Şnakes in the Glass

⌁Şnakes Are Everywhere.

They↝it) wiggle happily beneath her.

She feels them↝it) imposing~~〰 asserting~~〰 subverting≿.

It〰They hisssssssssssss.

Glasss shattered.

Someone screamed.

Hasn't this compulsion~~〰 conversion ~~﹏ aversion ~~༽nightmare ༽ ༼ ༽ ༽ occurred before?

Her legs merge into something serpentine.

﹏﹏﹏crazed coils clench

├┬┴┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┬┴┴┬┬┴┬┴┤

The Hard Problem of Consciousness couldn't be solved in a single evening's slithering session.

That said, Selene likes to believe she has an immortal ༼⌁immoral⌁ ༽ soul. Since this is her story, she has that prerogative.

༼ →_→ Sssssibilant sssssshadows are ssssneaky but sssssSSSnuggly. ←_← ༽

Sssssssshe crawlssssssstraight out of the musssssic that sssssaturatessss her ssssssubconsciousssss.~〰

├┬┴┤ (Θ_├┬┴┴🐍┬┴┴┤ (Θ_├┬┴┤

Selene basks in a luxurious bath.

The gigantic freestanding tub is made of ivory, perched on five clawfoot legs made of solid gold. The faucets are polished silver, as reflective as mirrors.~Ϟ↝Ϟ↝Ϟ↝She sees her own slitted eyes staring back at her with cold spite. ༽

The lighting is soft, the air fragranced with lavender and sandalwood ༼ ~~〰 and something~〰 inssssidiousssssϞ. The water is enriched with nutrient-dense Himalayan pink salt. Quiet air-massage jets soothe her muscles as she sips her expensive cognac ༼ ~that has a rotten under-taste༼༼〰 ༽༼ .

This is ↯fractured↯ ¡¡💎!!elegance!!💎!!

But her delight is too easily disturbed by dark◉~◉ daydreams≿↭within a nightmare.

She laments the state of the world.

People are angry, petty, cruel, duplicitous, untrustworthy, jealous,_envious!, wrathful, and so damn POSSESSIVE!!!, wanting more & more & forever MORE!!! Ϟthings they don't deserve in their darkest dreams!!!!

She isn't certain whether to scream or cry Ϟ↝or choke.

~〰 Something in the pipes hisses~〰 .

~〰 Her bathwater starts trembling~〰 ~〰 .

In a frightful flash!!!︵‿︵a silver viper sticks its head out of the silver faucet!→

The slippery serpent then slides out, like the reverse motion of her sucking a spaghetti strand in. When it plops into her perfect bath, there is an explosive geyser that splashes the walls and floors, as if the water itself is fleeing in fright.

The asp glares at her with its tongue Ϟ while tasting her with its eyes.

She scrambles backward in the tub, slamming her back, hurting her spine, flailing her arms and painfully cracking <>>cutting>>> her wrists. She pulls her legs up, grabbing her knees, her feet and toes shriveling to avoid any contact with the monster.

↯ϞShe is perfectly terrifiedϞ↯ ↙↙

༼ →_→⪢ until the spray of precious gems gushes out of the faucet, right after the snake.

Her aversion bites its own tail, turning into avarice.

She becomes so mesmerized by the small fortune, she's barely aware of the snake crawling towards her through the treasures︵‿︵༽༼ ༽༼ ༽

༼ ༽‿︵‿︵>⪢until the serpent wraps itself around her bare breasts.

├├┬┤ (⊙_├┬┴┴🐍┬┴┴🐍 (⊙_├┬┴┤

Selene is at work, on the phone, cold calling old people, posing as a Medicare agent. She's surrounded by coworkers in similar cubicles, with their naga-approved spiel ⌁Lies⌁ posted in front of them, written in blood on rabbit skins.

She no longer needs to read the script. She knows it by heart.

"Hello, reader, I am contacting your contemptuous cognizance to inform you that you have lost your mind. Do not attempt to adjust your brainwaves. We control the intellectual ︵‿︵‿<h`orizontal>~. We control the emotional ︵‿︵‿<v`ertical>~.

"We repeat: there is something radically wrong with your ¡↯rational`reasoning~↯!

"For the next millennium, you will suffer an omnipresent sentence of ophidiophobia as punishment for all your grievious ︵‿︵‿<greedy!>~ sinssssss."

Seline rasps slightly whenever she says 'sin'.

She can't seem to help it.

