>>13408
>>13413

(prompt: Write short story about consensual sacrifice. Girl enters the premises and, at same point, has snake wrapped tightly around her neck)

> The air was thick with incense and the low hum of chanting, a sound that vibrated in my teeth. They had promised me transcendence, a willing offering to something ancient and hungry. I believed them. I craved the purpose of it. The great serpent, a creature of obsidian scales and impossible, silent grace, was brought forward. Its head was the size of my fist, its eyes like chips of jet, holding a cold, alien intelligence.

> I tilted my head back, offering my throat. The first touch of its cool, dry scales was a promise. It began to coil, a slow, deliberate pressure that was almost an embrace. I closed my eyes, waiting for the ecstasy, the peace. But as the coil tightened, cutting off my air, a primal scream erupted in the back of my sealed throat. This wasn't transcendence. This was death. Pure, simple, and absolute.

> Panic, raw and electric, tore through the bullshit mysticism. My hands, which had been placid at my sides, flew to my neck, clawing at the immense, muscular rope crushing my windpipe. My nails scraped uselessly against its armored scales. I thrashed, my bare feet scrambling for purchase on the slick floor, a desperate, dying dance. The world began to tunnel into blackness, the chanting now a distant echo. The last thing I felt was not peace, but the irrevocable truth of its absolute strength, and the fading, frantic beat of my own heart against the relentless dark.