A Lamia's Tale

Deep within the forests of Daria, wildlife runs rampant in amongst the dense forest of giant trees that blot out the sunlight. In the minute areas the sun does reach, gorgeous flowers bloom, adding some much-needed colour to the prevailing greens and browns that surround them. Near one such bundle of colour, a small log cabin can be found, ageing with wear and tear from the many seasons it has stood through. Simple in structure, this cabin was built for shelter, failing on aesthetic appeal. With only two tiny windows, filled in with dirty looking glass, only the smallest amount of light can reach into the cabin and illuminate its contents. The lack of light is barely sufficient to see that this modest cabin only houses the bare necessities one needs to live. With a small bed in the corner, a simple chest of drawers to its side and lonely chair tucked under a table, that had seen better days. The sole occupant of this decrepit cabin lies sleeping, waiting for the start of the new day. With the rising sun, so too does Octavia start to rise, not knowing that she would soon find out this humble abode is not where she ended the previous day.

The miniscule light pears through the windows, bringing about the start of the new day.

"What a good night sleep that was. I haven't slept so well in a long time". Octavia states as she starts to yawn and stretch trying to wake up.

The whole waking up process can take its time, as Octavia is not known as a morning person. A start to the day would normally require either her parents or sister badgering her, till she finally wakes from her slumber. It also doesn't help that with all the lessons and work she has had to endure at her college, late nights are a regular occurrence for the past month. But, with the exam period finally over she was able to experience an early night, allowing her to get a good night's rest, leading to waking up feeling relaxed and stress free. As far as she could recall that is.

"I don't even want to get out of bed, it's so comfortable."

Half asleep, she continues to stretch, while slowly and reluctantly, she tries and fails to wiggle her way out of what she believes is her bed. After a good few seconds of wiggling, she meets some resistance to her movements, stopping her from leaving her comfy 'bed'. Still groggy after waking, she fails to realise that the usual softness of the bedding has been replaced with a slightly harder surface.

"Did Penny fall asleep on top of me again? Come on Penny, time to get up" she mutters as she continues her struggle.

While not common, her golden retriever has been known to sneak its way onto her bed in the middle of the night. With the dog's very large size, it can make it very difficult to get out of bed, should she end up completely covering the sleeper. With the few mumbles to her dog and getting no response, she continues to push on, thinking she must be dead tired from her walk last night. Struggle after struggle to get out of the bed and move her dog, leaves her strength sapped and the will to even bother with this futile effort, diminished. With enough force, light finally makes its way inside a crack in the 'bedding'. Things get easier from that point forward and she finally manages to widen the gap and push her way out.

*thump*

And falls to the floor.

"Uhh, not again."

Still half asleep, tired from the almost endless struggle to leave the confines of her very comfortable 'bed', she slowly rises. Pushing off the wooden flooring, she manages to right herself, albeit shakily.

"That took so much longer than normal. Ok, time for some stretches to start the day."

While not a sporty or a fitness fanatic person, she has always known that a good amount of exercise during the day is needed to stay healthy. Therefore, she always starts the day with some basic stretching, working out the kinks in her body helping her to wake up properly. Her day then usually consists of some jogging on the way to and from college, getting in some cardio. Weightlifting on the other hand has not made it into her schedule, due to the effort it requires and not really seeing the need for it. If she can keep fit and healthy, that's good enough for her.

Getting started on the usual routine of stretches begins with dealing with the neck and shoulders, rolling them back and forth as well as bending the neck in a multitude of ways. But, even with this exercise, due to the dimly lit room and grogginess exhibited, Octavia has yet to realise her surroundings are not how she left then upon falling asleep.

"Rotate to the left, now the right. Arms all the way up, now all the way down and touch my toes…"

Bending down as far as she can, Octavia meets is nothing but air.

"Where are my toes… Wow I must be more stiff than normal, not being able to reach them. Anyway, moving on."

Chalking her inability to reach her toes as an issue with how she slept, she continued with the stretches. If she was more awake, she would have realised that the difficulty of not reaching her toes is due to them not being present any longer, and that something strange has replaced them.

