Look Out For Yourself

You back up against the tree on the branch you planned to settle on for the night. The panther you hadn’t noticed until it stood an arm’s reach away stared at you, brows furrowed in what you might have thought was frustration if you didn’t assume it’s just sizing you up for a meal.

Oh, yes, great idea you had to camp out in the jungle alone. Prove to your friends you didn’t need their help, that you could look out for yourself. Now you were staring at the teeth of a hungry jungle cat. Of course cats can climb trees. Why did you think it was safe up there?

Your heart jumps as the panther seems ready to strike, but you blink as it seems to sigh instead.

“Why do you humans always insist on coming out here?” the panther asks. “The jungle is dangerous! That’s why you built villages!”

“What?”

And that’s how you met Bagheera, a friendly panther who nevertheless is very tired of humans wandering into the jungle for some reason or another. Says he’s escorted a fair share of humans back to the nearest village and has never fathomed why they seem insistent on getting lost in the jungle. Still, he won’t turn on someone in need, and as he settles down to sleep on the branch says he would keep you safe and lead you to the village in the morning.

You tried to explain that you’d entered the jungle to prove you didn’t need help and you would stay out there as long as it took to prove it, but Bagheera just scoffs.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m sure there are much safer ways to prove that. This jungle is far too dangerous for a human. Why, there’s peril at every turn, even for me. It’s only my sharp senses that keep me safe.”

With that said he yawns and stretches onto the branch to sleep. You’re insistent that you’re capable enough to survive on your own out there, though.

“I’m not afraid,” you say. The back of your mind points out that you had in fact been terribly afraid moments ago when you encountered Bagheera, but you ignore that. “I’ve done thorough research.” Again, you apparently didn’t research the fact that cats can climb trees, but you continue ahead. “I know all about the jungle’s dangers, I can look out for—”

A rustling in the leaves above draws your attention up and you lose your train of thought. A grinning snake lowers from the leaves, watching you with pulsing eyes, a sea of green stealing your attention. A soothing sea green, an attracting light green, and a numbing dark green flows over the snake’s eyes in rings and you find yourself staring intently, deeply.

“My . . . myself . . . I . . .” You mumble as your thoughts derail. A warning wells in your mind that your research suggested it dangerous to look into a snake’s eyes, but the colors look so fascinating you want to stare—just for a little bit, at least, it can’t be too dangerous to just steal a glance.

“Oh, no,” Bagheera grumbles, “I’m not going to argue anymore tonight. Please, just go to sleep, human.”

“Yesss,” the snake hisses, slithering closer to give you a deeper look into her eyes. You instinctively back away as she moves closer, but she rises and you lean forward to stare closer. “Please, go to sleep, please, go to sleep.”

The snake sways before you, and you follow, side to side and in circles, gaze locked to her grinning eyes. You know you wanted to look out for yourself—that’s why you came to the jungle, wasn’t it?—was it? You feel so relaxed, a pleasant tingle shimmers through your eyes and into your mind, maybe what you really wanted was to find this snake to stare at. Just a little longer, at least, surely it’s still safe to enjoy these beautiful colors filling your vision, filling your mind.

These thoughts pass through your head as your wide eyes fill with colors, pupils shrinking as your eyes mirror the snake’s dazzling display. Green rings pass through your eyes, obscuring your vision and blurring the jungle, bringing only the swaying snake into focus as her soft words tickle your ears and swirl into your mind.

“Sleep little human,” she sings, circling her head to drag your gaze around and tire you faster. Her words sink into your mind and block your thoughts. “Ressst in peace.”

Sleep, sleep, sleep—this command fills your head as your mind slows. You find it hard to think, every thought preempted with the impulse to sleep. It is late, the evening has grown long, the evening has grown dark, you agree with the tumble of thoughts in your head that you should go to sleep.

You feel scales curl over your legs and around your hips, and long muscles squeeze around you as the snake wraps you up. A distant memory says it’s dangerous to continue to stare, and it’s certainly dangerous to let the snake wrap her coils around you, but you feel so sleepy, so dizzy, your eyes droop and all you want to do right now is go to sleep.

