The Blaze Chronicles

Slowly parting the leaves on the ground Yaff picked up a piece of dried scaly skin and held it up in front of him with both hands.   The dead skin was nearly transparent and as large as a bath towel.  Realizing that what he held in his hands was the dried skin from a snake Yaff said, “Do you know much about snakes On. Blaze.”  “Enough to stay away from them,” Blaze answered still gazing into the forest.  As he marveled at the size of the skin Yaff asked, “What is the largest snake that you have ever seen?”  “I saw an anaconda once, but they don’t live around here, so if you have found some dried snake skins don’t be alarmed.  There are rocks up here and snakes use them to remove there skin, now get me that rifle before something comes out of this forest and we lose ours.” Blaze said refusing to break off his visual inspection of the forest he watched for there unseen pursuers.  Yaff dropped the dead skin and crawled to the duffel bag his hands shaking slightly from the size of the skin he had found as he began to loosen the cord of the bag to get to the rifle inside.  Sometimes one will do things and know why and there are times that you will do things and not know what made you do them, and this was the case with Yaff as he stopped his frantic search for the rifle inside the duffel bag.  For a moment he sat on his knees motionless his mind wandering what made him freeze, what was around him that he had heard or seen out of the corner of his eye, that made him suddenly feel so uneasy as if someone or something was watching him.  Then slowly his eyes began to focus on something in front of him that did not seem to match the leaves or shrubs that lay on the forest floor.  At first it looked to be a large gray pipe that carved around to the other side of the rocks.  Yaff tried to make sense of what he saw and what about it made him feel so uncomfortable when something began to rise up from the forest floor just a few meters in front of him.  As if the forest had come to life Yaff watched as this gray mass rose up from the ground, and two large cat like eyes opened one on each side of a large wedged shape head.  Yaff’s whole body was overcome with fear as he began to identify a pair of nostrils that sat above a large reptilian mouth, which flicked a forked tongue.  Yaff gasped as he realized that he was looking at a snake.  A snake, who’s body was as thick as his waist and his head was large enough to swallow a man whole.  As the hair on the back of Yaff’s neck stood up he tried to say the word snake twice, but all he could manage was two quick gulps that sounded much like the sounds a man make when he is trying to catch his breath.  Hearing the panting of Yaff trying to control his breathing and slow his heart rate Blaze and Bain slowly turn there heads to see the massive gray figure looming over Yaff and them, not more than ten meters behind them.  Blaze slowly turned around and it was then that he realized that the three large boulders formed a kind of “u” shape with the large snake blocking the only exit.  Blaze held a firm grip on his shotgun and eased the index finger of his left hand over the trigger. His right hand held the pumping mechanism tight as he slowly slid it down the under side of the barrel until it made a cocking sound.  The sound of the gun being cocked, rippled through the quiet forest, and filled the air and the instance it did the giant snake shifted his focus from Yaff to Blaze.