You don't know much about snakebites, but this doesn't seem normal. It's almost like your skin is changing to
that of the snake that bit you!
You look to the other side of the log to find the rattlesnake is gone. You realize you never did hear it
rattle. Desperate, but unable to stand you sit up and lean against the log, unsure of what is happening or
anything you can do to deal with the situation. You try to calm yourself as the changes continue.
You don't know it yet, but you are becoming a naga, a serpent-human chimera from the folklore of the people of
India, a human-torso with the body of a snake from the midriff down. You only know that your hands and feet
feel strange, and that you don't have the strength to stand up.
You're a normal, average man in your early 30s, a bit out of shape from your office-work job, and your healthy
impulse appears to have betrayed you... or maybe not. The numbness spreads up your leg, and down into the
other leg, and from one arm to the other. You can still move, a slight pins-and-needles sensation in the
muscles, but you don't feel strong enough to stand, and your voice has become a whisper as you try to call
out, 'help me' ... the sound barely audible. A dizziness comes and goes, your vision blurs and clears, and
you feel your muzzy-headed blur of thoughts sharpen, and now you can wonder why you aren't feeling more panic,
because the scales have started on your other hand. You watch them spread up both arms, and take off your
other shoe, finding that the scales are there as well.
The sun is pounding down on you, and the heat makes you feel good. You feel the need to bask in it, so you
unfasten your shirt, pull it off. The scales are spreading further, having reached your shoulder, spreading
across your chest and presumably up your neck, though you cannot feel them, with your hands still numb, and
you realize that your nails have become some kind of claw, quite sharp, and you could cut yourself and not
realize it with the anaesthesia of the change. So you don't poke at your face. Instead, you pull down your
pants and underwear, and see something even stranger happening.
Your penis is covered in tiny scales. This is definitely not something that snakes have, you're certain of
that - you can remember much more clearly than you were able to before, the trivial details of all your
classes, and you know from biology courses that male snakes have "hemi-penes" - each testicle equipped with
its own individual penis that retracts into a cavity in their abdomen separate from their cloaca, and that
they don't have scales.
This should worry you as well. The scales on your legs are moving further up, and you feel your tailbone
growing and your ribcage feels very odd.
The sharp smell of another serpent fills your nose and you find yourself licking the air, catching the scent
and pushing with the two forks of your tongue into a slot on the top of your mouth. Your jaw feels strange,
loose. The rattlesnake slithers over the top of the log you are lying against, and drops a large rabbit onto
your chest. The smell from the snake is almost like a simple conversation: "EAT. YOU MUST EAT."
You feel a growl from your stomach. Yes. It's raw. That's ... irrelevant, it smells delicious, so you pick it
up and open your mouth. The stretch of your jaw is startling - you find yourself shoving the rabbit in, head
first, and you don't even stop to worry about breathing. It doesn't matter. You can breathe from under your
tongue; the air channel there lets you swallow without suffocating. The rabbit is a bit of an effort going
in, but you push, and feel your neck straining up and down, and it pushes... past something, you push your
shoulders together and it CRUNCHES inside you, and slides in more easily. Then you feel it, sliding into your
stomach, and the sensation of hunger fades briefly. The rattlesnake is gone again.
You feel a stretching sensation in your feet. The shape of your feet changes, the toes growing longer, the
great toe shifting a bit to the side, and the heel spreading, and you realize that you now have large hands
where your feet once were. There is an odd popping in your hips, and you look down to see the scaled length
of your body shifting further. Your ribcage has continued to grow, longer and longer, though there is a taper
where it originally ended that remains; it feels looser to you, in some ways. You feel the length of your
newly growing tail, and examine the hand that used to be your right foot. It looks much like the one that
comes from your shoulder, though that one has grown larger while the 'foot' grew smaller in its translation to
hand. Your legs feel shorter, as well, your arms slightly longer. Apparently, you will have four arms.
The midday sun beats on you hotter, but you don't feel overheated. The energy of the change is coming from the
heat, from burning the fat you had stored, and from the rabbit... rabbit, you're hungry again. The rattlesnake
appears again as soon as you realize that, with another wild hare, already dead. "EAT" says its scent, and
you do, this time finding it easier to open your throat, and to crunch down to swallow the prey that fuels
your transformation.
It seems to you that the digestion is much faster than it should be - you remember that snakes cannot digest
as quickly as mammals, and you've been digesting a whole rabbit, fur, bones, nails and skin along with the
rest of it. Your entire body is now covered in the scales; thicker, wider 'scutes' running from where your
old abdomen started and going down the tail, which has extended past where your feet were. You know you are
going to need much more than two rabbits to fill in even that much, and you can feel the new ribs forming. The
snake returns to you with a third rabbit, and waits for you to finish.
The smell from the rattlesnake says "EAT ME NOW". You are certain that you don't want to do that, because
the rattlesnake appears to know about your change, but it doesn't give you a choice: as soon as you have
swallowed the third rabbit, and the momentary torpor of digestion washes over you, the snake slides up onto
your body. It feels, not erotic, but very comfortable, very familiar, to have its scales slide across yours.
But then it pushes its head into your mouth and the scent it releases is strong, and you find yourself helping
it to slide into you, past the throat and into your gut. The snake is quite large, nearly as big as you were
as a human, which makes you wonder how you possibly missed it in the first place.
"It was disguised, of course." The voice in your head that is not your own internal narrative is
sufficiently strange that it would make you choke, but you have only swallowed about half of the serpent, and
you are feeling an intense, buzzing tingle through where your hips were, and down your back and out into the
tail that you now feel growing longer and heavier. Your arms are stronger, you can now lift the snake to pull
it down, with both sets of arms, and you feel muscle shifting in your back and neck.