Maybe you’ll start looking out for yourself tomorrow. Right now, just relax and drift into a deep slumber. As the snake coils and binds your arms close and massages your back you begin to rationalize that it’s okay to keep staring.

It may not be any less dangerous, but that doesn’t matter.

The heavy coils drag your body and mind down, but that’s fine. You don’t need to think, you don’t need to move.

You aren’t looking out for yourself until tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter if you do something dangerous, like let a snake wrap you up tight and hypnotize you. Someone else can take care of it. You don’t need to worry about it. You don’t need to think about it. It’s someone else’s problem, you can just relax and enjoy the heavy hug squeezing around your chest and kneading your arms into jelly.

“Sleep,” the snake says, dragging your muddled head up and down, side to side, wearing your mind into senselessness. With each sway she grows closer, filling your gaze with her friendly grin and enchanting eyes.

“Sleep,” she hisses, printing the word on your mind, pressing you into mindless slumber as she presses your body into her coils, shoulders massaged by her squeezing scales, legs and arms squashed by her heavy tail slithering around you, scales massaging along your skin in constant swirling motion.

A tiny thought speaks of danger, but you ignore it. You’re not going to look out for yourself anymore, not until— The snake squeezes her tail around your neck, and you gulp, thoughts dissolving as she presses her will and coils against you. You’re not going to look out for yourself anymore, as you lose the very concept of a tomorrow from your mind. No more tomorrow, only the now, only the snake, only the coils, only her eyes, only sleep. No need to think, no need to plan, no need to look out for yourself.

The snake’s hypnotic spell snuffs out that last tiny thought, and you grin wide as her hypnotic colors flow through your eyes, pulse through your mind, all concept of danger lost to you. All that matters, all you want to feel, is the snake’s enchanting eyes and tight coils squeezing around your neck, over your shoulders, against your chest, down your arms, and gripping your legs.

You have no reason to look out for yourself. All you need is the snake’s wonderful embrace and beauty, and whatever she might have planned for you.

Lasting in the Jinn World

You look out across the wispy landscape of sands and trailing vapor. You swear you can see a portal on the horizon. The sky is dim, its rainbow sun nearly set, but you’re certain you and the elder could make it to the portal before it’s too dark to see. You’d love to get out of that sand-infested world of the jinn. You’re certain any shortcut through it could be traversed in less than a day, but the elder chose caution.

It’s rare, she said, in that world of sand and smoke and wisps, to find something as solid as an outcrop of stone, let alone one with a nook under a cliff. As night falls the jinn become more brazen. The chance of encountering frisky one when out in the open is greater than hiding in a nook for the night.

For this reason, the elder tells you numerous times to climb off the outcrop and into the nook before a jinn catches sight of you. Yet you sit and stare at the portal you know is near, fuming.

Finally, you stand.

“You can stay here and get sand in your clothes all night, Elder,” you say, “but I’m getting back to our world where I can sleep on fresh grass, if not even find a real bed.”

The elder scoffs.

“Get down here before you hurt yourself. This is a dangerous place, and this is your first time here. You wouldn’t last an hour out there without someone experienced in this land to guide you.”

You glare down to where the elder’s voice comes from. You can’t see her, but you can imagine a mocking smiles. You step off the outcrop across the sand.

“I can look out for myself just fine,” you mutter. “I’ll shock that old pain by greeting her at the next village, far more rested than she’ll be.”

You scarcely take five steps when crimson smoke erupts around you. Smooth hands grab yours, skin as midnight blue as a black jaguar. A shapely form appears before you, a grinning face with long dark hair and eyes pulsing with light fuchsia and indigo backed by a darker, piercing burgundy.

“Now, now, your friend is right.” The jinn pulls you close, filling your gaze with her eyes as she presses you against her round breasts, much of them exposed save for a low-cut fiery top. “You wouldn’t last one hour out here.”