"Bend left, bend right, bring my left leg up…thats odd."

As she moves to stretch her leg, the action is met with a strange sensation, accompanied by a lack of movement in her leg.

"I said up…This feels weird. I'm pretty sure I've never had cramps in my legs this bad before."

Finally realising something may be wrong, she rubs the remnants of sleep from her eyes and slaps her cheeks. Now awake she scans the area in front of her, where, even dimly lit, she notes the small amount of furniture, wooden walls and the tiny windows. With her bedroom normally containing a multitude of more furniture, added to the fact that in the 21st century, wooden walls are not really the norm for a college student living in a city apartment, she starts to panic. Frozen on the spot, her brain starts running a mile a minute, looking for reasons why she is where she is, where she might be and how she got there. Quickly thinking back, the last thing she can recall is ending up in her bedroom, before things start to go fuzzy. Realising she didn't end up here herself, the most immediate question that pops up, is who brought her here and are they still about.

*Huff, Huff*

"Ok, keep calm" She whispers to herself. "Getting all panicky won't help me here."

Thankfully, even with the lack of light, she can see that the room is empty, the door is closed and that there are no strange people watching her as she struggles to deal with the situation. With all this in mind, she realises she probably has some time to sort things out and so finally looks to the floor, to figure out the strangeness she has been feeling with her legs, as running may be necessary in the near future given the possible hostage situation. Looking down to where her legs would normally be, green scales can be seen, starting from her waist travelling all the way down past where her feet should be, ending at a narrow tail.

"Why do I have a snake tail…Is this a onesie or something…Did I put this on last night?"

Thinking back nothing comes to mind about the current outfit she is wearing.

"No wait, I don't have anything like this. Does that mean someone else put this on me."

Shivering at the thought of someone changing her clothes without her knowing, she slowly reaches down to strange outfit.

"What sort of weirdo takes someone to a log cabin and puts them into a onesie."

Grabbing the top of the outfit, hoping to pull it down to free her legs for a quick escape, she finds the material is very rough and the scales hard yet smooth. Putting this discovery of the high quality, realistic onesie on the back burner, she starts to tug and pull at the outfit. But as luck would have it, the clothes stay firmly where they are, hiding her legs from the world.

"Has this been glued to me somehow? Why won't this come off!" She whisper-screams while gritting her teeth as she struggles to pull off the 'onesie'.

Further tugs and pulling of the rough fabric result in little more than some pain on her body, due to it being stuck to her skin. Giving up on this endeavour, in case she ends up ripping her skin off, she tries to see if walking with the outfit on is possible. As she tries to move what should be her right leg, as they did before, things feel different to how they normally do. What should be a sensation from two separate legs, ends up being a single more complex sensation. Trying to move what should be her feet results in a numb feeling, as if they are asleep. Still thinking cramps are the cause, she tries to move forward to the best of her abilities.

*thump*

And trips.

"Uhh, how have I fallen over twice already. The day has just started, and the sun is barely up."

After some much needed huffing of annoyance at the situation, Octavia starts to push herself up off the floor, when suddenly, she hears her name.

"Octavia"

Startled, she quickly looks around the room for whoever called out to her. But finds no one.

"Octavia"

Again, she hears her name, but nobody is present. Listening to the voice, she hears it coming from the chest of drawers by the bed. Given the lack of mobility in her legs, she drags herself forward, pulls herself up and opens the top one. Looking inside, expecting so see a phone or walkie talkie, all she finds is a crystal ball. The ball is gorgeous and perfectly symmetrical, but this beauty is marred by a green tinge in the centre of the sphere. Mesmerised, she takes hold of it and brings it closer to her face, gazing at the green imperfection, which she notices is swirling in the centre of the ball.

"Octavia!"

Suddenly her name was called out once again. Very loudly. Right in front of her face.

Startled by the sudden voice, she jumps out of her skin. The ball consequently flies up into the air. She herself ends up heading in the opposite direction. As she falls, the only through that goes through her mind is, 'Really, again'.

*Thump*

*Smash*

As the saying goes, third times a charm. Where this third and final fall brings about fuzziness in her head. Then slowly, everything goes black.