Page 42 of Winging It with You

Plop.

A thick yellow constrictor lands in between my spread legs, thankfully not making any contact with my skin yet.

Plop. Plop. Plop.

One by one, more snakes are carefully dropped into my tank.

And then all at once, Wyatt tips the contents of the tank in their entirety over me, completely covering a good portion of my body in miles of slithering scales, and I think I’ve officially stopped living. The full weight of their bodies swirl around me. There’s a good possibility I’m now watching this nightmare unfold in real time from the beyond.

“Just don’t make too many sudden movements and you’ll be golden,” Wyatt says before closing the tank’s lid and locking me in from the outside. Is this guy for fucking real? How the hell am I supposed to get out of this death trap without sudden movements? I force my eyes shut and have to remind myself to breathe as I feel the thick scaled body of one of my captors start to wrap itself lazily around my leg.

Don’t panic.

Breathe. Find the key. And get yourself out of here.

I slowly fan my fingers along the floor of the tank, bumping into the middle section of one snake and what feels like the tail of another. I grab a key and shakily lift it toward the lock, afraid of those sudden movements Wyatt mentioned that would lead me to become a snake’s chew toy.

I line the small key up to the lock, and it doesn’t fit into the keyhole. Shit. Okay, next one. I set the key flat on my chest, hoping to avoid using the same one repeatedly.

I slide my left hand along the bottom of the tank again but feel the flick of a snake’s tongue on my wrist and freeze. This is most definitely a new ring of hell and someone’s plan topunish me for every bad thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I have to get out of here. Now.

Slowly but intentionally, I grab another key and lift it to the lock once more. It slides in. “Thank God,” I mutter through clenched teeth.

But even though the key slides in all the way, it doesn’t budge.

And so, the torturous cycle continues.

Locate a key, realize it’s wrong, try not to freak out about the snakes, and repeat.

Arthur returns with the lens of his camera pressed flat against the tank’s glass. His eyes are wide at my current predicament. I can only imagine the double chin situation I’ve got going on from this angle. Here’s your money shot, Arthur. You’re welcome.

At this point, it’s hard to discern where the snakes end and where I begin. They’re everywhere. Around my legs, their clammy skin wrapped just tight enough to let their presence be known. On my chest, the entirety of their combined weight moving and shifting as they, like me, figure out what in the sweet hell is going on. I’m pretty sure there is more than one slippery little fucker trying to get comfortable inside my shorts. If I weren’t legitimately crawling out of my skin, now would be the perfect opportunity for sometrouser snakehumor.

Part of me feels bad for them.

But the other, more prominent part feels like screaming until my body is no longer capable of producing sound.

Please don’t bite me, Mr. Snake, I chant internally. I continue trying key after key to no avail, my pile of discarded keys growing on my chest.

My fingers rake against the bottom of the tank as a curious large white snake makes its way from my chest and along my neck to set up shop near the side of my face, its split tongue inspecting my cheek.

And this is the moment when the panic sets in.

My heart tries to claw its way out of the very center of my chest and every inch of my body starts to shake. Every neuron firing in my brain is acutely aware of the situation I’m in.

I need to get out of this fucking tank.

Now.

“I…I don’t think I can do this,” I choke out in a panicked frenzy as I attempt to push myself up off the floor of the tank.

“Get him out of there,” Theo’s stern voice growls from somewhere above.

Theo.

“And face guaranteed elimination?” a muffled Arthur shoots back.

I…I need Theo.

---