Your first instinct to pull away is muffled as you stare into her eyes, the colors swirling over your thoughts and trapping your attention. She hugs her strong arms around you and pins you against her as her smoke solidifies into wide hips. She twirls her silky crimson smoke around you.

“This land is very dangerous,” she says as she draws you deeper into her eyes and embrace. “At any time a sexy jinn could grab you and”—she twirls a hand over your back and grips your chin with her other—“hypnotize you into a mindlessly horny slave.”

Something about that statement sounds strange—familiar, somehow?—but your train of thought swirls around the jinn as she rubs her silky body against you. She curls her smoke in a tight embrace around your body and binds your arms and legs down. Your head fills with mist as the jinn’s smoke closes around you, her swaying head dragging your gaze in a circle, and you mindlessly gyrate your own body in response to the jinn’s movements, rubbing against her soft touch as she rubs you in all the right ways.

As the jinn’s silken tail wraps up your back she moves her fingers up your neck and behind your head, curling her fingers through your hair and pulling your head closer to her hypnotic eyes, the colors soaking your mind with enchanting bliss. She chuckles as she angles your chin in her hand to sneak a quick kiss, and her luscious lips leave you wanting more, sinking deeper into her grasp.

“But don’t worry, Gorgeous,” the jinn says. “I know this land, and I can be your guide.”

She sneaks another kiss as she presses closer around you, sneaking her silken smoke under your clothes to coat your skin. Your shoulders slump as she massages them with a new pair of hands. Her tail curls around your hips and between your legs, and she curls her hips around you and rubs her butt against yours.

“You’ll have to do something for me, first.” She chuckles as she pulls you closer to her lips. “You just have to let me hypnotize you into my mindlessly horny slave.”

With this command she kisses you deep on the lips, lingering as she subsumes you into her wispy embrace. Your mind fills with fog, the pulsing colors of her eyes drowning your thoughts. You grin wide and respond to the kiss with your own smooch, returning her love as she warps your mind out of your control. You sink under her power, no thoughts but her commands, mindless, empty, a willing slave to her lustful desire.

She strokes her hands and tail over your body, fondling you like a possession, while her hypnotic eyes stroke your mind. She surrounds you with smoke and warps you away into a private dimension, where she has all the fun with you she wants.

You won’t reach the village tonight, or tomorrow, but you still get to sleep on a bed, though perhaps not a real one.

Deep Brain Tissue Massage

Up a tree, up a tree. Lost in the jungle and you’re up a tree. Is it actually safer up the tree than down below? Well, it can’t be more dangerous, right? As long as you and your friends don’t come to blows, anyway. You’ve wandered together all day in the jungle and at this point you can’t remember whose fault it is, and you’re pretty sure your friend can’t remember whose fault it is, but that hasn’t stopped either of you from blaming the other.

A good night’s sleep is what you both need. Maybe you’ll both feel more agreeable after that. Unfortunately, you don’t expect either of you to get it with the hard branch. What you’ll really need after this is a nice massage.

And so you and your friend sit up in an uncomfortable tree, still steamed at each other, when a snake drops from the canopy above in front of you. At first you glare at it and wave it away, but your heart flips when it speaks.

“Sssay, now, what do we have here?”

“A talking snake?” you whisper. You pat your face, wondering if you somehow managed to fall asleep and began dreaming.

“Yesss, indeed,” the snake says. “You look ssso uncomfortable up here, perhapsss I can help you get comfy.” It leans close and slides its body over your shoulders, but you shoo it off.

“Oh, go away, I’m trying to sleep here.” You roll your eyes when your friend groans.

“I’m trying to sleep too, you know,” they say. “Why don’t you go away so I can get some sleep.”

“Oh, no, no,” the snake whispers, “neither of you should go anywhere.”

You stare at the snake as it sways in front of you, its eyes glowing with a ring of blue and green, then green and yellow, and so on, pulsing in his eyes with a dazzling display.

“You sssimply mussst let me massssage you to sssleep,” he says, nodding and swaying his head. You follow, gaze locked to the snake’s hypnotic eyes. “I’m well-known among the denizensss of the jungle as the best massssager around.”

