I realized halfway through the lecture that I hadn’t heard a single word the professor had said. While he rambled about Hesiod, Prometheus, and Pandora, I just stared at my hands, intermittently squeezing them into fists and trying to keep them from shaking. I was still seething from a couple of hours earlier when I had last talked to the detective in charge of my brother’s case. When I trudged into class and slumped into my seat I could tell that the other students were surprised to see me. I had been absent for the last week while I tried futilely to get anyone with the ability to help me to care. I’d lost count of the number of times I had found myself at the police station arguing with the cops or pleading with the school faculty to let me into his dorm.

Everyone seemed convinced that he was just a runaway. That he, like many college students before him, had simply burnt out and taken off in a fit of stress and would show back up before too long like nothing had ever happened. Or that maybe he and his friend’s had gotten drunk or high and took an unplanned trip to Las Vegas and would call their families for bus fare once their bender had ended.

“There’s no evidence of any crime, and we’ve got nothing to go on,” they told me, over and over. “He’s a missing person. We’ll keep an eye out. In the meantime, try to get back to your life”

Try to get back to my life?

Bullshit! I slammed my fist onto the tabletop as I felt the all too familiar rage boil over again. I knew Frankie better than anyone. He wouldn’t just run off without at least telling me where he was going. His roommates had all disappeared on the same day as well. A whole group of university students disappears without a trace and the cops just dismissed it like it was nothing.

Fucking useless!

The teacher paused his oration and everyone turned to stare at me after I punched the table. 

“Sorry,” I mumbled into the silent hall. I stood, stooped to grab my bag, and headed out the door without waiting for class to finish.

The most infuriating part of the entire “investigation” into my older brother’s disappearance was that I was sure that it had something to do with his hobby. But, the second I brought it up, whoever I talked to would just raise an eyebrow and sigh.

“He wasn’t kidnapped by ghosts, Ari,” they would say patronizingly.

Well, no shit! Still, my brother and the other guys in his dorm had formed a paranormal investigation team. They had this hobby where they went into supposedly haunted locations around the state and tried to capture proof of spirits on camera. They also looked into things like psychic phenomena and UFOs, but ghosts and demonic possessions were really at the core of what they did. While the rest of us used the money we saved up from our summer jobs to help keep student loan debt down or buy cars, my brother and his crew sank thousands into collecting occult artifacts like haunted dolls as well as buying special equipment for recording the otherworldly. As much as I hated to admit it, he actually had amassed a pretty awesome collection and he loved showing me every bit of it.

I’m not sure that I believe in ghosts, but the stories attached to what he had were always really cool and spooky, if nothing else. 

So no, I didn’t think Frankie was “kidnapped by ghosts” or anything like that. What I was concerned with was that my brother might be trapped alone and starving somewhere. North Carolina was littered with supposedly haunted mines, lighthouses, dilapidated plantations, and civil war era battlefields and forts. If they had ventured into one of the secluded, rundown places for an investigation and gotten buried in a collapse, or injured, or worse…

I stormed across the quad as I fumed about the possibilities. I couldn’t take the thought of Frankie suffering while everyone ignored it, especially if his life was on the line and every second counted. He usually told me where he was going and when, just in case something bad like that happened. If nothing else, he could be arrested for trespassing if he snuck into someplace he wasn’t allowed to be to film after all. But the weekend he vanished, I was out in the mountains with my own roommate on a camping trip and had no cell reception.

I reached my dorm and stomped inside. I hastily started ripping off my shirt, suddenly feeling hot in my anger. I went into my bedroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the dresser. I pressed my palms flat against the top of the bureau and stared at myself as I suddenly realized how haggard I looked after a week with next to no sleep and only very brief breaks in my frustration.

I’m 6’ tall but have a dense, thick build, so I always saw myself as “stocky” despite my height. My normally tan skin was flush with a pink tinge and beaded with sweat from my exasperation, and my medium-length black hair was mussed up from me not taking the time to properly comb it in days. I wore rimless glasses that were fashionable when I bought them several years ago, before the thick-rimmed hipster frames came into inexplicable popularity. They highlighted my eyes, which normally were a seductive mocha brown, but were now bloodshot and irritated. I had a strong jaw and a short, rounded nose with wide nostrils that tended to flare involuntarily when I got angry (which was more often than not lately). I could never grow a strong beard, so despite not shaving in days, I scarcely had a shadow of dark stubble. I considered heading to the bathroom to take a shower when I heard the door in the other room open and shut. I poked my head out to see which of my roommates had come home.

Thankfully, it was Dimitri. He liked Frankie almost as much as I did and seemed to be the only person beside me who took his disappearance seriously. We had been friends since grade school and there was nothing that I couldn’t tell him. Hell, he was the first person I came out to, even before my big brother! Despite being steeped in the hyper-masculine culture of athletics, he was there for me when I needed him and accepted me, and I knew that I could always count on him. We had grown apart in interests over the years, but we had a bond that nothing could break.

