The Demon's Curse: Rise Of The Evil 3 The Snake

She woke up in her bed. *Was it just a dream?* she thought as she sat up, still covering the bottom part of her body with blanket. She looked around. She wasn't in her room, this one was bigger and more luxury. There were wolf's and bear's furs hanging on the wall. *This must be chief's house then, but why am I here?* she got up. There was a common blue tunic on the table, probably prepared for her. She undressed and looked at her belly. It looked different than in the crypt. There weren't any symbols nor runes, but there was a snake. The black snake was twirled around her navel, occupying almost whole bottom of the front of her body. Snake's eye was closed and it had two weird horns on its head. It didn't hurt anymore but it felt like it was throbbing. She touched it. Strange feeling flowed through her finger deeper in her arm and body. She wasn't actually sure what it was. Was it a tattoo? Or some weird scar made by magic? She was scared to ask anyone in the village about it so she had to find different way to gain informations. She dressed the tunic and left the room.

It was early morning. She could see the Sun rising from the kitchen's window. The whole house was silent. It looked like n.o.body was inside which was weird because chief had big family. The closer she was to the door the louder voices she could hear. One voice said "Maybe she killed him." .. but different one responded "She is just a weak girl, they definitely got attacked by bear." she opened the door. There was a crowd of villagers in front of her, mostly men. The chief was standing there too. "Good morning" he said with cold voice, but his face expression was neutral. But others weren't like him. Their expressions were different, some of them looked at her with smile, probably happy because she got back. However, the rest of them were looking at her with angrily with reproachful eyes. Now she noticed one woman who was killing her with her stare. It was Toby's mother.

"What did you do to my son? Where is he? You witch!" she started shouting. Other villagers told her to calm down and stay quiet but she didn't listen to them. "If something happened to my son, it would be your fault!" it looked like she will go to the girl and slap her, but the chief grabbed her.

"You said what you wanted now be quiet." then he looked at the girl. "Tia, where did you go yesterday? Tell me everything so we can find your friend." Tia looked at him and after a little silence she started explaining what happened. She told them everything about their forest exploration, entering the weird crypt and meeting Arachne but she didn't tell them about the snake on her belly. Hearing the name Arachne made crowd whisper and chief weirdly frowned.

"Lies! She had to do something to my son!" Toby's mother wasn't satisfied with her story. Chief turned around and looked at her.

"I promise I will find your son." then he turned to the men standing there. "Bolak, Rando, get others and meet me in front of the village's gate as fast as possible, we will go to the forest." He then looked at Tia. "I know you must be still tired but I need you to take us to that place you described." she nodded.

Everyone gathered in front of the village after around thirty minutes. There were seven men including the chief with their weapons in their hands and chief's wife Rebecca who was the best magic caster in their village. Tia was leading the group. They quickly reached to the forest and without any hesitation walked into it. It took Tia a little while to orientate herself in the forest but then she found the stone entrance. It looked exactly like when she left it. "That's the crypt! Everything happened behind these doors!" Men looked at each other.

"I've never seen this here and I've been hunting in this forest since I was a kid." said Bolak, brother of the chief. Rando, the best swordsman between them, opened the door. He could feel the cold darkness in front of him. Rebecca came behind him.

"This shall help you. ~Light Orb!~* glowing white orb appeared above her head, iluminating the path in front of them.

"Thanks, Rebecca." said Rando and slowly went inside. Chief looked at Tia.

"Stay close to me, I will protect you." She didn't want to go there again, but she believed that chief and others could protect her so she nodded.

They arrived to the dark room. "~Light Orb!~" Rebecca summoned one more orb. Now they could see what was in the room. Nothing. There were only stone pillars supporting the ceiling. "I can sense weak magic here, go and take a closer look guys." announced Rebecca. The men started looking at pillars and walls, but then Bolak shouted.

"Hey, I've found something here!" others went to him. "Here." he showed them what he found. It was piece of cloth from a boy's clothes. Chief grabbed it.

"That must be his." he then turned towards Tia. "Didn't you say there were doors?" she nodded.

"Yes, right there. There was also a pedestal with the book I told you about. And this room was filled with statues!". Then they spent an hour exploring the room. Rebecca even tried some magic spell to find anything hidden but it was all for nothing. They decided to head back to the village.

Toby's mother collapsed when they gave her the piece of cloth of his clothes. Tia went to her small house. She was living with her mother and brother Seph. Her father was killed by unknown beast in the forest years ago. She had to explain once again what happened. Her family believed her and had a quiet dinner together. Then she went to her room and lay on her bed. She felt really weird because she didn't understand what happened yesterday or where her best friend was. She then fell asleep from exhaustion.

She was standing in a dark corridor. Floor, ceiling, walls.. everything seemed to be made from some strange black metal. She turned around but there was a dead end behind her. Only way she could go was forward. Suddenly some door opened in the distance in front of her, revealing a room. Red light was glowing from there. Tia headed out towards it. All of sudden loud scream could be heard from that room. And it was Toby's scream.

Tia ran out, she had to get to him. She entered the red room and saw him. He was chained to the wall, topless with small cut wounds on his body. "Toby!" she shouted as she got to him, trying to release him from the chains. But with no effect. "Toby! What happened? Where are we?" she asked him but he didn't act like he noticed her presence. Then a spider tattoo started to appear on his chest. Tia was shocked but it didn't last her long. Her own tattoo started hurting like if it was burning. She fell on her knees, the pain was unbearable. Then the spider on Toby's body begun to glow with green light. Steps could be heard coming behind, getting closer to them. It was Arachne.

"Oh Toby .. I didn't allow you to have any visitors." she giggled as she grabbed Tia by her clothes. She then ripped her tunic apart, showing only the part of her body with her snake tattoo. "I see Serpentra hasn't woken up yet. Well that can be changed really quickly." she said a few words in different language and touched the snake's head. His eye opened and begun to glow with red eye. Something was crawling from the dark corridor towards them. "Oh Serpentra, I'm glad you are back." Arachne smiled. Giant snake crawled into the room. Tia looked at it. It was crawling towards her. "Don't disappoint me girl and be good food for him." Arachne begun laughing like a crazy person. Tia couldn't move. She wanted to run away from the snake and scream but she couldn't. The snake was getting closer and closer. Then it opened its giant mouth and swallowed Tia.

She woke up screaming. She was in her room. "It was just a dream" she told herself after a while to calm down. But her tattoo was throbbing even more. She pulled up her clothes and what she saw shocked her. The snake had his eye open, showing its red glowing color.