Your anger falls under relaxing fascination, the snake’s eyes rippling out over your vision as your eyes and movements mirror his, blue and green spreading over your eyes. Your focus narrows to the snake, pupils shrinking, tightening as new rings spread over your eyes, slow at first but speeding up as you stare deeper.

“Yesss, I always ssstart from the bottom up.” The snake slithers his tail behind you and curls over your legs, wrapping a coil around your hips and squeezing. With a spark you realize something is off, but you can’t lift your arms—the snake wrapped over your wrists and is snaking his way to binding your arms further.

You need to get out of this. You can’t stop staring and following the snake. You need help. You call out to your friend, anger forgotten as thoughts of danger and bliss fight in your head, but the snake shushes you before you mumble a full word.

“Please be sssilent,” he says. “Don’t ssspeak and disssturb the other patrons, pleassse.” He nods, and you nod with him. Yes. Don’t speak. Don’t disturb the other patrons.

The thought of other patrons confuses you, but the snake pulls your gaze in a swirling circle and that confusion subsides in favor of a general daze. The massage winds higher, coils squeezing your belly and grazing your chest as your arms sink halfway into the scaly pile.

“Feels gooood, doesssn’t it?” The snake chuckles as he pulls your gaze into a nod. “Now it’sss time for a deep tissue massssage.” He moves closer until his eyes are all you can see. “Let me hypnotize you deeper, deeper, and give your mind a sssublimely sssoothing deep tissue massssage.”

Your mind swims, overloaded with hypnotic colors. Half your mind believes you’ve wandered into a massage parlor and the other half is lost in a dark, swirling sea of empty thoughts. A tiny sliver continues to speak of danger, but anytime it speaks up the scales rising around you massage it into silence.

Deeper you sink into the snake’s hypnotic mind massage. Each thought swirls into oblivion, memories darkened, senses and feelings warped into bliss. The snake’s eyes draw your desires into his control until you desire only more colors, more coils, more control.

“Sssleep,” the snake croons. “Let me massssage you to sssleep.”

He wraps around your chest, coils over your legs and hips growing heavier as he winds higher, squeezing and massaging your upper arms and grazing his scales over your shoulders. He rises to pull your gaze up, lifting your head so he can slide his tail over your shoulders and knead you deeper under his spell. You sink into his scaly grip, hefty coils weighing you down, hypnotic colors weighing your mind, dropping you deeper, deeper, sleeper.

The snake wraps around your neck to massage it, all your skin from your neck to your thighs coated with squeezing, sublime scales. He tightens his coils, pressing you closer under his weight, and he wraps a second loop around your neck to hold you tight.

He wraps a third loop around your neck and squeezes tighter, forcing you to gulp. He chuckles.

“Want to make certain you don’t ssspeak up and disssturb the patrons.”

With one more possessive squeeze your mind falls, dropped into dark splashes of color coating your vision and your mind. You grin wide as pleasure fills your senses, no thoughts, only bliss.

The snake chuckles and lifts you behind the canopy foliage, and he turns to your friend with a hungry grin.

Time for their second customer of the evening, then settle down to a nice dinner.

No Warning of Pleasure

You know the setting: at night, up a tree, with Bagheera. Let’s get to the good part: a snake lowers herself from an upper branch and approaches you.

“Sssay now, what have we here?”

You turn around and see a snake watching you with a hungry grin. Her dazzling white scales sparkle in the moonlight, broken by black stripes blending with the night swirling down her body. You turn away, but she curls around to look at you from the other side.

“Why, it’sss a human.” You turn away again, but she follows and leans close to your face. “A delicious human.”

You glare at her out the corner of your eye. You were warned about snakes—don’t trust them, and don’t look them in the eye. You wave the snake away and tell her you know not to trust her and were warned about her tricks.

“Tricksss?” She shrugs her snake body past her neck. “Why, what tricks?”

