Chapter Text
“Lean over a little farther,” Emma suggested from the sidewalk, “You probably won’t fall into the mud if you’re careful.
“You could try to grab a stick,” Amber chimed in, “See if you can hook it closer.”
Tears stung Kimberly’s eyes as she tried to pull her backpack out of the drainage ditch at the bottom of the hill. Up above her tormentors continued to jeer.
“Yeah, you don’t want to miss out on math homework,” Tiffany snickered, “It’s not like you have anything better to do for the weekend.”
Kimberly tried to ignore them, holding onto a low hanging branch as she tried to hook the strap of her backpack with her foot.
The three of them had tormented her all last year and Kimberly had hoped that they’d forget her over the summer, or grow up enough to move on, but in the first week of school they’d picked up right back where they’d left off.
“Here!” Amber called out, “This’ll help!”
Kimberly yelped as something hit her in the back of the head, causing her to let go of the branch she’d been holding onto for balance. She teetered precariously on the thin line of grass along the edge of the ditch, waving her arms wildly as she struggled to keep her balance.
For a second, maybe longer, she thought she was actually going to make it, then another clump of dirt, larger than the first, hit her between the shoulders.
Time seemed to slow in a strange, almost exhilarating sensation as she fell forwards, the muddy water slowly drawing nearer to her, as though it was moving up rather than her plummeting down.
The instant her hands touched the surface, sending out sluggish ripples, the spell was broken and she found herself face down in the warm, murky water.
All she could hear over the ringing in her ears as the adrenaline wore off was the trio of bullies laughing down at her.
By the time she rolled over so that she was sitting in the mud rather than laying in it the three of them had run off.
She’d started the year with such high hopes, that it would be different and her second year of high school would be better than the first, but it didn’t seem that it was likely given the start of it.
Trying to wipe the mud from her face with her equally muddy hands, Kimberly took a deep breath and tried not to cry. It wasn’t fair, she’d never done anything to any of them, but right from the start they’d picked her out of all the other girls for tormenting, making sure that she didn’t have any friends, because everyone knew better than to cross Tiffany, popular as she was.
Kimberly shook her head, trying not to think about Tiffany, Amber or Emma. They had everything, there was no reason for them to pick on her, but they did. It wasn’t fair.
Hot tears ran down her face, drawing lines through the mud.
It just wasn’t fair.
The sound of something splashing near her made her look up.
Had the trio of bullies returned to laugh at her and throw more stuff at her?
No, no one was there, which she wasn’t sure was any better. At the start, after Amber had pulled her backpack off of her, and after a quick game of keep away with it, Tiffany had thrown it down the embankment, Kimberly hadn’t thought twice about running down to get it. Now, looking up, the embankment was steep and slippery and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to climb back up on her own.
It really, really wasn’t fair.
Another splash as something rolled down the hill.
She tried to trace the movement, wondering what was going on, and saw, several feel up the embankment, an enormous white snake.
It had to be at least as long and big around as her arm.
She’d never seen anything like it before in her life, but it had to be venomous, because nothing harmless would ever look like that, with the rows of shiny black dots down its back and sides. Everything about it screamed ‘don’t touch me!’.
And it was coming closer.
Twisting and scrunching like a giant inchworm, it slithered awkwardly down the hill.
If it fell into the water next to her she didn’t know what she’d do.
Except that wasn’t true, she knew exactly what would happen, she’d scream and then it would probably bite her and she would die.
She hadn’t even realized that she’d been holding her breath until she let out a sigh of relief when it stopped at the edge of the muddy water and dipped its nose in. It was just taking a drink, that was all, if she kept absolutely still it would slither away and she could get her backpack and…
Try to get up the embankment.
The snake lifted its head, thick purple tongue hanging out, muddy water dripping from it.
She’d heard that animals could smell fear and that snakes smelled with their tongues. Had it smelled her when it had taken a drink and was now planning on biting her?
“I’m not afraid,” she whispered, trying to convince herself that she was telling the truth.
