Prompt of the Week - Week 6

The last thing James expected when buying a pet snake was having to heed the advice of some crazy person screaming at him from an alleyway just before going into his apartment building. Being threatened with “the creation of a beast” should he not “HEED THE INSTRUCTIONS” was strange, even for a city-dweller like himself, but it still barely registered as halfway interesting by the time he was back home. Just another day out in the streets with someone accosting him with some vague, doomsday-like prediction; those had become rather popular as of late.

All he cared about was getting his pet hisser, Hisser, accommodated in their new home. After months of careful research and study on how to keep a snake in his home, he finally got a notice from his chosen pet shop that they’d received a couple of specimens for sale; he couldn’t grab his car quick enough, nor did he have the foresight to think that maybe he should’ve looked up what species that critter was before accepting the sale. In retrospect, that the salesman seemed so relieved to be rid of the damned thing should’ve been a warning sign, but James was just so darn happy to finally get himself his very own danger noodle that he failed to notice the obvious happening in front of his face.

Along with his purchase came a special kind of food, pushed onto him by the shop owner who insisted that it was the latest craze in synthetic meat; it was supposed to simulate the taste of mice and rats, therefore eliminating the need to breed them for feeding purposes and making it far easier for pet owners who didn’t like the idea of feeding other living creatures to their companions. Not exactly the biggest of priorities for James, but it was cheaper than buying a handful of mice for whenever Hisser wanted to snack on something, so he eagerly bought up enough stock to last him for a month before heading back home.

The vivarium was ready and waiting, a massive, wall-sized space where the snake could slither around to their heart’s content without needing to worry about lack of stimulus. Anything from shade, direct exposure to the lamps, even some branches where she could stretch herself all over, the enclosure had everything a budding snek could need to spend their days in luxurious comfort. Plus, it made for a great ornament for the living room, which James was certain was going to serve as either the absolute best or worst ice-breaker possible; at least he knew he wouldn’t have to deal with random visits from Phil anymore, not after he saw who he had with him.

The first few days were entirely uneventful, apart from the obvious need to readjust his daily routine to account for feeding Hisser… that, and making sure he closed the lid before going to bed; he loved that little gal like no other, but he still wasn’t ready to wake up with her coiling all over his chest and booping his own snoot with her tongue. Nearly threw her onto the wall after that one! 

Still, at least she took nicely to the synthetic meat, to the point of being able to tell when her feeding time was up; she’d sprawl out near the front glass pane and gently push her snout against it, tracking her owner’s movements and looking to be about as mesmerized as those serpents he saw in movies, except with food as a bribe instead of a flute. She was growing out significantly as well; while some of it was expected, given Hisser was a young snake, James was somewhat certain that the vivarium wasn’t supposed to be looking that cramped until a few weeks down the line, making him wonder just what species exactly his new pet was meant to be.

A call to the shop didn’t assuage his fears either, seeing as either no one seemed to know who was in charge of importing Hisser in the first place, or no one wanted to take responsibility for what could turn out to be a great big oopsie they’d be legally accountable for. After a good three hours of getting nowhere, James hung up and nearly screamed right afterwards, only stopping out of respect for his new pet roommate. It was disingenuous to call them anything other than that, seeing as how he’d have to let them go freerange at some point in the near future; at least she seemed civil enough, if those beady little eyes were hiding the kind of intelligence they hinted at.

In fact, the first few times he experimented with letting the bigger-and-heavier Hisser slither around freely inside of his apartment didn’t go all that bad. She respected his boundaries and mostly just tried to find the nearest sources of heat, heading over to one of the windows and sprawling herself over it whenever they needed to cool down… that or underneath the kitchen counter, which caused no end of trouble for James until he learned to put down something to block the way. The snake seemed to be genuinely smart enough to understand basic commands despite the complete lack of training, obediently heading back to her vivarium whenever ordered and even coiling up on her owner’s lap when prompted. It was like having a dog, really; a very long, noodly dog that made very few sounds and ate synthetic meat out of a can.

A very weird dog.

