1. Oona

Eat or be eaten. A mandate every living creature in the lagoon understands. And unfortunately, it’s looking like I’m the one about to be eaten today.

I stare down at the emerald python, my blood rushing in my ears as she squeezes my chest so tight I hear, and feel, something pop. After thirty minutes of thrashing about in the shallow waters of the lagoon, I’m spent. And as the only one of my kind, I have no family to mourn me. Or avenge me.

This sucks.

This is how my species finally dies out. I can’t even make a sound to utter any last words. Pathetic. You know, perhaps it’s for the best that no one else is around to witness my failure.

But I’ll give it one last hurrah and try to go down with a fight. With a final display of ferocity, I open my mouth wide and thrust my fangs into the scaly hide of the boa. The coppery tang of blood floods my mouth as she writhes in agony, splashing water everywhere, and eventually releases her hold on me.

I’m free. I’m actually free. Not wasting another second, I spring into action and jam my leg down onto the python’s wriggling body, pinning it in the muddy waters. Being nearly crushed to death is exhausting. I won’t be able to hold her for long, and I can’t rely on my claws in this situation, so I look around for something hard and blunt to strike her with.

The snake thrashes beneath my foot as I grab a rock no bigger than my hand and whack it into her skull over and over, until her struggling ceases. Her body goes limp. Dead at last.

Wiping my chin of the excess blood, I lean down to hoist the python over my shoulder to make the short trek back to the tree house. A butterfly the color of azure skies lands on my shoulder, and I surprise myself by not shooing it away. It’s welcome company in a world that, from the second I was hatched into it, has been determined to kill me.

As I wade through the water, a few smaller snakes glide across the surface. These are too small to bother with, though had I grabbed fistfuls of smaller snakes instead of going after the forest’s queen, maybe I wouldn’t have almost died. But you don’t get stronger by only going after the easy prey, and I can’t afford to rest on my laurels out here. It’s shit, but it’s home.

With the snake draped across my shoulders like a morbid trophy, I sink deeper into the lagoon. The temperature drops with each step, but it doesn’t bother me. When I’m out far enough, I slip below the surface just in time to see a massive alligator lunging for me.

I hate to do it, but I drop the python and surrender it to the lagoon just as the gator’s jaws snap at my arms. My feet find purchase in the muddy lakebed and I dig my claws into the gator’s eyes as it turns around to strike again.

Already exhausted from my battle with the python, I’m not sure if I’m going to make it through my encounter with a gator twice my size. Not even on a good day. But when it swings back around to take a chomp out of my side, I’m ready for it, and latch onto its jaws with my webbed claws and pull as hard I can.

There’s a muffled snap, and the gator’s body goes limp and starts to float away. Snatching it, I search frantically for the python I discarded. It’s gone, food for the lagoon’s other habitants now, but I always preferred the taste of gator flesh to snake, anyway. I grab my kill by its tail and drag it along the hazy lagoon lakebed, eager to get home.

Then, out of the corner of my inky eye I spot a shoal of piranhas, attracted by all the blood in the water, swarming toward me.

I drag a webbed hand down my face and let out a groan. “You’ve got to be fucking with me.”

HaveI ever wished for a mate? I’d be lying if I said no, but I gave up on the prospect ages ago. Ever since I hatched some fifty summers ago, alone and terrified, I entertained no delusions of what my life was going to be like. Eat, fuck, fight, and die. The basics of living life in the lagoon. I’ve got two out of four going for me so far, and I almost got a third checked off on my list.

But damn. It’d be really great if I could fuck at least once before I died. My body yearns for the feeling of another. Every once in a while, I’ll lay an egg, but they all turn out to be duds. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Perhaps I’m not meant to sire any pups. Which is fine. I don’t have a motherly bone in my body, but having someone else to talk to aside from the birds who nest above my tree house would be nice.

I turn the piranha around on its stick over the blazing fire and cough a few times from the smoke. Then I grab a few pieces of the pink, succulent gator tail flesh and toss it onto one of the hot stones to cook. Yeah, no. I scratched fucking off my list a long time ago, once I realized I was the only one of my kind left in the lagoon.

At least, I’m pretty sure I am. Maybe in other parts of the world there are more like me, but I can’t risk leaving and being seen by humans. And those fuckers are everywhere. Like rabbits, they breed and put up warrens faster than I can blink. They’re also dangerous, and I’ve learned over the years to stay far, far away from them as much as possible, which makes it almost impossible to go out into the world to search for more of my kind.

It”s fine. I’ve accepted my life the way it is, I guess.

Once my gator meat is cooked through enough that I know I won’t get worms from it, I scoop up the pieces and toss them into my mouth. And instantly regret it. I spit the meat right back out into my hand and sigh. The metallic bite from the flesh coats my tongue, and I chuck the pieces into the bushes behind me for the birds to enjoy.

Disgusting. I’ve never had a gator taste so strongly of chemicals before. I retrieve one of my piranhas, cooked whole—my favorite—and blow on it for a few seconds before putting the entire thing in my mouth. I don’t need to cook my food, of course, but a charred piranha is a rare treat out here. As I start to chew, my eyes water when the same metallic taste invades my mouth. I spit out this meat, too.

What’s going on? Is something wrong with me? Am I so exhausted from my earlier battles with the gator and python that I can no longer taste things properly? Eating is now out of the question, because I’d rather lick my own armpit before ingesting another bite of whatever … that was.

As the sun recedes over the horizon, the sounds of the forest come alive in a chorus of ribbits, croaks, and chirps. Too late to go back out hunting for something small and furry, now. If all the animals in the lagoon are going to taste that foul, then tomorrow morning I better pray that I find a nice, juicy boar to snack on.

Luckily, I’ve got cans of fermented newt eyes back home for emergencies like this. I’ll munch on those, regain my strength, and hunt for boar in the morning.