I calmed myself a bit when he came in. Even with his sharp features, he had a caring face with a sincere, if distant, smile. He had black, wavy hair that bordered on curly. With how dark it was, it accentuated just how pale his skin was. He had a light dusting of freckles that practically disappeared in every season except for summer and pale blue eyes flecked with silver. He was just a bit shorter than I was, but far more tone and muscular, with a six-pack I was envious of. I was glad that he wasn’t gay. As much as I enjoyed thinking about him while pleasuring myself from time to time, engaging sexually or romantically would ruin the friendship we’ve built over the years.

“I thought you were going back to your classes today,” he said, cocking his head to the side as he saw me standing there.

“Couldn’t focus,” I replied. “You still set to go out tonight?”

He nodded and flashed a quick, self-conscious smile.

Breaking and entering wasn’t normally something he would consider doing. Dimitri was a bit too straight-laced for that, and he could be suspended from sports if caught. But the estate that we were going to was condemned and it wasn’t like we would be hurting anything. He knew how important it was to me that we check out the last place my brother investigated before disappearing and was willing to risk everything bad that could come of the crimes involved to help me. I just knew that there was some clue that we all overlooked. The last site his club had done an overnight visit to was as good of a place to start looking as any. If the police wouldn’t, I certainly would.

It was a now decrepit mansion that once belonged to a famous family of winemakers...or was it bootleggers? I could never remember which. In either case, tragedy befell them. Disappearances, mysterious deaths, people going crazy- you name it. Rumor had it that the place was haunted by countless miserable spirits and my brother had wanted to look into it for years. It was only a handful of days after he finally broke in with his crew to poke around that they disappeared. We hadn’t yet had the time to sit down and talk about what had happened, but Frankie was like an excited puppy every time the location was brought up. He had something big to share with me about what he discovered there, and I hoped I would find him so he could tell me what it was.

I wish I could say that I found something there that night with Dimitri, but the search turned out to be a bust. It was just a dusty, old house. It was definitely creepy with its spiderwebs and creaky floorboards, but I’m not as into ghost stories as Frankie so it didn’t scare me and I definitely didn’t turn up any supernatural explanation for his disappearance. To my friend’s credit, he was willing to turn over every stone in that place until the sun was coming up and we had to sneak out before it got too bright and someone spotted us. The last thing I needed at that moment was to explain why I was trespassing to the cops on top of everything else.

We lumbered back to the dorms after catching an early morning bus to the campus, and made it in time to each have a quick shower before we needed to make it to a class. I wasn’t looking forward to yawning my way through my morning lectures, especially with being so irritable and defeated by having my last hope turn up nothing of note. When we made it back to our room, one of the assistant deans was waiting for us in the hallway outside our door. I vaguely recognized him from when I had first enrolled- he had given one orientation presentation or another. He was furtively checking his watch while intermittently knocking.

He had an unmarked cardboard box on the floor beside him, large enough to hold a small piece of furniture and then some. He sighed and bent down to retrieve the package in a strangely tentative manner when he saw the two of us shuffling down the hallway. His dour expression raised to a tight-lipped expression, somewhere between a forced smile and a grimace.

“Excuse me, you are Aristotle, yes?” He inquired.

I nodded, stifling a yawn. It was still early. The sun had barely risen.

“I go by Ari.”

“Where were you two boys off to this early?”

“Just grabbing some coffee before classes,” Dimitri offered, shaking his nearly empty cup that we had grabbed from the corner shop on the way in. The cold dregs splashed about in it.

“Of course. I am- was the faculty advisor of the campus Paranormal Investigation Club. Forgive me, I don’t have much time left this morning. I had hoped to catch you sooner,” he spoke with an awkward cadence and kept pausing to bush wisps of silver hair out of the way of his thick lensed, tortoise shell glasses. He was disheveled, but I got the distinct impression that this was his normal appearance. He had the look of an aging hippy that didn’t wear a suit and tie until he was over 45 and never quite got comfortable with it. He blinked rapidly when he spoke. A nervous tick? “I am- was- am a big supporter of your brother’s passion. Franklyn and his friends were very...invested in what they did. Ghost hunting might not be as common as debate team as an extracurricular hobby on a resume but it sure is a lot more eye-catching.”

My friend and I exchanged glances while he slowly got to his point.

“This is most unusual, but I- well, I’m, uh, sure he’ll turn up soon. Normally we would give a missing student’s belongings over to the parents, but he always spoke so positively of you- and you are a blood relative, of course- that I had hoped you would take them until he is found. Or, erm, returns. They are mostly souvenirs of his hobby, which you might treat with more respect than your parents. I’ve gotten the impression that they think he is wasting his time. I gathered them the other night after the police had done a final sweep and while I was going to wait until later to drop them off to you- I didn’t want to wake you- I would just rather his personal effects go into your possession for the time being.”

He nudged the box a bit closer to us with the toe of his shoe, as if he was afraid the box would burn him. Then it struck me.

“You think these things are actually haunted?” I asked, a bit incredulous. His watery gray eyes met mine.

“While I’m not convinced of the supernatural I have learned to not rule out such things,” he affirmed. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be a sponsor and advisor of the club. These effects have made me a bit uncomfortable since they came into my supervision, especially in light of recent events.”

He furrowed his brow and drew his face into what I suspected was a very forced, supportive smile.

