The fall was a mix of the scaly feeling of the serpent scaly skin on his hands and the terror that awaits him below between the beast fangs.
The serpent tail wrapped around his hand and the beast with the saliva and blood dripping from his mouth behind him, the young man was ready for either the serpent or the beast to finish him off, but weirdly enough none of that happened, the serpent descend from the tree as slowly as possible, and retrieve its tail that was warped around the young man, the beast and serpent both stay still and observe each other and comletly ignore the young man. For a second, everything was silent. Then, the world exploded into a mix of hisses and growls.
The young man crawled backward on his elbows, with expression filled with horror. He expected to feel the wolf's teeth at his shoulder or the serpent's coils around his neck. Instead, he saw a wall of muscle and scales merged as one mass.
The Great Serpent had landed directly on top of the burned wolf. The wolf, already half-dead and driven by pure rage, didn't care about his state. It snapped its jaws shut on the snake's thick body, tearing away a part of its black scales.
The serpent let out a high hissing sound, high, sharp, and deadly. The snake's massive body began to warp around the tree trunk and used its tail as a heavy iron bar directed at the wolf.
The tail smashed into the wolf's ribs. The wolf flew away backward, hitting a giant rock, but it stood up immediately, coughing up black blood. Its one remaining eye glowed with a threatening red light. It dashed again, burying its claws into the serpent's belly.
The serpent using its massive fangs. It struck with the speed of an arrow, its fangs sinking deep into the wolf's neck. They became a tangled mess of clashing jaws, claws and fangs. The ground shook as they rolled over the bushes, crushing everything in their way.
"Now," the young man whispered, his voice trembling. "I have to go now."
He didn't stand up fully. He stayed low to the ground, praying that they will not notice his absence, crawling through the dirt until he was behind a thick bush. He didn't look back. Even when he heard the sound of broken bones and the tearing of flesh, he kept moving.
He ran. He ran until didn't feel his legs and his vision became blur. He pushed through thorns and branches that ripped at his clothes and stepped over rocks that cut his feet. He needed distance. He needed a plan.
After what felt like hours, he reached a small narrow entrance. It was a natural opening through a small mountin . To the left was a high rocky wall, and to the right was a dense, thorny thicket. In the center was a small cave with a patch of soft, dark soil inside.
"If that thing is still alive," he gasped, leaning against a nearby tree, "it will follow my scent as before. It will find me again."
He looked at his hands. His fingernail was gone, and his forehead was filled with dried blood. He was weak, but he wasn't dead. Not yet.
He knows the extent of the power of that thing, he know it will come after him, and that it will emerge victorious against the serpent and come for him next. So, he made up his mind to prepare a trap to welcome the beast.
He began to work. His movements were slow at first, but fear made him efficient, He found a hard, flat piece of wood from a nearby tree and used it to dig a pit.
He dug a hole in the center of the soil in the small cave. It was deep, to be able to cage the beast inside, and then he looks for something to use as spears, He found a fallen branch from a hardwood tree. It was thick and heavy. Using a sharp rock he found near the cave, he began to scrape at the ends of smaller sticks.
He spent a long time sharpening the tips and rubbed them against a rock until they were as pointy and sharp as needles. He jammed these spears into the bottom of the hole, facing upward.
And then He carefully covered the hole with thin twigs and a large layer of dry leaves. He sprinkled loose dirt over the top until it looked exactly like the rest of the forest floor.
The sun sat and the darkness covered the world, he sat down behind a large boulder, holding a large stone spear in his hand. His heart was beating like crazy. Tick. Tick. Tick. Every sound in the forest made him flinch. A falling leaf sounded like a footstep, he didn't sleep at all that night.
Time moved and sun shined again and the young man was still holding his spear.
He looked at his spear. It was just wood and rock, primitive and ugly. But it was the best he can do at least for now.
"Come on," he whispered to the shadows of the trees. "I'm right here."
He knew the beast was coming. A creature that could survive a chain of explosions and a fight with a Great Serpent wouldn't let me escape so easily. It was a hunter, and he was the prey.
He closed his eyes for just a second, trying to stop his hands from shaking. He thought about the fire, the clicking birds, and the cold scales of the snake. He had survived all of it.
Suddenly, the forest went silent. The birds stopped chirping. The wind stopped howling.
From the darkness of the trees, a low, wet growling sound emerged. It was the sound of a throat filled with blood. It was the sound of a nightmare that refused to die.
The young man gripped his spear until his knuckles turned white. He stood up slowly, hiding in the shadows behind the trap. The trap was set. The fire in his eyes returned, brighter than ever.
"I am here!" he shouted, his voice steady. "You are looking for me, you piece of shit."