The Snake Problem (a.k.a. Nature Is Cruel and So Are Game Devs)
Aya couldn't move. Not properly. One leg twitched like a broken marionette dangling off a child's shelf. Her body was screaming in five different dialects of pain, and her stamina bar had become more of a joke than a stat. She felt like a battery left in the sun too long—useless, overheating, and on the verge of bursting. But her mind? Oh, her mind was doing backflips in panic.
Aya:"Can't move. Can't run. Can't even flail convincingly. But sure, yeah, let's add a GIANT SNAKE to the mix. Of course. Makes PERFECT sense."
The thing that emerged from the far end of the cavern was not just a snake—it was a visual bug that should've been patched five seasons ago. It slithered from the shadows like a muscle-bound nightmare, long and thick enough to make the cave look tiny in comparison. Every movement sent a ripple down its obsidian-colored body, the scales reflecting the eerie glow of the bioluminescent mushrooms like dark glass. Its yellow eyes locked onto the chaos in front of it—like twin lanterns of doom.
Its tongue flicked out.
Aya squinted.
Aya:"…Please let that mean you like your meat green and goblin-y. Please, for the love of all unholy things, have a strict no-bug diet."
But no such luck. The goblins—still mid-brawl from their earlier rage-fest—turned, noticed the abomination sliding toward them, and made a very goblin decision.
They attacked.
Aya:"What is WRONG with you? That's not courage—that's terminal stupidity!"
One of them hurled a crooked spear. It hit the snake's scales with a tink that sounded more like a spoon hitting a tank.
The snake didn't flinch. It blinked slowly. Judging. Offended.
Then came the tail.
CRACK!
A goblin flew through the air like a sack of broken dreams, smashing into a rock wall with a wet thud. Bones splintered. Blood sprayed. The other goblins, in true goblin fashion, screamed incoherently and charged anyway.
Aya, flat on the dirt like a half-crushed bug (which, to be fair, was accurate), cackled weakly.
Aya:"YES! YES! VIOLENCE! CHAOS! DESTROY EACH OTHER! I am a neutral observer with popcorn."
The snake reared up, towering, coiled, and launched itself into the fray with terrifying speed. Goblins were tossed like ragdolls. One got bitten in half. Another disappeared under a thrashing coil.
Aya, twitching slightly, whispered:"This is everything I've ever wanted."
Then the snake paused.
Its glowing eyes turned… to her.
Aya:"…Wait."
It uncoiled slowly, deliberately, slithering toward her.
Aya:"No. No no no no no. I'm just a witness! I'm just background decoration! BAD SNAKE! BAD! EAT THE ONES WITH THE KNIVES!"
But the beast wasn't listening. It crept forward with the silence of a predator that knew it had already won. Its body dragged across the blood-slicked cavern floor with a sickening whisper. Its tongue flicked again—tasting her terror.
Aya's antennae vibrated with pure horror.
Aya:"…I am a breadcrumb on the monster buffet. A stain waiting to happen."
The beast hissed. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a low, wet, vibrating sound like death breathing on her face.
Aya's body screamed at her to run, but all she could do was shiver and spit weak sarcasm at her impending doom.
Aya:"Back to your cave of horrors, you overgrown belt! I'm not worth the calories!"
But it was too late.
The snake was coming.
And Aya, twitching in the dirt, realized that even in a world of glitchy monsters and idiot goblins, she might've just run out of luck.
The Only Plan She Had (Besides Crying):
Her mind raced. Her stamina, not so much.
Aya was a twitching heap of regrets and dust. Every muscle screamed. Her body had all the structural integrity of a melted candy bar. But somehow—some miraculous how—her brain was still online, and in its panic, it had spawned a plan so idiotic it wrapped around and became brilliant. Maybe.
Aya:"Okay okay okay—tunnel. I dug a tunnel. The goblins made it bigger. Snake is huge. Snake barely fits. If I can lure them inside… all of them…"
She squinted up at the tunnel's sagging ceiling—dirt like old cake batter, sagging wooden supports twitching like they wanted to snap. One good shake, one good scream, and—
Aya:"Boom. Instant grave. Goblin and snake casserole."
She rolled over, groaning, bones clicking like broken keyboard keys. Her arms shook like spaghetti. Her legs were out of protest signs and just flat-out refused to help. But she forced herself upright—kinda. More like a cursed marionette doing Pilates for the first time in centuries.
Aya:"Alright, you sentient meat noodle. You wanna eat something? Come chase me."