Across an aisle from her in this stunted corporate mausoleum sits one of her coworkers, Amethyst, a snooty bitch with spiderweb tattoos on her neck and fingers. She always wears too much makeup. Today, it's purple and smells like ︵༼ ༽༽lost~ lilac.

Suddenly Seline focuses on what that slut is wearing, and it sends a shock ︵‿shiver︵‿ through her entire body.

In the distance, something rumblessss&hissssesss.

Amethyst is wearing Selene's necklace!, her grandmother's necklace!! and her great grandmother's before that!!!, a priceless heirloom that skank had the audacity to steal from her when she wasn't looking!?!?! ༼ into the looking glass???༼ ༽

Grabbing the stapler and the steak knife off her desk, Selene attacks.

Glasss shattered.

Amethyst screams.

├┬🐍┤ (◉_├🐍┴┴🐍┬┴┴┤ (⊙_├┬┤

Selene and her brother Sam are eating at a restaurant that is an unsettling blend of an Applebees and a PetSsssmart. The eatery is deceitful about what ingredients are in their dishes, so Seline orders blind.

Dressed only in a diaper, Sam explains he is so bug-eyed over his new girlfriend, he plans to marry her.

Her brother is a gullible fool, ever more so the higher woman's bra size goes up.

He's a pitifully typical man~〰 governed by his dick.

Selene is ashamed to be related to him.

Thunder reverberates from the kitchen/kennel .

<<Glass was breaking, causing her pain.>>

Al Wilson blasts from the sound system.

├┬🐍┤ (◉_├🐍┴┴🐍┬┴┤🐍 (⊙_├┬┤

Skipping ahead to skid into the same shady chopdoghouse, the same music was playing in a spiral when Sam introduced Selene to Helen.

This time, her brother is dressed like a clown with an iron band added his neck and a chain leading to Helen, who is haughty/pretentiousss/ssssmug in chic clothes like those worn by Cleopatra ༼ ༽Helen of Troy?༽

Selene is unsettled by the woman. It's more than just an immediate disliking.

Helen gave Selene pisssssed-off-gooseflesh.

She retreats to a bathroom ༼ backyard༽ to compose herself. Her earrings tell her,

Ϟ↝⪢She was sizing you up like a dog eyeing a chew toy﹏.

Then her necklace disappears.

She freezes, panicked!~~〰 ↯FURIOUS!!!↯~~〰 unsurprised⌁.......

Selene knows who the thief is.

Blinded by a need for unrighteous retribution, she storms into dining area﹏﹏ thunder following her.

And SURE ENOUGH! Her brother's whore is wearing Selene's priceless necklace, the one that matches her invaluable bracelet & rings.

Selene stridesss over to the table, picks up her brother's steak knife, and slits Helen's throat.

She isn't surprised when baby snakes gush out of the bloody slice.

Şnakes Are Everywhere.

She is saving her brother from himself.

├┬🐍┤ (◎_├🐍┴┴🐍🐍┴┤ (◎_├┬🐍┤

Looking Helen in the eyes, Selene doesn't like what she seesϞ↝ something sly and needy ︵‿⪢a reflection of her own eyes gazing back at her︵‿⪢ that feel vile.

├┬🐍┤ (⊙_├┬┴┴🐍┬┴┴🐍 (⊙_├┬┴┤

Selene is at Taco Bell, waiting in a drive-thru line that stretches~〰 snakes around the block.

Everyone in town is apparently as eager as she is to try the new <Live!!> guinea pig gorditas.

To Ϟ↝brutally🩸> kill the wait time, she plays Snakes and Ladders on her phone, her favorite video game.

Imagining The End, she listens to her favorite song on a continuous Ϟ↝tail-eating︵‿> loop, singing along with Eric Church.

When she finally pulls up to the menu machine, expecting the normal A.I. cheery bullshit, she instead hears hissing.

A puff of pink steam squirts out of the voice-box.

Then the snake lunges forth from the display, attempting to strike her face, nearly ssssuceeding. Instead, it hits her sideview mirror, shattering it.

Glass Shattered!

├┴🐍🐍 (⓿~~(⓿)🐍🐍├🐍┤🐍🐍┴┤

Selene is drivingϞ↝fast> through town, away from all the many dens of vipers.

Şnakes are everywhere.

She has only two good friends left in the world, and the three of them now escape this city→⪢nightmare together.

They are all so relieved to be leaving, they're positively cheery.

Both her boos are in the back seat. Like always, they're gosssssiping~〰 sssssshit-talking about people they barely know.

