(A/N): I'm not a fucking biology major.

Hey, have I said that already?

ALSO: Well, I happened to pass out for the first time in my life today. I don't want to repeat that - it was AWFUL. It was during a choir concert - 150 people were packed like sardines (my front was touching someone's back, etc.), and I don't think I had enough to drink beforehand, and the stage lights... thankfully, however, no one saw it but the people behind me, so it didn't interrupt the concert or anything.

But I couldn't move my legs AT ALL. It sucked.

I will never forget, however, what I said when the pianist (after the concert was over) asked me where I was (I had passed out on the last song, as it was the song where we were packed like sardines), I said that I was behind the stage, by that door (the door leading to the exterior hallway near the auditorium), and she said that wit and sarcasm was a good thing to have after passing out a minute or so beforehand.

Anyway, why the fuck do people have to pass out from fucking heatstroke or whatever anyway?

Fuck humanity. Moving on.

CHAPTER TWO: NIGHTFALL

The battle begins again.

The forces on both sides have dwindled to nothing, almost, but both still fight for the sake of fighting, both still kill for the sake of killing.

I wonder, for a moment, if all of this killing is justified.

I return to my task, shredding the chest of a horla with my claws.

I drink and forget.

I still fight.

I am the only one left on my side, beside two strong allies.

All of us are beaten and bruised.

All of us are bleeding.

All of us are covered in the blood of the fallen.

All of us move on, fighting together.

I am the last one left.

I decapitate the last of their forces and move on.

It's time to kill him.

The snake head, barely digested in the bird's belly, poisons its carrier when the venom from the broken glands seeps into the walls of the stomach, into its bloodstream. The bird falls, dies, and rots.

The bugs that were inside the head also all die as the broken glands drown them in venom and acid.

The snake, no longer a beautiful creature with shining emerald scales, emerges from the decay rotted and broken, hollowed-out and zombified, sitting inside what is left of the bird.

Eventually, the bird it is in is carried off by another predator to be eaten.

A gaping, rotten hole in the side of the bird lets the head fall out.

It is free.

(A/N): There has been some major foreshadowing in this book.

Over time, yes, it will open up and become more and more obvious – believe me, some of you (specifically, Marquis Carabas, as he knows the most about it, even though it isn't much) will know the ending long before it occurs.

Now the fun part comes, of course: this last chapter, and then all the epic books beyond.

I'm going to have to re-read Wells Street Station and The Ellipse, it seems… (Finally, I have a justifiable reason to do so… Yay!)