Untitled Story: Chapter 1 (First Draft)

!!! THIS IS THE FIRST VERSION OF KoJ. A LOT HAS BEEN CHANGED. PLEASE REFER TO THE NEW VERSION OF CHAPTER 1 HERE !!!

This is a seperate story that occurs within the same world as Young Flame, but has its own plot. I'd originally intended to begin writing this back in december, but YF Book 3 took far longer than planned. 

This story is primarily an experiment for myself to write from the perspective of a completely non-human mind. Despite it being one of my favourite subgenres, there aren't many fantasy xenofiction that aren't reincarnation stories. 

The basic premise is this: a century old snake gains sapience, and explores what that truly means as the familiar habits they have aquired over decades suddenly conflict with new emotions. Space magic as a garnish and I get to explore an areas Solvei won't in the main series. 

The story is designed so that one can start this without reading YF, and it is the same for the opposite. if you don't want to read this, you won't miss out on anything important with Solvei's story.

I would really apreciate it if you gave it a shot, and told me what you think. it is a first draft, so i'll probably end up changing some things before continuing.

Here's the Gdocs link if you'd prefer to read it there.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10_R0rt4ZWVx7fo5jZVutudnaIogOvqSIn9SZ-2LJa0U/edit?usp=sharing 

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Advanced thought is a gift seldom achieved.

The very concept of greater comprehension was never something that occurred to me, until my mind evolved into what it is. Between now and a hundred hunts ago, there is a clear distinction in my thoughts. An undeniable understanding and clarity where before, there was only desire.

Desire for rest, for satiety, for an exhilarating hunt.

A limited state of mental capability my prey has yet to overcome. Not that I expect it to.

The large quadruped laps its tongue out to a trickle flowing down the side of the rocky cavern wall. Beyond lacking comprehension, my prey also lacks true sight, a fact revealed by its choice to drink from the spray rather than the stream. A few paces back and facing the opposite direction, the same stream would flow directly into the pitiful creature’s mouth.

It may not have either sight nor mind, but that makes it hardly different from the other creatures within my territory.

Through the bends and fractures in space, the large mammal is clear to my sight; a subterranean tiger — the name filters into my mind from elsewhere, as it has done innumerable times prior. It is a creature I have seen before, but many hunts before my mind became clear.

This tiger is far from home. The way it struggles to drink through the curves of space show how unfamiliar it is with my territory. Space down here is dense with twists, holes, and jagged rends. The perfect environment to hunt.

Prey this unfamiliar with distorted terrain never puts up a decent fight, but not every meal needs to be hard-fought.

I slither forward, letting gravity pull me through winding tubes of space perfectly sized for me. Each new curve in space I pass through angles me just right to flow along and toward my prey. My body twists to avoid a spatial rend, which would take me much further away than helpful.

The tiger finally notices my presence. Its hackles raise as it looks my way and growls. I slither through the air, a continual fall that never brings me closer to the rocky cavern floor lined with stalagmites.

Rather than taking the direct route, I sway side to side. The distorted space carries me all across the cave, leaving my approach unpredictable. It is a strategy I created through the past few dozen hunts as my sapience solidified. Before that, my hunts were quick and brutal, relying on the strength of my scales to overcome prey. By resisting the urge to travel the quickest spatial path while increasing the number of bends traversed, even prey with true sight struggle to predict my movement. Doing so against a creature without such sight isn’t a necessity as my passage through space alone would confuse it, but neither is it detrimental.

As expected, the mammal loses track of me, and backs up with swivelling ears.

Foolish creature. Sound is unreliable within this space. Even before I came to awareness, I knew never to trust echoes I might hear. If it wants to be distracted, then I shall oblige. I hiss, a deep echoing noise that only grows louder the longer I continue. My tongue tastes the mammal’s terror, but like sound, smell is unreliable for direction.

The tiger jolts at the deep, echoing hiss, and twists on its paws. My prey growls and lightning ignites along its fur, arcing from the eyes downward and across its body. A clear attempt at intimidation, but it is hardly effective when the stench of fear permeates the air.