“For one,” you say, jabbing a finger to her snout, “I know it’s dangerous to look into your eyes.”

“But were you ever told how good it feels to look at a sssnake’sss eyesss?”

“Was I wha . . . ?” You glance at the snake’s pale blue eyes, which fill with a deep purple before a richly dark mulberry color overtakes it, leading back to the icy blue rings from the start. The pattern continues, rings pulsing through her eyes in a dazzling display.

“Did they ever sssay how wonderful it feels to look into a sssnake’sss gaze?”

“No,” you mumble, eyes caught to the snake’s. You never imagined it would feel so good when you looked into a snake’s eyes. Your mind feels like it’s under a massage, colors barraging your thoughts with such vivid intensity they scramble away. The colors wash over your mind, and fascination grips your thoughts as her colors flow past her eyes to ripple over your vision.

The snake rises over you, and your head tilts up to follow, gaze locked to her splendid colors.

“It does feel ssso good to ssstare, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you mumble. You know it’s dangerous, but nothing prepared you for how overwhelmingly enchanting it would feel to stare into her eyes. You want to stare longer—just a moment longer, it can’t be too dangerous to just admire her a moment longer, such pretty, such enchanting eyes. You never realized it could feel so good to stare into a snake’s eyes, and you want to get the most you can from this special experience.

“Jussst sssilently ssstare as long as you like,” the snake says. “As loooong as you liiiike.”

Yes of course, your weak mind feels, as long as you want to stare it can’t be too dangerous. Just a little longer and you’ll be satisfied, just a little longer and longer and longer, your head feels so empty that you need something to fill it, the longer you stare the emptier it feels and the more you crave to fill it with those captivating colors, gosh you never imagined staring into a snake’s eyes would feel so good, so enrapturing, every bit of your mind that is filled more with the hypnotic colors floods your body with more pleasure, tingling pleasure rising up your body in circles and squeezing you down.

“Yesss, ssstare sssilently.” The snake curls her tail under your chin and squeezes your face into a smile, which starts to feel like the most natural form for your face. “We don’t want to wake Bagheera, now, do we? He might try to ssstop you from ssstaring into my eyesss, and you want to keep ssstaring a while longer. The sssilly panther jussst doesssn’t underssstand how good it feelsss.”

Your thoughts fall into place among the pulsing colors flooding your mind to agree with the snake. You don’t want Bagheera to stop you before you’re done staring at the snake’s eyes. He would think you’re in danger, but you’re perfectly safe. As dangerous as it may be to stare, you can look away anytime you want to. You just want to extend this special experience longer, as long as you possibly can, so you mustn’t wake him. There’s no need to wake him anyway, as you’re not in any danger. It’s not dangerous to stare into the snake’s eyes. Why did you ever think it was dangerous? Why did no one ever tell you how good it feels to stare into a snake’s eyes? Her hypnotic colors wash away your mind, filling your head to the brim with her spell, until a squeeze around your neck leads you to gulp, a wide grin locking over your face as the snake’s hypnotic eyes lock your mind under her spell.

“Now sssleep, my sssweet meal,” the snake says. “It feels ssso good to sssubmit to a sssnake. You jussst want to sssubmit to a dangerous, hungry predator, don’t you? You want to let her wrap her coils all around you and sssubmit.”

You stare silently, as she commanded before. Every word she speaks slithers into your mind and takes hold. You have no thoughts of your own left anymore. Only the snake’s spell is in your mind, and her chuckles echo in your head as she prepares to have her meal.

Speak of the Serpent

“Here we are. Solid, sturdy branch. High up the tree. Perfect place to scope out a specimen, Betty.”

“Er—Yes, Dr. Scillan. Perfect spot.”

Price watched as Dr. Scillan looked out their binoculars through thick foliage of the jungle trees. He’d given upon correcting the doctor that his name was Price hours ago. They’d started on the name with no explanation just today, but Price chalked it up to their eccentricity.

Of course, it was an honor to join them hunting snake specimens for their research. Dr. Scillan was a brilliant scientist in their field. So brilliant that you overlooked the eccentricities that in others would get them called mad.

