The eyes went first.
White diluting.
Red veins pushing through from the edges.
Spreading inward.
Slow.
Like something being flooded from the outside in.
---
His chest.
Hitching.
Each breath finding less than the one before it.
The sound of it wet.
Wrong.
The body arguing with itself.
---
His skin.
The surface of it moving.
Peeling at the edges.
Liquefying where it peeled.
Not blood.
Something underneath blood.
Something that was supposed to stay inside the architecture of a person.
---
He sat in the shallow water.
The green still moving around him.
Still low.
Still patient.
---
Blood came from his mouth.
Not fast.
Just steadily.
The way water finds a crack and uses it.
Pouring down his chin.
Into the water below.
Spreading there.
Pink first.
Then darker.
---
Above him the room continued.
The sparks.
The gunshots.
The sound of blades.
The screaming of the creature.
All of it enormous.
All of it very far away from where he was.
---
The screens in the dark room caught all of it.
Every angle.
Every frame.
The men watching leaning forward now.
No longer still.
No longer professional.
Just watching.
---
His breathing stopped.
Not dramatically.
Just stopped.
The way a sound stops when the thing making it is gone.
---
He fell forward.
His face meeting the water.
The surface breaking around him.
Sending a small wave outward in all directions.
Quiet.
Almost gentle.
Compared to everything else in the room.
Almost nothing.
---
The serpent found him.
Coiled around what was left.
Pulling it close.
Using it.
---
A blade came from the side.
One soldier.
Moving without hesitation.
The slash cutting through.
The body separating from the coil.
Falling in two directions.
---
The soldier stood there.
Covered in blood that wasn't all theirs.
Breathing hard.
Eyes moving across the room.
Taking inventory.
What was standing.
What wasn't.
What was still moving that shouldn't be.
---
Their eyes widened.
---
The serpent was already moving toward them.