Page 52 of To Trap a Soul

It all happened so fast that by the time she turned around with a limp, she only just noticed the grey snake with bands of cream scales curling itself back for a second strike. And that her child had leapt off of her.

A gasp tore out of her as she swiped her arms through the air to catch them, but she missed entirely.

“Stop!” she screamed, falling to her knees in an attempt to snatch her child away from the death adder.

Its short, thick tail flailed and writhed in aversion when it was attacked. Speckles of her blood were smeared across its maw from when it bit her, and it was what her child lunged for – just as they were lunged at in defence.

They managed to evade its fangs, and the snake was bitten into around the back of its neck instead. With her heart in her throat, Lindi tried to pull them off before they could get hurt, risking damage to her hands and fingers. A yelp of surprise had her falling onto her arse when they released a loud, ear-splitting shriek and lunged for her instead.

The snake wriggled in the leaves, but it was in its death throes. Lindi scampered back as her child climbed her injured leg. Right before they could snap their maw at her, following the scent of her blood, she turned incorporeal.

They fell through her intangible body and gave a roar, then turned back towards their other victim, the last sounds of its movements catching their attention alongside the smell of blood. Within seconds, her child began to consume the muchlarger snake, like their stomach was a bottomless pit that never ended.

Its neck and body were first, then they turned on what remained of the head.

Eyes wide in disgust and shock, she watched them eat. Then she remembered her wound. Considering they were safe and out of danger, she backed away enough to put space between them and turned physical.

She opened her ceramic jar of healing herbs and slapped it over her wound to hide the smell of blood. Then she wrapped her leg tight enough to stem the bleeding, while also acting like a tourniquet to stop the spread of venom as much as possible.

The smell of blood still permeated the air, because they came for her a second time with a snarl.

Lindi tried to squash the fear that clutched at her chest, but no matter that she cared for them, it was difficult to remain unafraid when a rabid beast was coming for her. She shuffled back and prepared to stand, only to pause with her eyes widening at what she saw.

Her bottom lip fell when a white spine began to protrude through their dark-grey flesh. Starting from between their shoulder blades, which also grew, vertebrae popped up one by one until they reached a set of hips. Their ability to crawl to her was hindered when their little legs began to fuse together at each new vertebrae that formed, going further down past the humanoid body it originally had until a tail formed.

They fell to the side, unused to not having legs to support themselves, and clawed at the ground as arm and hand bones formed. Regardless of their changes, they kept coming for her, flinging dirt and leaves in their wake.

Then white tipped their oval snout. A skull pushed from within their featureless face, and they snapped at her until a bottom jaw appeared. It was split into two pieces, with a sinewof muscle holding them together in the middle, and they parted their maw to hiss with a set of serpent fangs.

They turned into a snake!Well, partially.

Although a viper-like death adder skull had appeared, and a tail had replaced their legs, they still had a humanoid torso. They looked so strange, so monstrous.

Yet, when they fell headfirst into the dirt and were unable to lift it, wriggling and squirming like they were stuck, they looked... vulnerable. The change had been sudden, but it was obvious they were struggling to handle this new form. The skull was too big, too heavy for them, and their body flopped in a circle around it.

As wary as she was, she’d watched their transformation. It was her child, even if they were a little freaky now, and they still needed her.

Since they couldn’t snap at her with the top of their flat skull stuck to the ground, she managed to put her hands around them in a way that stopped them from attacking. At the same time, she noticed that all their fish fins had grown – the back fin had split in two to accommodate their spine, while long, soft frills trailed down their tail. Their arm fins flared as they roared at her when she picked them up, but the sound was squeaky and pathetic from such a small thing.

Pain twinged her leg as she stood, and her left knee almost caved in.

“Oh shit. I was bitten.” She’d totally forgotten!

As much as she wanted to assess what had just happened, she had a feral creature in her arms, and she had venom coursing through her veins.

Discarding her basket in her panic, Lindi curled her arms tight around their body and sprinted through the forest.

“I need to get home,” she muttered through panted breaths. Sweat dotted her brow, cooled down by the wind that whippedacross her face. Her forehead crinkled, and she bit her bottom lip so hard she worried she’d draw blood. “I need to get them somewhere safe.”

Somewhere that, if she died and disappeared, they couldn’t escape.

Lindi hissed in through her teeth at the burning agony that radiated up her leg, and the numbness forming in her toes. She clenched her eyes tight as she broke through the tree line.

“Please,” she rasped with a hoarse voice, clinging onto them tighter. “Please answer me for once.”

Lindi neededhishelp.

There was no one in her village who could treat venom, and the trek to Rivenspire was just too far. She’d never make it – not without a horse, which she didn’t have anymore. All her family’s farming steeds were taken.

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