It wasn’t though, and the snake must have known, because it dipped its tongue back into the water, head pointed directly at her.
Great, just great, it was going to jump at her, bite her and then she was going to die in a muddy ditch.
As if high school wasn’t bad enough, she was going to die in the most humiliating way possible.
The worst part was only her three tormentors knew where she was, so there was no telling how long it would take anyone to find her.
It was quite possible that no one would ever find her, and thanks to those bullies, no one would even miss her either.
The snake lowered its head further, so the bottom of its head was in the mud, and swayed back and forth.
It was either getting ready to bite her, or trying to hypnotize her before biting her. She didn’t know enough about snakes to be sure which, but she was sure it would end with her being bitten.
Sliding smoothly into the muddy water it vanished from sight.
Ripples marked its path towards her, but when it reached an area of deeper water they stopped, leaving her with no idea where the snake was.
If she moved she was sure to get bitten, but if she stayed still she was stuck in the mud with a snake and would probably still get bitten.
The question was, how did she feel about that probably?
Something brushed against her hand and she flinched.
Even if it wasn’t the snake, it meant there was something else in the muddy water with her.
As soon as she had that thought she regretted it, because what else could there be in the mud?
Frogs, more snakes, fish, leeches?
All of those were awful things and, with how murky the water was. any or all of those things could be all around her right now and she’d never even know.
The snake’s blunt white head appeared inches from her hand and, unable to help herself, she jerked away.
A shrill buzzing sound rang through the air and the snake vanished.
Kimberly once again had to fight back tears, because of course there’d be bugs down in the ditch.
The snake reappeared a few feet away, near her backpack and slithered out of the water and onto it.
Well, that was the end of that. There was no way she’d be getting her backpack back now. It belonged to the snake.
Explaining to her mom and all her teachers what had happened to all her notebooks and textbooks wasn’t going to be fun.
The snake stuck its tongue out, almost like it was mocking her and she brought her hand up to splash it and wipe the smile off of its face, then thought better of it. Her goal was not to get bitten.
“Hello.”
Kimberly looked up at the sound of the voice, expecting to see someone standing at the top of the hill.
“Can you…” she’d been about to ask for help, but there was no one there.
“Can I what?” The voice, small, and quiet, asked.
It was odd, with how soft spoken whoever they were was, they couldn’t have been too far away.
Kimberly looked around, wondering if someone had somehow ended up down in the ditch with her. There was no one anywhere to be seen. If she’d only heard the voice once she would have dismissed it as her imagination, but twice? There had to be someone.
“Where are you?”
Were they hiding and trying to play another mean joke on her or something?
If they were it wasn’t funny.
“Right here.”
It definitely wasn’t funny.
“Where’s here?”
“Down here.”
She looked around again, but there was no one anywhere to be seen.
Just her and the snake, which was still on her backpack, head up, ready to strike.
“You are looking right at me. You do have eyes, right?”
It was the dumbest question imaginable, made even more so since she wasn’t looking at anyone.
Except the snake…
The snake…
No, that was impossible.
Snakes didn’t talk.
It tilted its head from side to side, the tip of its tail tapping back and forth opposite to the movements of its head.
“You’re…” she stared at the thing, not sure if she was more crazy for talking to a snake than she was for hearing voices when no one else was there.
“Binchi!”
The chirping noise had definitely come from the snake, but that didn’t mean anything. It was just a sound, not a real word after all.
Except it then let out a little twittering hiccup and wagged its tail like a dog, “You are…”
The thing matched her inflection almost perfectly, but she got the feeling that it wasn’t trying to mock her. If she had to guess, it had just introduced itself and wanted her to do the same.
“Kimberly,” she said nervously, now trying to decide if answering made her even crazier.
The snake immediately lowered its head, lying flat against her backpack, “Do you live here?”
“What?” She looked around again, trying to make sense of the question. She understood the words, it was a complete sentence, but what was that supposed to mean, unless…
Did it think that she lived in a drainage ditch at the bottom of a hill?