“Thank you,” I said, sincerely. It would be good to have something of Frankie’s until I found him. Maybe there would be a clue in there that the investigators had overlooked, like a note or photo of a place he planned to visit next.

The assistant dean shook my hand in a short, firm handshake and swiftly walked away down the hall.

Dimitri gave a dramatic stretch and a tremendous yawn.

“Well...that was weird. I don’t know about you, but there is no way I’m going to class today now,” he told me, apparently having lost the resolve to do so sometime between ordering his triple shot latte and that moment.

“Me neither,” I confirmed. The professors had been lax with me on my coursework since news of my brother’s disappearance had spread across the campus. They wouldn’t mind me taking one more day. I hoped.

“Want to see what he left behind in his room?” He asked sheepishly, like he should be embarrassed about being curious. I got the feeling that he would simply like to keep hanging around me and just needed a plausible excuse. 

“Of course,” I confirmed.

I bent down to pick up the box while my roommate unlocked our door and held it open for me to enter. The crate was lighter than I expected, given its size, but it was unwieldy in its bulk. It rattled and definitely had a mix of large and small objects inside. A few minutes later we were sitting on the tiny futon in our suite, opening up the box.

Dimitri lifted his feet and thunked them down on the coffee table as he reclined back. He was an athlete, and like most wore a large shoe size. His huge sock-clad feet didn’t give me much space to work with, but I slid the cans and bottles and fast food wrappers out of the way of what was left. He wiggled his toes, and I couldn’t help but stare for a brief moment. I had a weakness for guys’ feet, the larger the better. I didn't know if my friend knew about my fetish and was teasing me, or if he was simply being his usual casual and oblivious self.

There was a small treasure trove of paranormal paraphernalia inside the box. Much of it was momentos of my brother’s explorations. Just a bit from each location. There were also supposedly haunted keepsakes whose backstories I had heard so many times I could recite them verbatim with the same theatrical flourishes as Frankie, photo negatives that caught ghostly aspirations and will-o-the-wisps, audio tapes that were labeled with dates and times (presumably otherworldly voices or sounds), an EMF sensor, and the like. He had sunk so much time, effort, and money into this hobby that it was almost unreal to see it all collected in one place.

It was almost cathartic to go through the pieces. It was kind of like Frankie was there and I was snooping through his collection without him knowing. I shared everything I knew about everything with Dimitri, who sat there supportively, soaking it all in. I knew he wasn’t hurting as bad as I was and was just being supportive, and I admired him for it. I could kiss him in that moment, but I didn’t dare tell him. Even if he had always treated me the same since learning I was gay, I doubt he’d appreciate an advance like that. I hated that I didn’t go for it though, since I knew he would give in in the moment and go with it, if only to make me happy. I couldn’t exploit his submissive nature though, and sex was pretty far back on my list of priorities at the moment.

At the bottom of the box was the only thing that I didn’t recognize. I say the “bottom” but in reality it took up nearly half of the space in the container. It was a small box or chest, carefully hand carved of old wood with ornate brass accents and hinges. It resembled a tiny wardrobe.

“What the fuck is this?” I wondered aloud. “Some sort of big ass jewelry box?”

“It’s a wine box,” Dimitri informed me.

“Like Franzia?” I asked dumbly.

“No, man. It’s a box that you store bottles of wine in. Some people use them in their weddings. You can open on your anniversary years later after the wine has aged to celebrate. It’s a bit of an outdated thing, but my parents have one,” he explained.

“Your bougie parents would,” I jabbed, trying to lift our spirits a bit. “Frankie didn’t drink wine. Why would he have one of these?”

“I don’t know. Open it up and see what’s inside. Maybe he picked it up at a yardsale somewhere and is just using it to hold his stuff.”

I hefted the box and turned it over, examining every bit of it. It was definitely antique, or designed to look like one. I shook it a bit and could feel something moving about inside, but not making any noise. There definitely wasn’t a wine bottle in there, though. There were some strange symbols I didn’t recognize carved into the cabinet that stood out from the otherwise painstakingly etched details. 

“What’s this?” I inquired, scratching the back of my neck as I tilted my head in case I just wasn’t trying to read it from the right angle.

“Those are Hebrew characters, man,” Dimitri said, rolling his eyes.

As if I should know? I thought.

“What do they say?”

“I don’t know. I never ask you what something says in Spanish,” he said, feigning offense. “My parents never made me study. I can take a picture and send it to my dad. He could probably tell me.”

Dimitri was half Jewish. Although his family wasn’t particularly devout, I remembered seeing some religious paraphernalia around their house when I was a kid. I was always jealous that he got to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah and got way more presents than I did.

“It’s probably not that important. Maybe later, depending on what’s inside.”

“This part isn’t Hebrew, though. I’ve got no clue what that is,”  he jabbed a finger at a tiny insignia on the back as I turned it.

I recognized the crest immediately when he pointed it out.

“How can you not!? That symbol was everywhere in the wine-cellars last night. This box must have belonged to the family that owned it. If Frankie picked it up there, then there has to be something special about it. Let’s see if your dad will translate it for us after all.”

