O 02 - Lamia TF

You're at the pet store, wandering through the aisles under the soft hum of fluorescent lights. The air is thick with the mingling scents of sawdust, kibble, and something slightly sour—possibly reptile musk. You pass by the usual suspects: kittens tumbling over each other in a plexiglass box, puppies with big eyes and wagging tails yipping for attention, birds fluttering and chirping behind metal bars. Everything is warm, familiar, predictable.

But then, something unfamiliar catches your eye.

In the back corner of the store, dimmer and quieter than the rest, there’s a tank half-shrouded in shadow. Inside, coiled lazily on a fake rock beneath a heat lamp, is a snake—but not like any you’ve ever seen. Its scales shimmer with an unnatural hue, a glossy, almost iridescent pink, like bubblegum or raw meat, depending on how the light hits it. The color is wrong somehow. It doesn’t belong in this world. It feels designed to draw attention, like a warning signal masked as a toy.

You stare at it for a moment, unable to look away. Its eyes are fixed on you—or at least, it feels that way. There’s something ancient in its stillness, as though it knows you far better than it should.

You hesitate, then approach the nearest attendant, a young man with a vacant smile and the name "Mitch" pinned to his red polo. You ask if you can hold the snake, trying to sound casual, though something tightens in your chest even as you speak the words. Mitch doesn’t blink. He simply nods and turns toward the enclosure, moving with a strange mechanical smoothness, as though he’s done this exact motion a thousand times—but never once questioned it.

“Sure,” he says, unlocking the glass with a key that looks older than the store itself.

As he reaches in, the snake uncoils in a slow, deliberate motion, lifting its head like it’s waking from a long dream. Mitch carefully places it into your hands.