Its movement forces me to change path, slithering beneath a stalagmite and avoiding a bend that would take me closer to the cavern ground than helpful.

The tiger spots me again, this time swivelling in the complete opposite orientation from when it first noticed me. It backs up a few steps, but I continue my careful slither through the grasp of thin space tunnels.

A crack of thunder rumbles as my prey pounces toward me, or at least where it thinks I am. With its larger body, it cannot pass through the same space tunnels I do, and so it finds itself without a snake in its grasp and open for my attack.

Electricity arcs along its claws and up its forelegs as they crash against a wall nowhere near me. A mass of the energy zaps out from its eyes, creating a distinct buzzing hum through the tunnel. Despite the surprising enhancement it possesses, it won’t help the tiger.

I jerk forward, a coil in my long body snapping me toward my food by mirroring the force with a bend in space. My prey doesn’t see me coming, but it definitely feels when my teeth sink in. I bite into the back of the tiger’s neck, freeing my size only enough to latch on. The girth of my body triples, as does my length. It is far easier to move through spatial distortion with a smaller size, but to fit such a creature down my throat, I have to grow.

My fangs cut deep, but they aren’t there to kill, they’re there so my prey can’t toss me off. The creature roars in defiance, but it is already too late.

My long body quickly wraps around the torso of the tiger, trapping both front legs and leaving the rear two to flounder. No longer able to glide through spatial tunnels, I fall to the ground alongside my prey. The taste of its blood invigorates me, pushing my body to tense, constricting the tiger.

Lightning arcs out from creature as it struggles within my grasp. The powerful field of electricity zaps over the entirety of my body, but the energy simply slides ineffectively along my scales. My fangs, deep within the tiger’s neck, sting as the power flows through them, but it is nothing more than a passing annoyance.

Air releases from my prey’s lungs in a whimper. Claws scratch at my scales, but such weak attempts have no chance of piercing my superior scales. It twists its head, trying to get its own teeth on me, but it fails to reach.

As my body continues to tighten down on the immobilised tiger, the sound of cracking bones gradually rises. My prey is desperate now. It can’t breath and it tries its hardest to scratch at me with its hind legs, but they do nothing more than nick the scales along my tail. The scratches ruin the perfect sheen I nurtured over a dozen sleeps. My grip tightens in retaliation. With a snap, the first rib shatters, signalling the collapse of the tigers chest.

Now what to do: eat my prey alive, or digest it cold?

It is always so much more enjoyable to swallow them while they’re still warm and wriggling, unwittingly assisting in their own demise, but it can come back to bite me. A few too many times over my countless hunts, meals remained a touch too alive and left me coiling with agonising stomach pains.

Often, it is difficult to discern how much I need to crush my prey so that they don’t cause a fuss while digesting, but also don’t die immediately. Some creatures tend to be more resilient than others. It would make things simple if every creature was the same, then I would know exactly how tight my constriction should be to have the perfect meal.

Four more snapping ribs and the tiger’s breath stops. The mammal goes limp. I loosen my hold before readjusting the legs of my prey. It doesn’t resist. All energy it might have had, long gone. The tiger is still alive, so whether it will satiate me or leave me with a tasteless meal, I’ll have to wait and see. I wind my body around its legs, a bend in space conveniently allowing me to cut the distance between my prey’s head and tail.

If my food becomes active while it is being digestive, the worst damage it can inflict is that with its legs and claws, so they are crushed into powder. The tiger lets out a subdued whimper as its powerful legs become crippled. Good, it can still breathe.

My fangs slide from its neck as I reorient the creature within the grasp of my tail. I let it tumble through a curve in space and land within a raised coil ready to hold it upright for my feast. My jaw widens, and I feel it unhinge as I swallow the head of the tiger first. I almost can’t wrap my jaw around its large head, but with small, incremental expansions and retractions, I pull my prey far enough into my throat that I can let it do most of the work.

My esophagus tugs at my food as my spine undulates. The combined motions within my body are slow to let me swallow, but eventually the crushed rear paws follow behind the rest of the tiger and I can shut my jaw again.