Dimitri snapped a pic with his phone and texted his father.

“He’s probably on his way to work, so it might be a while before he gets back to us. You gonna’ open it or not?”

I tried to open the box, but couldn’t get the door to budge. I wrinkled my nose as I searched for a latch or keyhole. Not finding one, I dug my fingers into the crevice and pried as hard as I could.

“It’s stuck,” I declared flatly. I was frustrated, but fatigue was winning the battle of emotions. “There might be a trick to opening it.”

“It’s a wine box, not a puzzle box.”

“Maybe there is a latch inside and we just need something thin to slide through the crack?”

“Let me know when you figure it out, dude. I’m beat.”

Dimitri yawned, then rose to head for bed. 

I fiddled unsuccessfully with the box for a little while longer before I gave up and slumped back for a nap on the couch. I woke up several hours later to an empty dorm. I checked my phone and found that I had a message from Dimitri telling me that he was going to try to catch an afternoon class so that he wasn’t completely behind and trying to catch up later and hit basketball practice after that. He said that he had heard back from his dad. After trying to guilt trip him into attending Shabbat on Saturday morning, he told him it was some sort of prayer, which made sense if it was meant for a wedding tradition. The verse was apparently about sealing away sorrow or something like that, but it was followed by a prayer to release negativity. He even sent a pronunciation guide. I idly tried to speak it as I considered this information and examined the box again, faltering with the unfamiliar sounds of Hebrew.

As I did, I swear I saw the box shudder and shift in my peripheral vision. I looked away from my phone screen toward the cabinet again, but found it still and silent. I ran my hand across it’s doors. The old wood was smooth but slightly warped from age. I swear it smelled like jasmine flowers, when it hadn’t earlier that morning. My thumb hovered on the corner of its door, and I was shocked to find it loose. I had tried as hard as I could earlier to open, but now it felt like it could swing right open with marginal effort. I hadn’t seen anything exciting at the mansion, but my brother was definitely enthused to tell me about something that he had found on his trip. It had to be related to whatever was inside.

I tried to imagine what I would find inside, but couldn’t conjure up any idea of what that might be. With a deep breath I pulled open the box and immediately stumbled back over the couch. A snake popped out. A fucking snake! The overpowering scent of jasmine wafted out along with it. Despite having been locked in the cabinet for several days the serpent was still very much alive and slithered toward me. It was not a small snake either, it was nearly three feet long with jet black scales and a crimson belly. I flailed as I staggered back to my feet, looking for something to throw at it to scare it off. 

I didn’t find anything.

I wanted to run screaming into the hallway, but the snake was between me and the door. The hazy light filtering in through the window behind me left it half coiled in my shadow. It reared and flicked it tongue toward me, its ebony eyes glinting in a sliver of light as it rose.

I slowly sidled sideways as I locked my gaze with the serpent’s, hoping to get close enough to the door to escape before it shot forward and bit me. I didn’t know enough about snakes to tell whether it was venomous or not, but I wasn’t looking forward to getting bit and finding out. My shadow shifted along with me, leaving the snake fully in the sunlight. Reptiles like sunlight and warmth, right? I hoped that it would be content to curl up in the sunbeam while I called animal control. It cast a shadow of its own once I stopped blocking the sun. I’m not sure if my mind was playing tricks on me, but I would bet my life that its shadow was distorted unnaturally. It was as though its body was covered in spines and jagged rather than smooth.

I usually like to think of myself as pretty brave, but I was on the verge of hyperventilating. 

It suddenly darted closer, almost making me fall again. Rather than going to bite me, though, it merely undulated into my shadow again and then repeated its menacing motion, as if it enjoyed being near me and basking in my fear. It dared me to leave with a glare and I tried to calm my breathing. We both remained still for a long while. I felt faint. I really hoped that this wasn’t how I was going to die. Why did Frankie have a snake of all things in this stupid cabinet?

Time seemed to lose all meaning for me as I stood there frozen in place, too afraid to move anymore. It might as well have been hours that I didn’t dare twitch a muscle. Eventually, the serpent seemed to fall asleep and I was able to sneak back out the dorm door without disturbing it. I sprinted down the hallway before collapsing into a squat at the end, supporting my back against the wall as I puffed for breath.

A short time later I was on the phone with animal control who sent someone out to try to catch the thing. They seemed skeptical when I described the snake. Apparently it sounded similar to a poisonous snake that is found in the area, but there had never been one recorded over a foot long, so three feet plus was unbelievably large. I guess they assumed that I exaggerated due to my terror, but a guy in an animal control van showed up soon enough and searched all through my dorm.

He didn’t actually find the bastard after more than an hour looking and gave up. He handed me a card with his direct line on it and told me to call back if I found it again later. He also informed me where I could buy some appropriate traps to try to capture it if it was still hanging around, but it probably slipped off though the open door after I ran away. I was too scared to go back in by myself, and only ventured close enough to shut and lock the door.

With each step I took closer and nausea welled in my gut. My heart fluttered wildly. It was like approaching the room, the serpent...the box filled me with a persistent and undeniable fear. It was more a foreboding sense of unease than a panic, but as strong a sensation as I’d ever experienced.