"Who are you?" you think, hoping that whatever spoke to you can also hear you.
"I am the egg of the Guardian, oh newly-fashioned, and I am the mother and father of the new you." The voice
seems both warm and dispassionate. You sense a faint affection, and a hint of apology, and you realize that
you have been changed in a way that will make it difficult to return to your old life.
"Why was I chosen? Accident, happenstance, or was I selected?" You feel that perhaps this new body you are
being forced into will be tolerable enough if there is a good reason for the change. Certainly you were bored
with your previous life, and not looking forward to where it had been taking you: you had broken with your
lover, who wanted you to be a 'better provider' but wasn't willing to contribute to that; you had cordial but
distant relationship with your parents, who were neither affectionate nor malicious. They were simply so
preoccupied with their own selves that they never really considered you once you grew past childhood; they had
raised you to be self-sufficient, and then gone on with their own lives.
The voice of the egg of the Guardian did not answer you, as you pushed the last foot of the rattlesnake into
your gullet, swallowing it and feeling it digesting, much faster than it should have, and feeling the weaving
of new muscle stretching across your body. Your rib-cage had changed shape to accommodate the mechanics of
your intended form, as your legs moved up and your hips disappeared bone and tissue migrating to where they
would be needed, and the muscles in your chest and back that moved arms had attached to the migrated former-
legs, still slightly brawnier and larger than the ones above, but not in an unpleasant way. You can tell that
you have a more muscular build than before, but still somewhat lithe, and you realize that you are still not
properly filled-out yet. An awareness from the egg perhaps, telling you that you will need to be much more
physically to become the Guardian. And you put aside that thought, for a moment, because your emotions, while
still pleasantly blunted, are preparing to scream at you if you let them.
The numbness now fading, slowly, you could feel the coolness of the ground where the sun had not touched, the
warmth of the sun on your body giving you energy - literally, it was like they were solar cells, taking light
and providing you with power from within the deep red-and-yellow brown scales.
You see that you are patterned similarly to the rattlesnake, with darker and lighter scales in a slight
diamond pattern down your back and the "outer" surfaces of your arms, a more golden sleekness on the scutes of
your belly. Your body extends out nearly four meters from head to tail - that is, nearly twenty feet long in
the more common usage. You measure your length against the log and against the leg of your discarded pants.
You also know that you prefer to remain shirtless, for that reason, but that there will be a need for some
sort of garb - the wordless knowledge from the egg telling you that you will need to live within society - but
that it won't be important yet.
You examine your new body, making sure you can feel everything and that you are moving correctly. A snake with
an external penis, however scaly, would be unable to go over ground, so you are not distressed when you find
that it is "gone" now. Your penis has retracted, while you were busily devouring the serpent that changed
you; you know where it is, under a red-tinged scute, and you know that there is a cloaca further down from
which you will expel wastes, and you also know that you won't likely have many of those because your body will
continue to be extremely efficient about using the food you eat. And the knowledge from the egg tells you
that you are able to eat vegetables, but not so many as you used to.
The voice speaks again, as the sun begins to move down and shadows lengthen.
"You are now integrated into your new form. You are a Naga, a Guardian. I will remain with you, and speak with
you, as long as you need me to be here, but I am now a part of you. We must go to the place I was created,
you could call it a temple, or an embassy, or a ruin. While we go, I will answer your questions. Gather your
worldly goods, we must not leave behind any trace of your former self."
You had a small belt pouch in which you carried your smartphone, a utility knife, and your wallet with
identification. The belt can barely go around your torso, but without hips it would slide right off as you
moved, so you tighten it up and punch holes closer in with the claws of your former right foot, and tighten it
above the bicep of the left lower arm. Your wallet, your information - you also make a bundle of your
clothes, and tie it across your right upper shoulder and down between your left arms, tied at the chest and
slung across your back.
Moving through the forest path is easier than first thought suggests it should be; you find that your strong
back muscles allow you to raise your body up into a 'standing' position and that your lower arms can be used
to push off of low boulders or logs, that you can slide soundlessly and faster than running by back-and-forth
undulation, that you are leaving no tracks behind you other than the occasional smudge. The ground is dry and
hard in most places. You stay to the path for the most part, but the Egg instinct tells you to take a few
small side-paths that look like nothing. The brambles and stones are unable to penetrate the armor of your
scales, and you find yourself breathing quickly, warmed up and eager. You catch the scent of a small deer on
your tongue and taste it from the air, but the urgency of getting to your destination keeps you from going to
hunt, which is, on reflection, a good thing.
"You were chosen, and not chosen. There would have been perhaps a hundred male humans who would be suitable
who could have come. You were the one whose spirit answered the call, and that is entirely your choice, and
entirely metaphorical. We did not send out a specific psychic message; if you had not replied, then the
serpent would have waited, if none had come before the cold weather, he would have returned, or died, and my
mission failed."
"What is this mission?"
"You are now the Guardian. There is a catastrophe, a disaster, coming soon. You were changed to enable you to
survive and to protect the treasure of this world against loss from this disaster." The voice then goes
silent, and you know that it isn't going to answer further... and you see the shape of stone columns covered
in many years' growth of plants and vines.
The ruins, once you get inside, are a bit of a surprise. It appears that in the past, a rather large stone
structure was here, perhaps as large as a city block. A small pond gleaming wetly in the shaded bottom was
probably the deepest part of the basement; you feel drawn to go down alongside it and enter a dark tunnel.
There are paths through the collapse that you can take, but at least three times you have to use the strength
of your arms to lower yourself. Faint tracks of something reddish appear to your vision, and a dim path shows
you the route that the rattlesnake took on its way out.
The path leads you to a place filled with light...