#there's too much liiii-iiight

[whumpster-fire]

Rikki Tikki Dalby

The only species of venomous snake native to the British Isles is the European Adder, and it is never found on the Isle of Man. But the creature winding its way up the rutted lane towards the old stone farmhouse wasn’t.

It would have seemed a trick of the light to anyone who glanced at the road, and it would have been hard to do more than glance because it is the nature of the human mind to protect itself. It appeared as a shadow of inky black, shimmering as it weaved from one side of the road to the other, leaving patches of withered, rotted grass where it touched the vegetation on the edges. It was only as broad as a human arm, with little sign of the sheep that it had consumed, but it was hard to tell where its head was, and its  tail didn’t seem to have an end, just stretching on and on.

It wasn’t from here. It had slipped through a gap, a small crack in the world, as snakes do. But now it was here, and it was hungry. Sheep wouldn’t satisfy it. Too dull, not enough brains, not enough spirit. It   wound around and around the house, sniffing at the air, probing at the stone walls. It smelled better prey inside.

The serpent crept up the walls and through the windows and down the chimneys, until it was certain that only one human was inside right now. It would feed now, and stay here and wait for others to come.

The girl heard it enter the room. She heard the scraping of scales, and a weird hiss like the static of a wireless. But she was used to hearing odd sounds in this house. She sighed, but paid the noise no mind and stayed bent over the table, focused on her schoolwork. She never looked up as the serpent coiled and reared up, preparing to strike.

Easy prey. Too blind to notice the predator in the room.

SNAP.

The light vanished. The gray overcast sky blotted out by nothing. No light to define the serpent’s form, no shadows to hide it. There was no electricity in the farmhouse, but the air filled with the smell of ozone.

Two points of red light appeared in the blackness, and rapidly expanded until it was clear that they were eyes. Blazing scarlet, the subtle patterns of color in the irises dancing and writhing like flames and  breaking free of the edges of each eye, flattened slits of pupils appearing to perpetually shrink without truly changing size.

The serpent turned from its intended prey and struck at the eyes, but hit only stone. They opened again in the other direction. Then more eyes, then more, and more.

SNAP.

The weak light of the gloomy day returned to the kitchen. A bolt of shadow whipped across the room, carving deep into the floor. Shards of stone flew, and the farmhouse shook. The girl screamed, and leaped to her feet, but there was such a great force resisting all movement, and so little binding her or anything else to the floor. It was like moving through treacle. She ran for the door, but her feet just slid as she began to tumble in the shimmering air.

The serpent found its new target, coiling and knotting around a small, disgustingly warm body. It struck again and again, sinking fangs so inimical to life that anything should have been snuffed out with one bite into what should have been flesh. A shrill squeal burst crockery on the counter, but still it struggled.

Then came the explosion. The implosion. The wall of wrathful sound that tore the windows from their frames and the serpent’s cloak of shadows from its body and scattered it around the room, turning everything to night again.

The girl hit the ground hard, skinning her knees and elbows. She lay there in shock, paralyzed with fright at what seemed to be an entire thunderstorm crammed into the kitchen. Something long and sinuous thrashed and writhed, scattering chairs and tables to splinters, blindly seeking a streak of light and flame. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the form of a small animal, back arched, fur standing on end, fur alive with rippling arcs of ghostly fire of the blinding color and intensity of a bolt of lightning, and an eerie blue glow that seemed to pierce through even the walls. She flinched away and closed her eyes, but that image was burned into them for a long time. Sparks of color burst in her vision, and there was a strong taste of metal in her mouth, though she was sure she hadn’t bitten her tongue in the fall.

The serpent was lifted into the air, writhing and fighting to escape now, but it found no purchase on anything. The room was too wide, too long, even for its endless length to touch the walls. There was nothing around it but eyes and teeth and flame. It was pulled, twisted, and tied into knots tighter and tighter until it was bound into a compact, tangled ball, and its death throes fell still.

When the girl found her feet again, there was nothing but the scorched remnants of broken furniture and shattered pots in the kitchen, and a dusting of ash on the floor, and the pieces of something sinuous and impossibly long, now dried out and crumpled and broken and dried out and burnt. More of it littered the ground as nothing but scattered bones.

A high-pitched voice from nowhere laughed. “That was the best sport I have had in years, but you are too small and you taste empty. Send your big brothers and give me a proper meal, I am tired of rats and poultry!”

It is a mongoose’s nature to hunt snakes.

~~

So I had a silly idea. Gef is a mongoose, a creature best known in folklore for being a relatively harmless critter that hunts and kills things that are much, much more dangerous to humans. So what if Gef was a small, friendly eldritch abomination that protected his people from much, much nastier enemies?

(incidentally, the “ghostly fire” is ionized air, and the “eerie blue glow” and sparks of color are Cherenkov Radiation generated in the air and inside Voirrey’s eyeballs! Gef may be a boastful little shit but his warnings are truthful!)

#my writing #Gef the Mongoose #Lemon Demon fandom #cryptids #technically rpf #but its Gef's original creator #and she's no longer around #i wrote it for the devilment #there's too much liiii-iiight #investigators said the wood was scorched