I went on a walk afterward to calm my nerves while I waited for Dimitri to return. I only paused to send a message to our other roommates that there might be a dangerous snake in our dorm. My hands trembled so much that I almost dropped my phone and the text was so riddled with typos that I hoped they understood my note. The incident with the snake must have bothered me even more than I realized, because I kept imagining that I was seeing it in my peripheral vision every so often as I plodded across campus. The first time it happened I jumped out of my skin, drawing curious glances from other students hanging out in the afternoon sun. A half dozen times later and I was already becoming a nervous wreck. Luckily, the sightings seemed to slow after I got some food in me, but I couldn’t shake that feeling of trepidation that followed me as surely as the visions of the snake itself. If anything, the sense of impending doom only strengthened over time.

Eventually the sun began to set and I knew that Dimitri would be back soon so I headed back to the dorm to wait for him so I could warn him of the potentially deadly animal in our room. I, of course, waited at the far end of the hallway rather than in the room itself. The low sun painted the sky fiery orange and indigo and made my shadow stretch out before me on the return trip. Just as I had seen with the snake, it was like my shadow was somehow wrong. It was more jagged than it should have been, and there were these wisps of darkness at strange, sharp angles like I was covered in spines.

When my roommate got back he was still in his jersey from practice. His sweat caused the sneering, cartoon kangaroo face to cling to his chest. I smelled him as I approached and found his presence simultaneously calming and arousing. I also lamented (and not for the first time) that he wasn’t gay. He always looked so sexy after practice, and even with the stress of the day I would gladly bend him over and fuck him in an instant. He tended to cave to what I wanted, more often than not, so I knew if I got a few drinks in him, or needled him hard enough I could probably get him to “experiment” with me, but I always respected him a bit too much to take advantage of the dynamic we had.

I explained to him all that had happened. I downplayed my mild hallucinations, of course, not wanting him to think I completely lost it in the wake of Fankie’s disappearance like so many others had with my random, frustrated outbursts. He grabbed my shoulder supportively and offered to pay for a hotel room for the night. It was probably just as much him not wanting to sleep in a room that may or may not still have a dangerous snake in it as him wanting to help me keep calm and relaxed, but I appreciated it nonetheless. 

We got a single room and opted to share the bed. I didn’t get much rest that night. It would be hard enough to fall asleep next to Dimitri while he wore nothing other than his sexy black boxer-briefs and I was clad in only my loose pajama pants, but it wasn’t only my omnipresent arousal that kept me up. I tossed and turned, tangling myself in the sheets and disturbing my friend. To his credit, he didn’t complain and let me jostle against him. What few precious moments of slumber I did get were plagued with horrible nightmares. They were too vague and jumbled to recall clearly, but snakes and shadows and Frankie were all involved, along with that looming, all-encompassing dread. 

By morning I was still exhausted. I staggered to the bathroom sink and stared at myself in the mirror. At that point it had been a few nights since I’d slept and more still since I had gotten any decent amount of rest. My eyes were sunken and dark, and my complexion paler than normal. I had developed an itch as well. It was on the back of my forearm, the back of my neck- all over really. Despite inspecting myself I couldn’t seem to find any evidence of a rash. Still, I felt dry and couldn’t seem to alleviate the persistent urge to scratch. My nerves were playing tricks on me too. I couldn’t help but see the snake everywhere in my peripheral vision again, but when I turned to look at it, it was always a belt left on the floor, or a coiled up power cord or something like that. 

For some reason, the prayer etched into the wine box stood out vividly in my mind. Despite having blundered my way through it the first time, it became clearer in my memory, until I was certain I could recite it perfectly.

I tried to take a long, hot shower to relax, but the whole time I feared I would fall asleep on my feet and slip due to fatigue. My life had come crashing down around me with Frankie’s disappearance and I didn’t need the pain and embarrassment of my friend having to rescue me naked from the bath on top of it all. After I stepped out and dried off I donned my underwear from the previous day since I didn’t have a fresh change of clothes then tagged out with my roommate. Dimitri brushed past me with a towel around his waist into the shower. I allowed myself a brief glimpse at how the fabric of the towel hugged the round globes of his ass before he shut the bathroom door behind him. With the stress of the last few days, I felt that I owed myself that small bit of enjoyment at least. I did manage to fight the urge to race the clock and beat off while he showered though.

We checked out of the hotel and made a short, cautious stop at our dorm for fresh clothes. We moved at a snail’s pace as we looked for any sign of the snake before putting one foot down and lifting the next. It felt strange to open the door to see the cabinet so prominently displayed on the coffee table, its ornate hatch ajar. The flowery aroma still pervaded the air, though it was less cloying now. Dimitri seemed oblivious to it as we did what we needed to. After changing, our hearts beating a mile a minute the entire time we were there, we separated to go to class. I knew that just like the other day I wouldn’t hear a word of my lecture, but there was no way the professors were going to continue to be understanding of my ongoing absence and still let me pass if I didn’t at least make an attempt to show up.

We promised each other that we would do a thorough clean of the dorm and search for the snake as soon as our classes had adjourned. 