The tight, heavily bloated feeling is amazing, and it’s only made better with the ever so slight movements of my meal as it awakens from unconsciousness. It won’t be long before my prey is dead, but the tingling of electricity will make for a unique experience until it falls silent.

I slide along the earth, looking for the perfect place to rest while the tiger falls into my stomach. It doesn’t take long to find it; a spatial tube which allows gravity pull my prey lower while my head and tail can stay prone on hard ground.

The comfortable filling feeling of my stomach full with warm meat, combined with tightness of being within a spatial bend lulls me into slumber. I am the predator within my territory. It has been a long time since I need be concerned where I sleep.

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My rest shatters, along with cavern ceiling above. I need not move, as a bend carries the falling boulders away from me. Only small stones and gravel hit me through the mess of curving space, none hard enough to do more than clatter off my scales.

The earth shakes beneath me. A deafening rumble tears through the air as my head and tail vibrate along with the surface. I look up and hiss. Dread wells within my stomach.

The various bends in space appear the same as when I fell asleep, with only minor variations that are to be expected, and the cavernous stone walls of the tunnel are identical, except for the sections experiencing cave-ins. With a relieved hiss, the dread leaves me. I have not fallen within a rend. I am not on the other side; the land of eternal tectonic shifts.

This is simply a normal earthquake. Abnormally strong for my territory, but there’s no reason to fear; should the worst happen, and the earth caves in around me, I have my little pockets of space.

I hiss in annoyance as I slither forward, bringing my body off the surface and into a constant fall. Curling myself within the twisting space is hard — I can’t reduce my size to my preferred slender form while I’m digesting such large prey — but I manage. Half my body rests with gravity pulling me upward, and the other half down, leaving me in a perpetual spin where the collapsing earth can’t reach.

The quakes don’t continue for long. Lethargy overcomes me once more as the cyclic motions drain my energy. The first couple sleeps of digestion are always tiring.

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After a long rest, it is pleasing to find that the tunnel has not caved in. From the safety of my twisting space it would not have been difficult to find my way out with a simple spatial bend, but waiting for the fluctuating space to dig new pathways through this side of my territory would be undesirable. I would not have trouble finding my way, but what of the prey that cannot see?

I could always move. With comprehension opening my eyes, it might be possible to challenge the more difficult regions. Just not the other side… or the centipede caverns… or the swarm pit. A place along the amber barrier would be nice, if I ever find a decent hunting-ground along it.

As I slither through space, intent on my favourite lounging rock, a strange sight catches my attention through a single rift in space. The jump is far, but not so great as to lead to the other side. As far as it leads from my territory, I usually wouldn’t bother but what I see is intriguing. Space beyond is emptier than typical, extending an incredible distance without stone or rock to block its path.

Curiosity. An emotion relatively new to me, added along with the advanced conceptualisation that allows me to be more than my base desires. I am curious of what lies through this hole.

Not a thought of doubt passes through my mind. If curiosity is an emotion that comes with enhanced thought, then it must be good. So, what else can I do but listen?

I slither through the hole and find myself in a cavern larger than I’ve ever seen. The ground is unhardened. Likely debris from the earlier earthquakes. The space above is truly incomprehensible. Never have I been able to see this far unimpeded. At the very edge, space itself is… aligned. It hardly twists, and neither holes nor rends appear.

In contrast to above, the space around me is unstable. The distortions change constantly, at a rate I haven’t seen anywhere but the other-side. When I focus on the space far above, an ever so slight ripple flows downward. Not like the bending of space that I know. It is subtle and leaves no effect upon the warping space, but it is present, and it is coming from above. Outside the range of my sight.

Leaving this unexplored is impossible. For the many thousand hunts I’ve lived, never have I witnessed such a strange phenomena. The knowledge is pleading for me to find it. Discover it. For no other purpose than to sate my curiosity. Would appeasing this emotion give me a similar satisfaction to sating my hunger?

Slithering through the tunnels in space, I fall upward. To begin with, there is no difficulty. So close to the amber barrier, space twists in on itself tighter than I could ever need. My body slides through the optimal path, each bend and curve in space altering between pulling me higher, and allowing gravity to add to my speed.

