Kinch punched his pillow and plopped down in his bunk, pretty upset with the dinner incident. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it and drifted off to sleep.
When he woke, he sat up in bed. Yawning, he looked around the barrack. He suddenly realized with a start, that there was nobody there. He stood up and snapped his gaze around the room, looking around for the rest of the crew. All the beds had been stripped and the room was cold.
"Colonel?" he called out, traipsing over to Hogan's room and looking in. The CO's room was the same, the bed stripped and the room empty.
"Where did everybody go?" he muttered under his breath.
Then he smelled it; something was cooking on the stove, filling the air with a strange aroma.
Kinch hesitantly approached the wood stove, staring at the pot that was sitting there. It sounded like it was boiling and the lid was bobbing up and down, making a quiet clinging noise. Kinch frowned and grabbed the lid of the pot carefully. He lifted it slowly and then dropped it with a yelp. Inside the pot, were dozens and dozens of snakes. They slithered and squirmed beneath each other, hissing as their tongues darted in and out of their narrow mouths. Kinch backed up, suddenly feeling faint. The snakes started slithering out of the pot and all over the floor, like a flood. He shouted in shock and surprise and grew sick when the slimy creatures started slithering up his legs. He tried to shake them off, doing a wild dance around the room. No, no, no! This wasn't happening! Whoever had plotted this dirty trick, must've known hat Kinch was deathly afraid of snakes.
"Gaaa!" he cried out, before the biggest snake of them all, wrapped itself around Kinch's neck.
"NO!" he screamed, sitting up in bed. The room was dark and Kinch suddenly realized that he was back in the barracks with all the other POW's. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the quiet snores of his fellow prisoners. His stomach suddenly rumbled up a storm. Gosh darn that chili! Shaking his head, he got up and decided to splash some water on his face. Man, thank goodness that was a dream!