At some point, James began suspecting that maybe it was the food that was doing all the growing. It was new, fairly untested beyond the bare basics needed to be sold in the first place, and had apparently just hit the market a month or so before he bought Hisser; perhaps she had a special reaction to it, or maybe he’d be hearing something in the news about a mass product recall. One thing was for certain though: there was no way he was weaning his snake off of it, because the one time he tried, she looked so horribly sad that he felt like stabbing something into his arm just to make the pain go away; it was amazing how much emotion she could pack into a face that should barely be able to express anything, doubly so when it gave the appearance of using eyebrows she didn’t even have.

Thus, Hisser continued to grow, far in excess of what was even above average for a snake of her kind and stage of development. Before long she couldn’t even fit in the vivarium at all, leaving James in the unenviable position of having to explain to his landlord why exactly there was a live snake outside of its enclosure; the only thing stopping an eviction was Hisser standing (sitting? coiling?) by his side and accompanying the conversation by swivelling her head from side to side, a gesture the landlord picked up on and eventually led to his realization that the snake was significantly smarter than he initially thought. Though still reluctant to allow it to remain freerange, he nonetheless recanted on his threat, instead suggesting that James find some way to halt the snek’s growth.

And he tried. Oh, he tried… but nothing came of it. Even switching to a half-synthmeat, half-regular meat diet didn’t work, not to mention it made Hisser so sick she could barely move for a week before her owner went back to the canned stuff; James was stuck with a critter that continued to grow to more and more monstrous proportions regardless of how much he tried to keep it controlled, until one day he just kind of… gave up. Maybe it was when he woke up and the snake was there next him, fully wrapped around his torso and with her tail by the door, booping his nose with what looked to be a smile on her face, or perhaps it was that time when she managed to make a full lap around the house while chasing her tail, creating an endless and oddly-symbolic circle. The only thing he knew for certain was that there was no point stopping it, and as much as he should want to turn back time, he didn’t.

Hisser turned out to be an even better companion than he could’ve bargained for. The whole point of buying a snake was to have a relatively easy-to-keep pet that nonetheless still looked really cool, not to get an overgrown, reptilian puppy instead; and yet that’s exactly what she turned out being, even down to the demeanour. At times it was hard to tell if she was sentient or not, because he could swear she silently chuckled at his dumb jokes whenever he cracked one watching TV, plus the way she listened intently to everything he said and then reacted perfectly in accordance with whatever he wanted. It was too much to be coincidence, and yet he couldn’t quite believe that something like her could be that intelligent.

Research into what kind of snake Hisser was didn’t yield much valuable information; she was supposed to be quite smart, which for a snake meant advanced hunting and stalking tactics and the ability to correctly identify prey and predator at a distance. There was nothing mentioning their intelligence as being human-like, much less anything about undergoing a series of growth spurts leaving them big enough to be in every room of a standard apartment at once. Just the thought that she once fit inside that tiny vivarium seemed like both a distant memory and a complete joke, even if it had been completely true just a month prior; anyone looking at her now would doubt such a thing was ever even remotely true.

This did create a slight issue: space. James had no intention of leaving his house, but Hisser refused to stop growing, and after being spotted by one of his neighbors when he accidentally left the door open, most of the building’s tenants got together to demand that he “get rid” of that “dangerous beast.” It was heartbreaking to see how saddened his companion was, doubly so after convincing himself that she was fully aware of what that mob was demanding of him, but he would never have gotten rid of her even if it weren’t; he was sure that behind those eyes lay a mind sharper than most of those idiots banging at his door, and so to “get rid” of Hisser would be akin to sending a dear friend out into the streets just because other people thought they looked weird.

But what to do?

A solution came in the form of an old acquaintance of his, the one person who had planted the seeds that would later bloom into the idea of owning a pet snake. He berated himself for not thinking of him sooner; bastard probably had a dozen Hissers of his own in their basement, not to mention a near-encyclopedic knowledge of anything remotely related to herpetology. One call was all it took; his friend assured him he’d show up in a couple of days at best, and true to his word was banging on his door not even twenty-four hours later. 

Despite being the same age as James, Ted had so many scars around his face, neck and arms that one could be mistaken for thinking they’d been involved in at least half a dozen wars, the end result of his often ill-chosen (and yet oddly successful) ventures in “exotic pet acquisition” that marked his mid-to-late twenties. He’d since given up that life after a change of heart… only to return to exact same spots as always in order to personally fend off poachers and advocate for conservationism and environmental regulations. It was a truly inspiring story, albeit one that he shared so often that James could recite it off the top of his head.