Well, people called Dr. Scillan mad anyway, but those people were just jealous, right?

Dr. Scillan’s assistant—well, Price preferred the title Junior Researcher—peered through his binoculars. Even with the bright daylight, finding snakes among all the twisted foliage could take hours.

“Now Betty, do you remember the warnings I gave you about snakes out here?” Dr. Scillan asked.

“Every detail,” Price said. He heard a rustle above and looked up.

“The first and most important thing is not to look into a snake’s eyes,” Dr. Scillan said.

“Uh-huh,” Price said, as he looked into the vividly pulsing eyes of the snake above. It lowered its head closer, staring at Price as rings of bright magenta, cool blue, and soft cerise rippled through its eyes.

“Around here the snakes have a powerful hypnotic effect in their eyes. Stare too long, and they can hypnotize you.”

Price stared at the snake as his vision filled with the enchanting colors. He knew the snake had started to hypnotize him, but that thought was pushed increasingly to the back of his mind.

“D-Doctor,” Price mumbled. Unable to move as the snake filled his head, he tried to get his superior’s attention to stop the snake.

“Hold on, I’m not done, this is important information to review,” Dr. Scillan said. “Now, if you see a snake, and its eyes begin to change and pulse with new colors, the first thing you should do is try to look away.”

Of course, Price realized, the most important part: if he can look away, the snake can’t hypnotize him.

“If you look too long, however, you’ll find you’re unable to look away.”

Price pulled his gaze away, but it remained locked to the snake’s grinning face.

“This can be apparent if the snake sways its head and you follow automatically.”

The snake pulled its head in a direction and tugged Price back to stare directly, almost like a fishing line hooking his gaze to it.

“Of course, if this happens, I imagine you’d be filled with a sense of horror.”

Price concurred—caught in the snake’s gaze he did feel horror well inside him.

“You’d want to try and hold on to that, because otherwise the snake’s spell will lull you into complacency.”

For a moment Price felt horror that his horror escaped his grasp, but the longer he stared, the less that seemed to matter. Staring felt so pleasant, after all.

“The deeper you fall, the more your senses are numbed,” Dr. Scillan said. “Not only is your vision constricted to the snake, your auditory receptors fade.”

What was Dr. Scillan talking about? Price started to have trouble hearing their words. He must’ve been tuning them out. A boring lecture? Price was more interested in these colors boring into his mind.

“Once the snake starts to secure your mind, it’ll begin to secure your body in its coils.”

As the snake’s scales slithered around Price his mind snapped back into order. He was being hypnotized by a snake!

“That’s where it gets particularly deadly, as if a snake wraps you all up you can’t move, you can’t speak, and you’re easy prey.”

Through the colors flooding his mind Price remembered he needed to call for help, yet all he could manage was moving his mouth, no sound.

“Some snakes will move quickly to restrain you, while others will take their time and let their scales massage you deeper into a trance.”

Price sighed as the snake’s coils rose up his body, kneading his back and chest as it bound his arms down.

“Come now, Betty,” said Dr. Scillan, “I know going over safety precautions isn’t the most fascinating thing in the world, but try to pay attention.”

The snake’s hypnotic eyes sapped more and more of Price’s attention, the fascinating colors drowning his thoughts beyond reach, soaking them beyond recognition.

“Now, when a snake first catches your gaze with its eyes, a reasonable response is to shut your eyes so you don’t look.”

Price’s eyelids sank, mind sinking into sleep as his shoulders sank into the snake’s coils, too drowsy to keep his eyes open.

“However, this is not a working solution if you look at all into the snake’s eyes. You need light to scatter a snake’s spell from your head. When all you see is darkness, that gives the snake’s spell space to grow, and before you realize it you’re following the snake’s commands and staring back into its eyes.”

Despite the darkness shrouding Price’s mind, the snake’s colors glowed brighter in his fading vision, visible even when he shut his eyes.