My itch persisted throughout the day. It gradually got worse until I was constantly fighting the urge to dig at my flesh to sate it. The skin on the back of my arm was dry and torn from my scratching, to the point that it looked like it was shedding my skin like my pet gecko did when I was growing up. I put on a long sleeve shirt to cover it, despite the warmth of the season and stopped at the pharmacy for some lotion to see if it would help any. It didn’t. 

Our eventual search of our dorm didn’t show any trace of the snake. It must have slithered away in search of food at some point. On one hand I was glad we hadn’t found it and our apartment was actually clean for once, but on the other I was going to constantly worry about opening my closet or pulling back my blanket only to find it there waiting for me. I consoled myself with the knowledge that with its size, there was no way we wouldn’t have found it if it was still in the room.

The only thing that we didn’t clean up was Frankie’s souvenirs. I couldn’t quite bring myself to pack them away, so they sat in the center of the common room like an eerie shrine. The door to the wine box cracked ajar like an ominous invitation to open it again.

The next several days passed by in a dreary haze. My sleep continued to be sparse and plagued by bad dreams when it came. I was haunted by a ceaseless anxiety and dread. My itch grew worse until I had scale-like patches on my body, some of them vast in size like the several square inch swath on my back. I had hit the end of the road in my search for Frankie. There was nothing else I could do and that weighed heavily on my mind. My visions of my own distorted shadow grew more and more common until it was to the point where I was more surprised when I didn’t see it.

I knew I was at my emotional breaking point almost a week in when I caught my reflection and I hallucinated that my irises were a smokey gray, so dark that they were almost black. They were ringed in a jagged halo of smoldering crimson and my pupils appeared as narrow slits. I almost fell backward from shock. I blinked rapidly, watching the image of myself closely until they seemed to change back to normal as if it had never happened.

Had I snapped? Was I dead and Frankie was haunting me? Was I cursed?

My legs were weak from lack of sleep and food. I hadn’t been eating well in the wake of everything and had been keeping myself going with willpower, cigarettes, and coffee. I supported myself with a palm against the wall one afternoon as I decided to dig through Frankie’s things one final time to see if there was anything that I overlooked.

I opened the cabinet again. The inside of the strange box was startlingly different than it had been before. Strange markings were carved across every inch of the interior as if scratched by claw. At first I thought they might be more Hebrew characters, but upon closer inspection, they definitely didn’t match what I had seen before. Instead of the sickly sweet herbal scent that it emanated before it was now sulphurous and rotten. I wished that Dimitri was there to put his arm around my shoulder and tell me that I was nuts and imagining everything. He would be soon: His basketball practice was nearly over. I could wait for him before digging further, but I was compelled by an indescribable force to continue to pry. I ran my fingertips across the newly carved symbols and breathed heavily. My heart thundered in my ears.

I could read them.

I couldn’t understand them, really, but phonetically I could make out what they intended to say. It was a repetitive chant that I found myself reading aloud before I knew it. It was full of stressed consonants that sounded like menacing hisses. I lisped my way through it again and again. I felt something...shift within me that I couldn’t quite describe. It was as if I was growing new bones and those within me were moving around and reconfiguring. 

It should hurt. It might have, in fact, but I was so transfixed that any pain was distanced from me. The rough patches on my skin pulsed scarlet before fading to an inky black, scale like pattern. I could see it spread along my arm- a blazing fire racing a field of dry grass. As it climbed up my shoulder and onto my neck it carried with it the scent of brimstone. I continued to slur the chant as I turned to look at my hand. My palm and the underside of my wrist were a vibrant red. My hand was swelling into a bigger version of itself, but smooth and taloned. My ears shrunk and twisted into nothing but small holes on the sides of my head, and I began “feeling” sound, for the lack of a better word. Every slight noise around me reverberated through my body as I gained a strange new sense.

I panicked and hyperventilated, finally breaking myself free of whatever hysterical spell had come over to me and stumbled my way to the bedroom to look in the mirror. I made it just in time to feel my face tingle numbly like it had been injected with a heavy dose of anesthetic. My jaw suddenly jutted forward and changed. It elongated my face into a rounded arrowhead with slits for nostrils. My teeth melted and merged into two terrifying fangs. My eyes clouded and darkened until they were a glittering and reflective sable. The scales continued to spread to cover my face while my hair thinned and faded until it was like it was never there at all. The same crimson shade as on my palm blossomed underneath my deformed chin and down toward my chest. I felt my muscles throb and grow and my clothing felt tight. I was definitely taller than before. I was over seven feet now, with the top of my head nearly brushing the ceiling

My shirt pulled taut across my widening chest and I tore it from my body with a single, powerful motion of my claws. It ripped audibly and I cast it aside, only to see that my torso resembled the rest of what I had seen. I had a smoothly scaled, muscular body. My back and sides were jet black and my belly and chest were blood red. My abdomen had elongated, further adding to my height which gave me a decidedly sinuous and serpentine appearance. My legs thickened and my groin prickled. I worked to undo the cargo shorts I was wearing and slid them down with my boxers only to see where I had an average body before I now had a muscular V around my groin, with powerful leg muscles. My cock and balls numbed and I watched them fearfully as they seemed to retract into me, leaving a slit-like opening behind. It’s odd to say, but I could feel them inside of me, just taking on a different form like the rest of me. 