Back when he was still in the business of smuggling animals, he suggested that his friend take up a similar life or, barring that, experiment with keeping something more interesting than a dog or a cat. At the time, James thought nothing of it, content in writing the comment off as nothing more than a tease; however, as the years went by, the idea matured and blossomed until it became more than just simply fantasy… and now there they were.

Despite his best hopes, James would be left disappointed after his friend took a long look at Hisser. They agreed with his assessment that the snake was a lot smarter than she looked, a lot smarter than she should be, but couldn’t offer anything more than that; at no point in his career did he ever find anything like, as even the largest of the large stopped growing after a certain point, rather than elongating for as long as they were fed. His eyes did narrow when he analyzed the canned food, though he refused to elaborate on the matter, simply asking for a tin that he could take back to his house for analysis. Promising that he’d be back as soon as he could, Ted left his friend with a series of tips on how to better engage his neighbors; if he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, move, then the least he could do was try and make people more comfortable around Hisser.

Though he still found it to be a pointless exercise in futility, James nonetheless at least tried. Walking from door to door, spending hours on a weekend inviting people to his house in order for them to see how his snake was harmless took a lot of energy out of him, especially given how vitriolic some of the tenants were; quite a few refused to even so much as consider the idea, slamming the door on his face and grumbling loudly enough to be heard from the other side. For James, this turned everything into a numbers game; if it came down to it and a general meeting was called, all he had to do was win by simple majority. Surprisingly, it made the last couple of floors a lot more bearable, seeing as he had a proper end goal in mind rather than simply hoping people would listen.

In the end, a good third of the tenants agreed to show up. It wasn’t enough, but it was a good start; perhaps they’d comment with the rest on how good of a snek Hisser was, thus leading them to become more open to the idea!

The first impressions, however, were less than stellar; how could it be any other way when people who never saw a snake up close in their life were shown one that could now do several laps around the house while still having body to spare? To James it was kind of funny, bringing to mind images of playing the eponymous game on some old phones, but getting anyone else to see it that way took so much effort that it proved to be enough to take up most of the “meeting session.”

The one saving grace was that, as soon as all those dozen or so scared folks simmered down just enough to actually find a place to sit, it was easy to get Hisser to charm them by sheer force of personality; with the initial shock out of the way, it was the snake’s time to shine, and so her cheery personality, oddly-human intelligence and absurdly expressive snoot began to win the day. She even performed some complex tricks, at one point coiling up into a gigantic mound and turning the front third of her body into a pseudo-spring, ending up looking so silly that most of the tenants burst out laughing at the sight. Three hours in and everyone was happily petting her while the snek splayed herself over their lips, using her tongue to occasionally lick whoever was brave enough to put a finger next to it.

The best part were the kind words given by the tenants themselves; after the mob mentality that had taken them over a few days before, it was a relief to see so many of them recant their words and outright praise Hisser for being such a well-behaved companion, only to chuckle and coo at how damn proud she looked whenever anyone said that. It was as clear to them as it was to James and Ted that this creature was significantly smarter than any other of its kind, and many even promised to put in a good word with some of the others who hadn’t shown up, even the landlord if they ever saw him around the building. By the end, it was hard to get them to leave, with some even offering to look after her should James need to go anywhere.

It was honestly surprising how much support he received, considering he was expecting to be completely shut down. Hisser seemed happy as well, and judging from her expression the snake probably wished she could speak, if only to squeal happily at having met so many new friends. Heck, James had to keep all the windows shut extra tightly just to prevent her from slithering out on her own during the night; much as those folks seemed okay with the idea of her living there, the last thing anyone needed right now was for someone other than himself to wake up with Hisser next to them. The screaming would be heard from half a mile away.

In the meantime, the snake continued to grow against all expectations, though at least the rate seemed to have slowed down. Maybe they did have some upper cap after all, heightened by whatever was in that synthetic meat… or maybe they’d just continue to slowly gain inch after inch for as long as they lived. Neither of them knew, and if Ted did after analyzing the synthmeat, he never bothered calling again. Not that it mattered, really; things were looking up and there would be no eviction soon… plus, if all went well, Hisser would be able to start moving around the building on her own eventually!