tomato with purple veins. “Help” he mouthed, tears streaming down his face. “HELP,” he choked out. I couldn’t help but smile. I still remember how happy I was. I put my hands on his throat again, but running footsteps behind me let me know someone had heard his scream. Before I slipped away, I touched the dying snake on the head to say, “Thankssss.”

I went home, but I knew I wouldn’t be there for long. I made a plan to leave the next day. But when I got home, my parents were furious. My mom screamed that they had been worried and I could have been hurt, but she was lying. I know she was lying because she said nothing when my father beat me. She didn’t care. They asked me what had happened, and I told them. I had done nothing wrong, yet they looked at me in horror. My father called me a monster. He said he wished I had died so he didn’t have to deal with me. But he was lying too. He could have killed me, but he didn’t. He was weak. They locked me up; they didn’t let me outside for a year. They had witch doctors and priests come to “cure” me. If I were smart then, I would have faked it, but I spat in all their faces. I hoped my spit would poison them because I could still hear the snake whispering, “Kill them!!!” But I couldn’t. A year of prison in my own house, but I finally escaped again. This time I didn’t go into the city. I went to the jungle. I’m grateful to my parents for one thing: they taught me everything they knew. I knew which plants I could eat, grow, or use for poison. I survived off plants alone in the jungle. Bigger animals saw me, but they weren't like the people of the city. They let me be.

Just a week into my time in the jungle, I found a snake, unlike anything I've ever seen. It must have been 100 feet long. It was wrapped in a coil with its eyes closed, but it wasn’t asleep. I could feel it was dying. I climbed its coils to see it in its entirety and found that she was wrapped around a mess of smashed eggs. Only one egg remained intact. The mother whispered to me, “Take it.“ I did. She saw that I would take care of this snake, and she felt the peace to be freed. Before she did, she whispered, “His name… Is Ssssskaaa”

Years went by, and Ska and I lived in the jungle. I became one with the jungle and gained divine powers from the gods of nature themselves. Ska needed to eat animals, and I didn’t like it, but he taught me that it was necessary and natural. Life was not whole on its own; Death is always necessary for nature to be whole. When he started to get big enough, I realized he could eat something more deserving of death. I would sneak into the city at night and take children or weak adults for Ska to eat. We grew stronger together. Life was good, and it was going to get better.

A few years ago, Ska came back from an afternoon slither, and he said, “I have a suprissse…” I was surprised. Nothing surprising had happened in ten years. “Closssee your eyesss.” he said playfully, but then he whispered very seriously. “And don’t… open them. not at all.”

“Hello?” A radiant, soft voice called out—a beautiful woman's voice.

“Hello?” I replied in confusion.

“Your snake is beautiful… We met outside the city today. He was telling me that-”

“You can hear him too??” I interjected, and I opened my eyes. But Ska blocked my view. He glared at me and said, “closssse them!!!!” and I did.

“Wait,” the woman said in shock. “You can hear him?”

“Well, of courssse… Ssssska is my sssnake.” She always loved the way I held my S’s.

“Well… I can see why he wanted us to meet… my name is Medusa. Your snake is wise, listen to him, don’t open your eyes.” and I didn’t. But I knew she was smiling.

Dusa and I fell madly in love. So much so that she even got me to move into the city with her. She had refurbished and lived in an abandoned part of the sewers with hundreds of snakes. We spent all of our time together with them. She said to me once, “how would you like some Serpent's Kiss?“ How could I say no? She kissed me, but on her lips was a drug. She smiled and told me she wanted to do this drug together. And It felt amazing. I felt so calm, so free to speak like I never had around people, not even her. It had the perfect name, I felt like I had always felt around snakes. It didn’t seem like a hard drug at first, but as we spent months doing it, I could feel myself needing it as much as I needed her.

And that's when everything fell apart. Dusa ended things with me and told me she had met someone else: A serpentfolk. I was just a human, and she always knew it wasn’t going to last forever. She had to move on. She ripped my heart out. I was so distraught that I opened my eyes. For the first time in a year, I opened my eyes, hoping to stop feeling anything the moment I saw the woman I loved, but she hid herself under robes. I begged her to turn me to stone, but she wouldn’t. She said she still cared for me but couldn’t be with a human. Well, that night I did enough Serpents Kiss to kill a human and lived. Then I used a knife for the first and only time. I slit my tongue, carved these scales, and went back. I begged her to take me back and to look at what I was willing to do. But she was disgusted, horrified. She left and never came back.

If I couldn’t have the Serpent's kiss I really wanted, I would have the next best thing. I sunk further into the coils of the drug. I started doing more than ever, sometimes using the closest drugs I could find if I couldn’t get it. That's how I started Shiver and Esotarum, even harder drugs, but those were even more expensive. I knew if I killed and stole from the dealers, best-case scenario, they would stop dealing and flee the city. So I had to make money. I did it doing what I’m best at, killing. I moved so slowly, so carefully, no one ever noticed me until it was too late. I got quite the reputation killing. I got so good at it that one day, the Emperor himself, Ta’Dakra, sent someone to talk to me about joining the Silver Claw. I wanted nothing to do with it until they told me how much it paid; Enough for Serpent's kiss every day. Even Esoterum, maybe. And that's how I came here. Ironically, The constant purpose of the Silver Claw and the thrill of killing decreased my need for the drugs, but I could still really go for a Serpent's Kiss right now…

But now Dejaza fucked everything up. I never liked him, but I would’ve kept killing for him if he paid. He’s going to be the most satisfying kill of my life. I can feel it.

Important note: Yyytr can not understand a single thing any snake says.