Ever higher I climb. Each hole I enter removes the need to follow a hundred bends. Distorted space is convenient, but only good path choice can make the difference. A skill honed over countless hunts to the point it is second nature. If not for my extensive experience, slithering upward would take a thousand times longer.

My vision remains unhindered as I climb. The space grows more uniform and the strange rippling intensifies. Curves and twists become far less common and harder to weave through, but spatial holes refuse to exist at all up here.

Does this voided column ever end? What might I find if it does? What is that ever so slight rippling?

My path becomes increasingly challenging to traverse. To take advantage of the smaller spatial tunnels, I shrink my body until my half digested meal feels tight to bursting. But while the thinner size allows me to choose narrower tunnels in space, it doesn’t solve the growing concern of there being no paths ahead.

I’ve never seen space this uniform before. The wide circular wall of this chasm is unnervingly straight. It is all too orderly, too inactive. Space does not provide any protection up here, no twists to hide in, no holes to flee. Empty.

I can no longer stop; space doesn’t twist enough to allow it. All that can be done, is continue upward and trust that a path will make itself known.

That trust doesn’t last long. No path is possible anymore. Each bend is separated too far to flow between. It would be ideal to slow my slithering, to give me even a small window to plan my next steps, but doing so is not something I can afford; I need the speed I’ve built up to jump between the next few distant bends.

My tongue flicks out with an agitated hiss. There is no more spatial distortion above, so I cast my gaze below. So much unfractured space is a daunting sight, but far below, there is an opportunity.

I angle myself out of the bend and fling myself sideways without a second thought. The fall is horrible. Never have I felt such a lack of control over my own movements. I wriggle and squirm, but without the familiar spatial distortions, there is no way to control my fall.

The descent is long, but the bend I need to target rapidly approaches, only… I cannot change my trajectory. Space in the area is simply too orderly to allow it. My body twists enough to allow my head to pass through first, but much of my tail misses. The sudden change in cohesive direction across my body inflicts an intense snapping pain through my spine, but my body remains whole and I succeed in passing through the intended bend.

All my focus is required to keep up this speed and navigate the complex weave of space without tearing myself apart. I was lucky my tail wasn’t cleaved with how unclean that transition was. Despite the difficulty, this is something I’ve done countless times. With diverging space at my disposal, I weave and slide through the air at a pace incomparable to before.

My speed builds even as I rise through the air because of my masterful pathing choice and execution. I blast past my last highest point, shooting between what little spatial bends remain. Finally, I can see no more curves that will help me in my climb, so I simply let my speed carry me. My long, slender body snaps into rigidity, allowing me to coast with minimal wind.

The built up speed carries me for a good long while. Hope penetrates me. Have I done it? The strange rippling is all that remains to my perception besides the far stone walls and it only grows stronger the higher I rise. It is hard to tell if it is the lack of disturbed space that allows me to see the ripples, or if the ripples only appear above. Whatever the case, I am impatient to get the answers to my questions.

My curiosity will be sated!

Only… it won’t be. Despite the immense built up speed, it isn’t enough. Gradually, I slow until I can do nothing but flop around in the air while gravity achieves victory for the first time in a thousand hunts. Still, I cannot observe what lies above. This interest, this need to know burns in me, but it is knowledge that I am forbidden from learning.

I fall again, rapidly gaining speed as I fall back into the depths I have always called my home. Whatever is above will forever remain out of reach. Without distorted space, no path exists. My attention returns on what is below; I’d rather not be torn apart, or slammed into the wall because of negligence.

My efforts end in failure and somehow, it feels worse than simply going hungry after a failed hunt. I am frustrated, defeated, and unsatisfied. A failed hunt would result in a sleep without food, and maybe wounded pride at most. Thisfeels like something has been taken from me. Success being impossible after my hopes were raised, simply leaves me as empty as the space above.

Curiosity is a curse.

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Next Chapter 

Please let me know what you think. Would you continue reading this?