Well, it was a snake and they lived under rocks and stuff, so maybe to a snake a muddy ditch was a great place to live.
“No,” she said, not sure if she was more or less confused.
“Oh,” it sounded disappointed, if a snake could even sound anything in the first place.
“Why would you think I lived here?” she gestured at all the trees and water around them, as though it might have somehow missed that this wasn’t exactly anything that even remotely resembled a house.
“I understand,” it made a series of small popping noises, “Are you lost too?”
“No…” talking to the thing was giving her a headache, “I just got pushed down into this ditch. Once I get out I’m going home. I’m just…stuck.”
“Ah, I am stuck too. Not here,” it tapped its nose downwards, “But here.”
It made a sweeping gesture with its head.
Giving up on trying to decide if she was crazy or not she sighed, “I really don’t get what that’s supposed to mean. Are you from around here?”
“No,” it paused, thoughtfully, “Why, have you seen beings like me before?”
“Like a snake?” She wondered, because she had, not in person, but on TV and at the zoo once.
“Snake?” it tilted its head, “I look like a snake to you?”
“Umm, yeah? She stared at the thing, “What else would you look like?”
Though now that it had raised the question, it didn’t look that much like a snake, or at least not any snake she’d seen, not that she’d seen many snakes. It was too short and too fat, though she wasn’t going to say that, because she really didn’t want to insult the thing.
“I guess there is a resemblance,” it tilted its head back, looking at itself, “They do not have legs, do they? But really, that must be the only thing.”
Not having legs was a lot.
“So you have not seen anything like me,” it continued, “Then I am probably the only one of my kind on this world.”
It was definitely the only talking snake, but the way it had said ‘this world’ got her thinking.
“What are you exactly? Some kind of alien?” Because an alien, as crazy as that was, made way more sense than a talking snake and she was old enough to have long since stopped believing in magic. So the thing had to be an alien and she was the one who’d found it. If she knew who to tell about it she’d probably end up famous, but she didn’t think she’d be able to just go online and find the phone number for Area 51 and even if she found their number she’d probably just get laughed at if she called them to tell that she’d found an alien.
“No,” it let out a sort of whistling hiss, “Not exactly.”
“What are you then?” She leaned in to take a closer look at the creature, which, now that it was talking, was a lot less frightening.
It didn’t really look that much like a snake.
For one thing, it didn’t seem to have eyes, just those rows of black dots, and for another, it was kind of flattened along the bottom, like a giant slug. The impression of it being slug-like wasn’t helped by the fact that it seemed to have two pairs of nubby antenna in the corners of its mouth, just like a slug.
It did have scales though, small round bumps on its back, larger ones on its head and sides, and none at all on its belly, which was visible when it lifted its head.
So it was somewhere at the halfway point between snake and slug, which wasn’t a good place to be.
“I assume you are asking where I am from rather than details about myself,” it said, “I am from another world, arguably another planet, but it is complicated. You are aware that the universe is both infinite, but curved, correct?”
Kimberly nodded, not because she’d known that as a fact, but because it made sense. The universe had to be pretty big and there was no way to say that it didn’t have a shape. If could have been curved, square, or folded into a paper airplane for all she knew about it. Just because she didn’t have any friends didn’t mean that she spent all of her time doing school work and buried in books.
“The universe, by virtue of being infinite, curves and folds back on itself countless times, overlapping, but by the nature of infinity, never actually touching. The places that are closest due to folding rather than spatial distance tend to be similar, but not the same. The place I come from is a world that occupies exactly the same place as your world, so that a number of things are conserved such as ratios of elements, the amino acids necessary for life, and certain aspects of genetic structure. Our planets are fundamentally the same place with a number of small, cumulative differences which create two worlds that appear vastly different, but are the same in most ways that count. That is why I am able to survive here and why travel is relatively easy with the correct technology.