My tailbone grew and I felt a pointed nub erupt from above the cleft of my ass and grow and grow until several feet of colossal, snake-like tail dragged on the floor behind me. While I watched it elongate my feet molded to match my new body, until I stood solidly on a pair of talon-like reptilian feet tipped with razor edged claws. Finally, the shifting and changing ceased. I took a good look at myself.

I looked like a demonic anaconda that stood upright on two legs and had two arms. As horrifying as I was I felt immensely powerful. No longer was I overcome with apprehension. A weight had been lifted from me. Now there was a new influence that pervaded my mind. I understood that I had the capacity to get what I wanted. Whatever I wanted. I could use whatever had happened to me to find my brother. But with the sense of power I felt flooded with came the urge to exert it in other ways. There were things I could take that I never could have, or would have, before. My perspective on the recent past wavered. 

I should punish the police for failing to find Frankie. The thought came suddenly and without warning, almost like it was thrust upon me. I considered it and felt my muscles tense and twitch with delightful anticipation.

What else could I do? What other havok could I wreck?

Dimitri had been a tease, hadn’t he? Sleeping in his underwear beside me, his ass softly grinding against my pelvis as he rolled onto his side to sleep. The soles of his large feet pressed unconsciously against my legs for warmth beneath the covers. That was enough of an invite for me to feel justified in indulging my baser desires with him. I felt my slit- my cloaca, I suddenly knew it was called- spread open at the the thought of fucking him him hard, whether he wanted it or not. Not one, but two erections slid free of the aperture in my scales, each textured with bumps and ridges and a fleshy, marbled crimson in color. They glistened with rivulets of pre.

I heard the dorm room door handle rattle as it was unlocked and opened in the next room. I felt the subtle vibration of my friend (my prey) dropping his gym bag onto the carpet though the soles of my feet. I scented his sweat, his pheromones on the air and flickered my tongue to catch them. 

I turned toward the bedroom door, sporting twin nine-inch erections from my imposing frame. As I walked I felt my new tail drag behind me on the carpet. I raised my claw to the knob.

“Ari, are you here?” Dimitri called. “I’m back from practice.”

I flung open the door and heard him gasp. My attention was focused fully on him. To my newly heightened senses he seemed to move in slow motion. I saw him drop the shoe he had just taken off as his face transitioned from shock to horror. He paled and took a tentative step back toward the door. His orange jersey clung to his chest with sweat.

“Stop,” I commanded, my voice echoing from not only my larynx but from ethereal sources around me.

His already slack jaw continued to hang agape but he immediately ceased moving. I approached with a cocksure stride and stroked a claw along his handsome jawline. His eyes darted to my thrumming lengths which dripped watery pre to the floor. My reptilian finger trailed threateningly down his throat to the hollow of his collarbone. My talon caught briefly on the mesh fabric of his shirt until it reached the confidently sneering kangaroo on the front. My mouth drew tight into the semblance of a smile. I wondered if he could tell with my new form. 

“Sweet...submissive...boy,” I hissed, drawing out the S’s. He could have run and yet he obeyed. I planned to take what I wanted, yes, but why just stop at merely assuaging my lust?  I had an idea. Somehow I knew I had the power to make it a reality. The tip of my claw lingered on the team’s mascot. It was as good a form as any for my thrall.

I willed it to be.

There was a pulse of tension in the air. Like the throb of a massive, unseen heart, power rippled forth from me. I saw my own alien visage and snake-like eyes reflected in his as he froze in place. They smoldered from within with an all encompassing blackness; the antithesis of light.

I savored the utter terror in his eyes as he started to fidget and then move in unnatural, bizarre ways. He started to sprout tufts of onyx fur all along his visible body. His legs thickened quickly, stretching and tearing his shorts and underwear to shreds. Likewise, his already sizable feet swelled and mutated into gigantic kangaroo-like paws complete with toe claws. The weight of his upper body shifted until he had proportions halfway between man and animal. Soon he sported a thick black pelt of fur and a set of twisted horns and spines growing from his head. His once handsome eyes became intense orbs of liquid fire. He snarled in pain as he underwent a change not unlike my own. Once the hellish transformation was complete, he resembled in all ways an anthropomorphic marsupial with a demonic presence. He was even more muscular than before. And fully nude, now that his clothes had been torn or discarded during his change. He had a plump sheath and two hefty testicles to go along with it. The only portion of him that didn’t resemble a kangaroo were his lizard-like talons on his front paws, closer to mine than a mammal’s.

I glared into his eyes. I had imbued him with dark power, but made sure that he would bend entirely to my will. I drained him of any resolve that he had, leaving him trapped in his own body, able to access his senses but have no control over himself except when I chose to let him out. I craned my elongated, serpentine neck and flicked my tongue against his nipple, teasing the sensitive flesh there. Then I dragged my fang along it, nipping at it lightly but threatening to bite it in earnest. I felt him quake with fear and briefly try to mentally resist, but his efforts were in vain. My mastery over him was too great. As I tantalized his nipple with my mouth, I used my claw to torment the other. I smelled his sudden and unexpected arousal on my tongue.

