The snake pit
Chapter 1
"Hiss!" The thin body of the snake was swept by a flash of dark shadow, and it hit a stout tree hard. The branches shook and the leaves rustled and a bird or two screamed and flew away. A red line slipped from the corner of the boy's mouth, he lifted himself up on the rough bark of the tree with his pale arm, twisted his waist, and glided through the velvety grass with extraordinary speed. A pair of red eyes watched him behind him as he slipped deep into a thick wooded forest.
"Godric, keep up! A red-headed boy led by a man in a pair of long leather boots was treading on the ground with a crisp sound of dead branches and leaves. "Yes." The boy followed the man with long strides, panting. They walked up a hill and stopped under a tree. "Godric," said the man, pointing to a bright red apple hanging from a tree, "I want you to go up there and pick it." The boy looked up at the overhanging apple and hesitated for a moment. Before the man's face fell completely, he approached the tree trunk and moved up little by little with his arms around him and his legs under him. A shiny pistol was quietly drawn from the man's handbag, and the black muzzle was aimed at the back of the red-headed boy's heart.
"Hiss, hiss..." His black hair shook, he listened to the intoxicant sound of the fallen leaves, stroked the towering trees, his silvery scaly tail circled his territory, his master wandering aimlessly. "Click click..." A series of tiny footsteps rang out from far to near in the empty wood, his pointed ears moved, and his lazy eyes became suddenly fierce.
The dead leaves on the ground were whipped up by a gust of wind, hissing, and the bright red snake quivered in the air like a flame. An image formed in his brain, and his sensitive sense of taste and hearing quickly located the aggressor. His sharp canine teeth glinted cold, and he lurked behind a tree not far from his target, hidden in shadows that the sun could not cast. His head peered out a little from behind the tree, and the man's slowly raised pistol was reflected in his suddenly widening eyes, unknown to his target, and the veins on his arms burst, "Hissing!"
The red-headed boy, clinging to the tree, felt cold behind him, his heart throbbing at the untimely thought that the man on the road had been looking wrong, and a sense of ominous crisis was haunting him. His body was tight, his nystagmus, but there was no turning back. Nailed to the tree, he was a sitting target. His eyes darkened and he closed.
"Ah!" A hysterical cry broke out, but the pain the red-headed boy had imagined did not come. Opening his eyes, he scanned his body. There was not a single hole of blood, and with relief, his sweaty palms pulled slowly down the bark.
The real owner of the territory watched as the red-headed boy his own age slid down the tree trunk and at some point jumped to the ground. "Who are you? The boy noticed him, his eyes clinging uncontrollably to his right hand, which was still bleeding, and what looked like flesh under his long fingernails, and the nostrils quivering, and the air thick with the smell of blood. The boy saw the man again on the ground, slumped in the dust, his bloodshot eyes bulging, his mouth wide open, his face drained of color, a deep gash on his neck, blood gushing from it, his expression full of fear and pain.
The red-headed boy stepped back, his voice shaking. "Are you going to kill me, too?" His deep black eyes flickered slightly. He turned his head to think for a moment, then shook his head. "And you..." The boy was confused. "Sizzle, sizzle." "Well, can't you speak human speech?" The brunette nodded, and the redhead suddenly saw the light. "Shall I help you?" The redhead smiled and held out his hand. The dark-haired teenager paused for a moment as he reached out, but finally plucked up the courage to hold him. "Well, we're friends now," Godric told him earnestly. "So you mustn't eat me."