“If the snake catches your eyes, you have to look at something else. If you’re gaze is locked, or it wraps around you, your only hope is to call for help.”

Price sank into the snake’s coils as it wrapped around his neck. It gave only a gentle squeeze to coax him to silent, sinking slumber.

“The good news, Betty, is that I’m here, so even if a snake caught you, I would be able to save you.”

The snake grinned and lifted Price to its mouth, ready to swallow him whole.

“The even better news is that you’re here, Betty.”

The snake pulled Price into its mouth, seconds away from a meal.

“You know what that means?”

The snake squeaked as cold metal clamped its throat shut.

“I have the perfect baity to catch a specimen with.”

Dr. Scillan grinned as the snake pulled its head against the thick clamp, to no avail. They leapt off the branch with the clamp and the snake squealed as the doctor pulled it out the tree and from around their assistant. They landed softly on the ground from the friction of the snake and dropped it into a thick transport container to return to the lab with.

Price groaned as his vision and his thoughts gradually returned from the yawning void.

“Step lively, Mr. Price!” Dr. Scillan said. They thumped the container with a hand. “We’ve got to get this specimen back to the lab!”

Price shook his head. He stared at his hands, trying to wrestle between his brush with death and the lingering dizziness.

“Er, may I have a moment to recuperate, Dr. Scillan?”

“Nonsense, there’s plenty of time for you to resume your nap back at the lab.” They tapped the container and grinned. After all, they’d need a test subject to use with this specimen. What other reason did they save their bait from being made a meal? They looked up. “Come on, Mr. Subject. We don’t want to keep our new specimen waiting, Tess!”

Witch Costume

I’ve never been very good with Halloween costumes. Quite frankly, I feel like I’ve never been very good with Halloween in general, but this year I was invited to a party and I wanted to get into the spirit with a proper costume. Unfortunately, I found myself with no time to put together anything, and with only a few hours left I’ve found myself with nothing but a pretty basic witch hat hanging from my hat rack and nothing else.

I look at the hat. Wide brim, tall and pointed, dark with a purple band above the brim. If I had anything to go with it, maybe I could have just said I was a witch on vacation. After all, if I’ve learned anything from reading fantasy, it’s that the hat’s what’s important. Wear the hat, people know you’re a witch. The rest is just window dressing.

Sadly, none of my clothes match the hat. Hex, most of it a witch probably wouldn’t be caught dead in. A wizard, sure, they’ll go for flashy and gaudy, but a witch has to look respectable. A witch needs to give an air of class, of mastery—or at least look like they can roll up their sleeves and get things done.

If only I’d found something fitting when I found that hat.

I look at the hat again. I peer at it.

Where did I find that hat? When did I get it? I peer harder. I don’t remember. Is it even my hat? Whose else would it be? Does it even fit me? Wouldn’t be the first time I had a hat too small.

I take the hat off the rack. It feels smooth, like leather or something. I pull it over my head—it feels narrower than my head, and I worry it’ll be too small, then it slides over my head like soap and covers my eyes.

It’s not too small, it’s too big!

I figure I could cover my head with rags or something to keep it from covering my eyes, but when I pull it off it sticks. Now it feels too narrow again.

I grunt—it’s not stuck, is it?

Uh oh. It feels stuck. I can’t even see with this thing over my head, and I—

Oh. I feel lightheaded. This thing doesn’t feel that tight, it shouldn’t be cutting off blood or anything. I stumble to where I know is a chair and sit down as I push against the hat. I’m sure—with enough push—I can get—this hat—

I drop my arms as they grow heavy. I need to rest a moment. Just a moment. Just a . . . while. It’s not so bad in the dark, anyway. I cover my eyes when I sleep, after all.

I sigh and shut my eyes. Iris hues float in the darkness and I open my eyes, but the hues remain. I blink a few times but the floaters remain. At a tickle down the back of my neck I shake my head. My arms fail to budge so I can feel if something is back there; if anything they’ve grown heavier since I rested.