Selene is so involved in small talk, she makes a wrong turn.

And then suddenly! the city evaporates and they are cruising through a dark, gnarled forest.

She gets lost.

Behind her, her friends get hisssssing mad.

She looks up into her rearview mirror, which is hit in that moment with a splat of darkness, gumming up the warning.

They strike from behind, snatching her precious necklace, tearing through her ear lobes as they rip off her earrings.

Then they plunge fangs into her neck.

She recalled Virgil said, "There is always a snake lurking in the grass."

<<<<glassssssss>sss>ss>s>.

Their poisssson caussssesssss Sssssshadowsssss & Ssssserpentssssssss to intertwine inssssside Sssssselene.

Images worm in a lopsided figure eight﹏﹏ like a ever-repeating upside/down Duran Duran video staged in a circular church.

🐍├┴🐍🐍 (⊚﹏(◎)🐍🐍├🐍┤🐍🐍┴┤

The wind heralds the changing ༼ churning༽ weather. Trees and bushes bend over backwards ༼ when push comes to shove༽. _Lightning↯⚡↯ begins assaulting the Earth↯, accompanied by thunderous crashes loud enough to wake the dead ༽but not the dreaming↯.༽

The atmosphere seems poised to provide a deluge of Biblical proportions ༼ ༽ominous enough to require arks༼ ༽, but the storm that breaks instead brings something far more sinisssster.

Snakes rains from the sky,

hundreds-- probably thousands of snakes of all shapes and sizes. Adders, boas, cobras, copperheads, pit vipers, water moccasins, mambas ༼༽🎼🎵🎶everybody dance now!🎶 ༽༽, sidewinders, rattlesnakes, coral snakes, even striped sea snakes.

Many of smaller snakes fall faster than the big snakes, hitting the ground spritely to immediately come after her.

She flees but has no chance of getting away.

Snakes begin pummeling her from the above, hitting with varying degrees of force, impacts that sting, others that damn near knock her off her feet Ϟ↝and the worst ones are:Ϟ↝ the ones that splat innocently like strips of strange, unbreakable jelly.

Glass shattered!!

Selene squealed with pain!!!

A few snakes try to bite her as they plummet, dragging their claws down her body, opening up long gashes.

A serpent that hits her shoulder quickly coils around her neck.

Then an anaconda weighing more than she does slams her to the ground.

Laying in grlass,,,, constrictors tighten like sentient chains...

....Rattles.... all around her compete with the deafening thunder ﹏﹏and lose. ﹏

A shiny golden snake came crawling toward her face.

It was༽༼ ༽༼ ༽ hideous~〰 gorgeous!

Its eyes glittered like emeralds mixed with diamonds fused by content/intent.

Feeling like Eve in the Garden of Eden, Selene smiled, then willfully opened her mouth.

The serpent wriggles down her throat.

She chokes on her own sinsssssssss.

🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 (⓿﹏(⓿)🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

Şelene peers into the looking glass, seeing a woman who is always angry, petty, cruel, untrustworthy, jealous, envious!, wrathful, and so unbelievably greedy!

Everyone in her life ༼ ༽this nightmare ༽ was a mirror of herself.

When Selene woke up from her nightmares, she felt muddled, unmotivated, and unwilling to be conscious. She just wanted to stay/slay-> under her covers and...

There were no covers.

Infinitely worse, she realized her head was aching, probably because she had no pillows.

And her bed was~~〰

This was not a bed.

She sat up with a start, only to almost tip over from a rush of dizziness.

Pain only reached her mind when she saw all the little cuts on her arms and hands.

She was lying in broken glass.

This was the jewelry store where her sister-in-law〰> that bitch Helen was employed. It looked like a horse had galloped through it. Many of the display cases were broken. Plush seating that probably once appeared sophisticated was now in shreds.

Jewelry was scattered everywhere.

She saw the blood trail and followed it with her terrified gaze.

Which led her eyes to the bloody knife.

Scattered beside the murder weapon and her snakeskin jacket was her old cheap costume jewelry.

Looking at her bloody fingers for the first time, she saw ten different rings-- a blue diamond, a red diamond, a Paraiba tourmaline, a jadeite, a ruby, an emerald, a blue sapphire, a green sapphire, a pink sapphire, and an orange sapphire.

She hissed with surprise.

That's when she remembered the horrors she perpetrated the previous night~~〰

and why she slept here afterwardsssss︵‿︵‿︵.

🐍💍💎📿🐍

🩸

🩸

_______________Bolt⚡