That sort of explained things, some things at least, because she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of things being in the exact same place, but separate, and it saying that their worlds were the same in a lot of ways left a lot of questions.
“How come you’re a talking snake, rather than a little green or gray man then?” Because that was how aliens were always depicted, guys with funky colored skin and weird eyes or ears. If what it had said was true that would have at least explained the depiction, some sort of weird effect from the overlap, especially if their worlds were really that similar.
The creature lifted its front half as high as it could, “If you were born on the exact opposite side of the planet, not just you, but your family, going back as many generations as you have history, would you look and act exactly the same?”
It had a point there, she had no idea what country was on the exact opposite of the world, but whatever one it was, they were bound to do things differently. That still left a very important question unanswered though, possibly the most important question, “How come you can speak English?”
Because until it brought up other countries she hadn’t even considered how strange it was that the creature spoke the same language. It would have had to learn, which meant that it had been doing research. Was she here watching the start of an alien invasion?
“The pop culture of your world is so fascinating. I have…” it paused, sticking out its tongue and curling it in what she figured was a sort of alien facial expression considering it didn’t have much in the way of a face, “An interest in…your animated entertainment and the translations are…lacking. Much of the original nuance is lost, especially in series such as She-Ra and the Princess of Power and The Dragon Prince. I learned your language to be able to watch them as they were meant to be.”
So she’d found a not-quite-alien who was also a huge nerd. She wasn’t sure what to make of that except that it lined up way too well with the kind of luck she always had.
There was one more question about its talking that had just occurred to her, one that was really creepy and that needed an answer, “You’re not psychic, right, talking directly into my brain?”
Because she hadn’t seen its mouth move except for the times it stuck out its tongue and the last thing she needed was alien brainwaves in her head. Who knew what they’d do to her?
“No,” it made a hiccupping noise, “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because your mouth doesn’t move when you talk,” she sighed, trying to figure out if it was joking, or if it really was psychic and had read her thoughts and was trying to reassure her that it wasn’t looking into her head at that very moment, poking around and watching all her most embarrassing memories, like just last year when she’d had her shirt on inside out all day and never noticed until she got home. Or the time at her tenth birthday party when…
The creature let out a soft buzzing noise, “What does a mouth have to do with talking?”
“Umm, everything?” Kimberly stared at the thing.
“But mouths are for eating,” it said flatly, as though stating something obvious.
Then again, that was pretty obvious.
“Yeah, but that’s also how you talk.”
“Is that how you talk?” It wondered, “Because that sounds messy. How do you talk when you’re eating?”
“We don’t. That’s a really rude thing to do,” Kimberly said. Meeting an alien was kind of disappointing given how little the creature seemed to know. Weren’t they supposed to be smart? “And if you don’t use your mouth how are you even talking?”
It tilted its head down and forwards, revealing two spots that she’d assumed were where its ears were. They twitched when it answered, “Spiracles.”
Okay, that was strange, really, really strange. She wasn’t sure how she felt about something that talked through holes where its ears should be. Which then raised the question of how it could hear her.
She considered asking, but decided that she didn’t need to know where the things ears were when there were so many more important questions.
“Could you get off my backpack so I can grab it and go home?” Because as interesting as it was to meet a not-exactly-alien, she didn’t want to spend the rest of the day sitting in the mud, talking to what was pretty much a snake. Yeah, it was a talking snake, but it was still a snake and she was still sitting in the mud with it.
“Of course,” it slid off her backpack and into the mud, half slithering, half swimming until it reached a patch of grass. There, after turning in circles to clean itself off, it asked a question of its own, “Can I go home with you?”
“Umm…” she looked around at the ditch. Yeah, she wouldn’t have wanted to stay there if she’d been given the choice, “Sure.”
“Oh thank you!” Its gratitude sounded genuine, if she was able to read anything into its weird, whistling voice, “Though there is an abundance of food here, it is not a comfortable place to spend the night. And it is very boring.”
Which was how she ended up carrying an alien-snake-thing home in her backpack.