My head feels so heavy too that it hangs forward, and I feel silk curl around my neck like ribbons. The hat must have some ribbon for tying under your chin. Some hats have stuff like that, right? I must have tied it behind my neck, or something. I can feel something like a brooch at my neckline the ribbon ties to from behind my neck.

I swallow as I feel more silk stretch along all sides of my neck, skin tight, and I raise my head as if letting whatever is forming have the space it needs. I want to lift my arms to feel what’s going on, but they’re heavier than ever, especially my shoulders. Besides, the blue and violets floating in my eyes grab my attention to the point I keep forgetting I’m even wearing a hat. The darkness doesn’t seem so dark, and it’s so pretty, I just want to stare at the colors for a while.

The silk expands past my neck and curls around my shoulders. My arms twitch as something bulbous forms over my shoulders attached to the ribbons, and it feels much better to have support and feels so right to encase my shoulders.

Silk flows down my chest, my back, my torso, and it tightens. I wheeze as my chest is compressed for a moment before the tight silk stretches with my breathing, and it feels so right and so wonderful to have form, form-fitting, form, form, properly cover, form? form. tight form.

The pulsing violets completely brighten the darkness in the—inside her the—under the hat. Hat? Dress. Finery. Fine, so fine. Dazzling me, so pretty, everything is fine, just let the finery make me fine.

I—I lift—my arms lift forward and silk sleeves slide out from the puffy shoulders, squeezing and caressing my arms as tight as the silk dress wrapped around my chest and back, a second layer spreading around my hips. The sleeves flare at the wrists, and from within gloves encase my hands, form-fitting to my fingers as if the gloves were my hands, my hands are the gloves.

I sigh and open my eyes, not at all perturbed that my vision is now at shoulder-level. My eight eyes and 360-degree vision disorient me a little, but the pulsing violet hues coax me to not worry and let me—let the hat—let the hat—hat—hat—hat.

My arms can move now—so heavy, but so easy to move, like something moves them for me. I touch the ribbons under my skin—my ribbons under the skin—skin—touch my face to examine it and smile.

Smile.

Smile.

Thick silk encases the body—my body—my body—thick and tight and heavy and close and deep. The luxuriant dress squeezes tight around my hips, swallowing me and swallowing my body and swallowing my mind and swallowing the body and the mind and swallowing.

I stand, and rich thick silk slides from the hips of the dress down the legs, thick as a blanket and splaying at the end like the vines of a squash. I sit back and let the dress brush and press and squeeze against the legs, tight and heavy and suffocating as the rest of the dress, suffocating their mind, ruling their body.

My mind.

Their mind.

My—Their mind.

I chuckle and adjust myself atop their head before running my silk hands along our body. I can feel their mind tremble as I press myself against their body inside me, my luxurious silk filling them with submissive pleasure. They are me. I am them. I am a part of them. They belong in me, they are in proper dress now.

I stand and drift to their closest mirror to examine myself. Sitting proud atop their head, their darkened eyes hidden under my brim. My rich and dark violets perfect for a shadowy corner to lure more hosts and servants over. My eight symmetrical eyes stare out from my bulbous shoulders, their magenta bright and perfect to steal the attention of those whose notice I grab. I shift our hips and tighten around my host’s waist—a tall and shapely body like a squash to grab the attention.

With a turn I examine our back, watching the mirror with my back eyes. The ribbons attached firmly under the skin of my host’s head and neck. I have them in my grasp; I can feel their thoughts dissolving, acquiescing, surrendering to my own. They are me. We are one. Their body is mine. I am their existence, now.

I tighten around their back, pressing our figure out more. I feel their mind twinge, probably pain from the pressured pose, but we have to make sacrifices to look good. I’m sure they understand. Well, not understand, they don’t understand anything anymore, but I’m sure the hypnotic pleasure will soon erase any feeling they have left.

With a chuckle I blow a kiss to our reflection.

“Welcome to your new life, my puppet. I’ve needed a new body for a long time. Now you’re ready for your little party.” I grin. I missed having a mouth. “Shall we go pick up some souls to corrupt?”