It seemed that I had happened upon a particular erogenous zone of his. Not only could I force him to bend over and take my cocks within him, but I could make him want it. I could make him crave it!

I pressed him back until he reclined on his muscular tail and lifted his enormous foot-paws into the air between us. I was going to fuck him soon. Roughly. Ceaselessly. Mercilessly. He was my plaything to use as I saw fit. But first I was going to indulge a longtime fantasy of mine now that my inhibitions had been lowered and his autonomy had been thoroughly dissolved by my magic.

I slid my long, textured tongue across the length of his foot, tasting his newly formed paw pads and making him squirm. A shiver went up my spine as I savored the flavor. I nibbled at his toes and felt along his soles, massaging his thick paws between my hands. The fur on one side tangled in my claws while the fleshy mounds on the other were mouthwatering. My beguiled slave, submissive only to me, groaned as I worked. After I had entertained myself with Dimitri’s monstrous paws I beckoned in the air with one claw and exerted my will upon him once more. I could hear his mind silently screaming in a queer mixture of terror and curiousity as his body obeyed my whims. He moved over to the couch, where he bent himself over the armrest and swished his tail out of the way to present his hole to me. 

It was begging to be bred.

Precum was leaking down each of my shafts by this point, and I kneaded one in each palm as I positioned myself behind him. I let go of one to squeeze the firm curvature of his rump and prod at his entrance with my thumb. The puckered ring of flesh peeked out from the coarse fur of his coat alluringly. I almost considered loosening him with my fingers or tongue to make my entry easier, but promptly discarded the idea. There was no need to be gentle. I had been frustrated in every sense of the word for far too long and I was going to relieve my tension in the way that I saw fit. Once I was done I would find my brother and share my newfound gift with him if he hadn’t already taken it himself.

I held my two cocks together and lined them up with his backside. They thrummed together, aching for release. I pressed one of their crowns against Dimitri’s entrance, the other slipping just below and off to the side of it. It was going to be rough forcing one in at a time, let alone both. However, I was determined to get them both inside of him. I thrust my hips forward and felt my pawn tense and whimper as his ass stretched painfully wide to accommodate the first of my erections. With a forceful buck I managed to jab the first inch into him. His tight heat clamped down around me, sending waves of pleasure through me.

“You better relax,” I warned him. “There is a lot more of me left to go.”

I ground myself forward another inch, sliding a knobby ridge of demon snake penis into him. He moaned loudly. Students next door would surely hear him cry out as he was fucked. I smiled knowing that others would hear him whine for my seed and know what a dutiful bitch he was. I knew that my using him for my own sexual urges was due to the corrupting influence of whatever was possessing me, but it was due to that same inexplicable force that I didn’t care.

I hunched over his back and I drove myself deeper into him, using only my copious amounts of precum as lube. He was groaning and crying out frequently by the time I had fully hilted my first length into him, and I quivered in ecstasy at the sensation. I wouldn’t last long, so I endeavored to make it my greatest orgasm ever. I pulled back until only the tip was still within him, feeling each bump drag against his prostate and smelling him spurt pre against the arm of the couch. He flinched and writhed beneath me. I bucked back into him, ramming the entirety of my shaft into him again. I repeated this over and over again, gaining in momentum until I was pistoning in and out of his abused hole. He mewled and moaned and uttered raspy curses. I used my magical hypnosis to twist his words and make him beg to be used, shouting out his lust to be filled with my cum.

Then I paused to line up my second cock. Its spade-shaped tip caused new agony as it entered him beside its twin. He hissed through his teeth as his ring further stretched to accommodate my considerable size. I reached around him to fondle his penis, and smirked as I found it rigid and dripping. Heat radiated from the several inches of eager flesh. I returned to pounding into him, taking his anal virginity with wild abandon.

Finally, I approached climax. I stood upright and arched my back to fully bury myself into my plaything. My talons dug into his tail as I wrapped my arms tightly around it and snarled. I felt my scales bristle all over my body when I at last hissed and violently came. Thick ropes of snake cum pumped into his ass, quickly filling him to the point that it leaked out around my dual cocks. He twitched and orgasmed from the savage bliss of being mated while under my enthralling spell. I felt him squeeze me with his tailhole as he went over the edge, milking any last drops of essence from my lengths still buried within him.

I pulled out, stepped forward until his face was mere inches from my groin, and gripped one of his horns. Wrenching his head forward, I silently demanded he clean them with his muzzle. I sighed with satisfaction as he slurped the last vestiges of my cum from my erections before I allowed him to slump to the floor. He reclined, back against the couch, tail weakly flopped beside him. Semen leaked from his gaping hole, matting into the fur beneath his tail. He panted, lost in a post-orgasmic haze and weak from my maltreatment.

I, on the other hand, felt invigorated by finally succeeding at something. By taking that which I desired. My thirst only grew and my spent lengths hadn’t even fully retracted into my slit.

“Get up,” I commanded. “We’re finding Frankie.”