Morning snake

18. Morning snake

Something is licking my hand. The tongue shape is weird too. It branches out at the end, so it feels like there are two tongues licking me.

I open my eyes and the sun light hits my eyes directly. I move my other hand to block the light and see that it is the snake that is licking my hand.

How adorable.

It didn’t even try to eat the children during the night. Even without fangs it could have swallowed them whole.

Of course, I would have woken up if it left my lap, but it shouldn’t have known that.

I wonder why it is acting so well. If someone pulled away my teeth, I would really dislike them.

I pet the snake. The scales feel smooth under my hand. I don’t want this snake to die.

I can’t let the children practice fighting against snakes with this one.

Susie will probably not be alright with this but maybe this will be good for her too. Okay that might be wishful thinking, but I do hope that she can get a long with this snake.

I look up and see that some of the children have woken up already. Ah. I fell asleep. I should have been staying awake tonight to make sure nothing happened to anyone while they were sleeping.

Well with my senses I should have woken up if anything dangerous got close, but you can never know. I should make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Charles notices that I have woken up and walks toward me.

This is surprising. I wonder what he wants from me. Now that I think about it, I haven’t heard him talk this whole time. Will he try to communicate with hand signals or something?

“I kept look out during the night.”

He talks quietly in a monotonous voice.

“Really? That is great. Thank you for that. I accidentally fell asleep even though I was supposed to stay awake. How was the night? Did anything happen?”

He shakes his head sideways.

“That is good. Also, if this happens again you can always just wake me up, so you don’t have to stay awake the whole night. You can maybe wake Sarah up too but if possible, just wake me up.”

He nods.

“Do you need to sleep? We can stay here for the day if you want to rest. We aren’t in a hurry to go anywhere after all.”

He shakes his head.

“Are you sure? I can even carry you so we can keep going while you sleep.”

He nods.

“Alright. I am sorry about falling asleep. I will make sure that you can rest well tonight.”

“Do not worry about it.”

I smile. I should be taking care of the children, but I ended up getting taken care of.

I am weirdly happy about it. I suppose there hasn’t been many people that took care of me in the past.

“Thank you.”

He nods. Then he turns around and walks back to the fire and the other children.

Alright, I should eat something. I didn’t get to eat yesterday evening, so I am a bit hungry. There should be some left-over meat. It was a big snake after all.

I get up with the snake and walk to the children.

“Is there any meat left from yesterday?” I ask Charles.

He points near to a small pile next to the fire.  I take a piece of meat and eat it. It is cold but delicious anyways.

Max, Lillie and Isle look scared because of the snake. Other children are still asleep.

I walk a bit further away from the sleeping children and then wave to the others to come here.

They hesitantly walk closer.

“There is a slight change in the plans. You won’t be fighting this snake today. Or at all. I got attached to it and I want it to live. So, it will be coming with us from now on.”

They look surprised and wary.

“That being said, the danger will be higher from now on since there are a lot of snakes up ahead. You will have to get used to them at the very least. It would be nice if you could fight them too, but it shouldn’t be necessary. I will protect us as well as I can after all.”

Max looks determined while the other too still look scared.

“You can come closer to the snake and pet it. It is harmless as long as it doesn’t eat you so there is no danger. Well I suppose it could strangle you too but it is under control now so there is no danger.”

That didn’t help. Now even Max looks afraid again.

I pet the snake to show them that there is nothing to worry about.

“Alright, Max come pet it.”

Max slowly walks closer. He then carefully reaches out to touch the snakes head.

When he notices that nothing happens when he touches the snake he relaxes quickly. He starts petting it happily.

“How do you like it?”

“It feels nice. I didn’t think it would be so smooth. The pattern feels good under my hand too.”

Oh, I hope they children doesn’t get too attached to the snakes because of this. Most of them will try to kill us so we need to kill a lot of them along the way.

Well I am sure it will be fine.

The girls come closer to the snake too and start petting it.

The snake raises its head and the children startle from it. Then the snake starts licking them and they start giggling.

I wonder if I could let the snake go free. Would it attack the children? It seems to be harmless so I think it would be alright.

I will eventually try letting it loose but right now it is still too dangerous. Especially since Susie will try to kill it. If it is attacked, then it might go out of control and hurt the children.

Chapter seventeen Chapter nineteen