She stumbled forward with all the grace of a drunk bug at 3 AM trying to sneak past the parental aggro radius. Her feet dragged. Her wings buzzed weakly like a dying phone on 1% battery. Every step was a gamble. A gamble with the worst odds ever.
The snake hissed.
It lunged.
Aya:"YES. GOOD. HATE ME. FOLLOW ME INTO THE HOLE OF DEATH."
She flung herself into the tunnel—
—and faceplanted into the floor like a thrown potato.
Aya:"AUGH. WHY IS DIRT SO HARD?!"
Behind her?
All hell.
Goblin war cries. Screams. Metal clashing. Scales scraping. The thundering thump of something way too big forcing itself into a tunnel way too small.
Aya: "Too many feet—no, wait, goblins don't have that many feet—whatever, TOO MANY LIMBS. TOO MUCH SNAKE. TOO MUCH SNAKE PER CUBIC INCH—"
The tunnel vibrated as the snake shoved its massive body into the narrow space. Its sides scraped the walls, shedding dust in thick clouds. The goblins, in blind bloodlust, followed it like lemmings in a rage. It was a horror conga line, and Aya was the unwilling leader.
Aya:"COME ON, YOU IDIOTS. JUST A LITTLE FURTHER. JUST A FEW MORE CRAWLS. COME INTO MY TERRIBLE TRAP."
She scrambled forward, elbows and knees digging through soil, her vision flickering. Her body felt like a rusty cart pushed downhill. She wasn't moving—she was falling forward aggressively.
Behind her, the tunnel groaned.
Cracks spidered across the dirt ceiling.
The weight. The motion. The chaos. It was all too much.
Aya looked up, panting, coughing, and dared to grin.
Aya:"This is it. This is the plan. This is my genius. This is where I become legend or soup."
And then—
The tunnel started to collapse.
The Dumbest Chase Scene Ever
It was like a parade of poor decisions led by the world's dumbest grand marshal—Aya.
She clawed forward through dirt and rock, twitching limbs flailing with desperate energy. Her body screamed, her lungs wheezed, her face was one wrong move away from kissing gravel forever, but she kept moving. She didn't have to outrun everything. Just the murder noodle behind her.
The goblins shrieked behind her like they'd just been told taxes existed. Dirty feet thumped the floor in a chaotic stampede, rusted weapons clattering against the tight tunnel walls.
But the snake?
Oh gods, the snake—
It was forcing itself into the hole like a horror-themed toothpaste commercial. Long. Wet. Vicious. It shredded rock and dirt alike, scales scraping, body bulging against the walls, tail thrashing with pent-up death.
Aya:"YOU'RE NOT A TUNNEL MONSTER! STOP TRYING TO BE! YOU'RE BUILT FOR OPEN SPACES AND EXISTENTIAL FEAR, NOT—NOT—WHATEVER THIS IS!"
SP: 3/100.SP: 2/100.SP: 1/100.
Her stamina bar was hanging by a thread. Her body felt like old Jell-O left in the sun. Every breath was a swear word. Her vision pulsed at the edges like the tunnel itself was trying to delete her from reality.
Aya:"Come on… just a little more…"
The ceiling cracked again.
Dirt trickled down like the tunnel was crying.
The goblins were still coming. The snake still hissed.
But her legs?
Her legs had other plans.
They gave out.
Right there. Mid-crawl. Mid-scamper. Mid-I-want-to-live-so-bad-it-hurts.
Aya:"…No no no—NOT NOW—"
She collapsed face-first into the soil, arms trembling, body trembling harder, the sound of death inches behind her. She tried to move. Nothing. She tried to twitch. Barely.
SP: 0/100.
Aya:"…I hate this game. I hate this cave. I hate nature. And I HATE SNAKES."
She turned her head just enough to see behind her.
The goblins were shoving each other, packed in like angry sardines. The snake was still coming, jaws opening, tongue flicking.
And all of it…
All of it was right there.
One push.
One collapse.
One final boom away.
Aya grinned.
Not because she was winning.
But because everyone was about to lose.
Aya:"…Let's see how you like being a dirt sandwich, you overgrown shoelace…"
And then—
The ceiling gave out.
Aya Accidentally Uses Herself as Bait
Everything shut down.
Muscles. Limbs. Brain cells doing their best impression of fried circuit boards. Even her eyelids stopped negotiating with gravity. Aya dropped like a bug-sized paperweight with a grudge against survival.
Aya:"WHY. WHY NOW. I WAS SO CLOSE. I HAD A PLAN. A STUPID, GLORIOUS PLAN."
Behind her, goblins screamed in rage and confusion, blades clanging, feet stomping, tunnel walls echoing like a hundred toddlers throwing a tantrum in a metal pipe. And behind them?
SSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHRK.
That snake's disgusting, wet slither.
Aya:"…I'm a protein bar. A living, crunchy, screaming protein bar about to be eaten like a midnight regret snack."
She screamed at her legs to move. Get up! she shouted in her head. Do something! Kick! Twitch! Wiggle like you're auditioning for a bug horror musical! But her body had filed for resignation and ghosted her completely.
And then—CRACK.
A sprinkle of dirt hit her back. Then more. Then more.
Aya:"…Wait. Wait—OH! THE TUNNEL! IT'S COLLAPSING! IT'S ACTUALLY COLLAPSING! I AM A GENIUS!"
The air around her rumbled like an angry beast. Walls trembled. Ceiling groaned. Loose soil poured down in streams, coating her like a tragic dessert topping. Goblins howled. The snake hissed like a boiling kettle with murder issues.
Aya:"YES. YESSS. ALL ACCORDING TO PLAN! EAT DIRT, LOSERS—LITERALLY!"
And then it happened.
BOOM.
The tunnel imploded. Stone cracked. Earth caved. Support beams—if you could call "dirt vaguely holding hands" support—snapped like brittle bones. The goblins didn't even have time to scream properly. They just vanished into the choking rain of soil.
The snake? Trapped mid-wiggle, its massive body crushed under hundreds of pounds of collapsing earth, letting out a final, furious SSKRAAAAAAAAHHHH! before silence slammed over everything like a tombstone.
Dust. Darkness. Dead quiet.
Aya was buried. Caked in dirt. Limbs pinned. Stamina gone. Covered head to toe in what could only be described as Nature's "GET REKT" message.
Aya:"…This is either the smartest thing I've ever done… or the dumbest death yet."
And for once?
She couldn't tell which.
Aya, Queen of Bad Ideas, Somehow Survives
Silence.
Total, suffocating darkness.
No light. No sound. No motion. Just dirt.
Everywhere.
Pressed against her body like a greedy monster made of earth, hugging her just a little too hard. Aya couldn't see, couldn't stretch, couldn't even wiggle her stupid bug fingers.
But—
Her antennae twitched.Her chest rose.Her lungs screamed.And air—actual air—entered her.
Aya:"…I'm alive? I'M ALIVE?! HOW?!"
Her voice cracked in the pitch-blackness, as if the earth itself was just as surprised as she was. Her heart pounded like it was doing celebratory backflips in her ribcage. Somehow—by sheer luck, divine bug stubbornness, or chaotic genius—she'd managed to twist into a tiny air pocket right before the collapse.
Aya:"YES. YES. I SURVIVED! I AM A GENIUS! A TACTICAL MASTER! A BURROWING GODDESS!"
She wriggled triumphantly.
Or tried to.
Nope.Nothing.She couldn't move.
Dirt pressed in from all sides. Solid. Heavy. Smothering. Her legs were locked, her arms pinned, her wings bent into unfortunate bug origami. It was like being trapped in a warm, crunchy burrito. Except the burrito was her tomb.
SP: 0/100
Aya:"…Wait.""…No stamina.""…Can't move.""…Still buried."
She blinked slowly in the void.
Aya:"…I'm buried alive.""…WITH. NO. STAMINA."
The excitement drained from her like someone yanked the plug.
Silence.
Cold, awkward, suffocating silence.
Aya:"I AM THE DUMBEST INSECT TO EVER LIVE."
She let her head slump forward until her face smushed into the dirt, grimacing like a beetle who just realized she forgot her homework. The soil clogged her mandibles. Her pride? Crushed flatter than the goblin pancakes outside.
Aya:"I survived a monster snake, a goblin swarm, and a cave collapse… just to die like this. Dramatically. Ironically. In a way that'll probably be memed in the afterlife."
She sighed the sigh of someone whose genius plan backfired into a self-made prison.
Aya:"Just… let me die dramatically. That's all I ask. I want at least one cool final monologue. Maybe a tragic flashback. Maybe soft sad music and a 'she tried' subtitle."
The dirt didn't answer. The air was thin. Her strength was gone.
And yet…
She was alive.
Trapped. Immobile. Suffocatingly tired.
But alive.
Buried beneath a massacre of goblin limbs, snake meat, and her own bad decisions.
Aya:"I swear, if I survive this… I'm charging rent to every molecule of oxygen in here."
And so—entombed in her glorious failure, victorious yet fully, absurdly screwed—Aya waited.
Trapped. Buried. Queen of Bad Ideas.
Bug-brained… but undefeated.