jorgE630 on Nostr: A sidewinder lay coiled in the dust like a sigil cast in scales and muscle. The man ...

A sidewinder lay coiled in the dust like a sigil cast in scales and muscle. The man watched it strike at where his boot had been a breath before. Time slowed and pulsed with the ribbons of heat. The man saw in the creature's obsidian eyes not malice but existence, mere as the rock that birthed it. He stepped back and let it pass. This was not the adversary he'd been sent to meet. Beyond the shimmering horizon waited something darker than flesh serpents, something that walked like a man and carried death not from necessity but from choice. The man reckoned that a sunset would see one of them join the bones that whitened and blackened in these wastes.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​