《Nine Heads - A Hydra's Tale》


 Chapter 1 - Broken Eggs

    It hadn''t been a good day. First, my boss had, as always, acted as asshole-ish as possible. Then, I''d accidentally dumped a whole crate of expensive ingredients in the wrong place, forcing me to spend the next two hours putting them away individually.


    Then, as if that hadn''t been enough, a horribly drunk driver had taken the time out of his or her day to think, ''Wouldn''t it be nice to turn that innocent, fresh-out-of-college woman into meat paste?''


    And then they proceeded to do just that.


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    Death wasn''t actually as bad as you might believe. Sure, there''s that short moment right before your end where you realize that, yes, you''re about to die. Although, luckily for me, that moment had been quite short for me. Driving a truck straight into me and then using a wall to turn me into a pancake had been blessedly short and painless.


    I was no Christian. I did not believe in heaven or hell, although even I sometimes wondered if God was real or not. Hence, I had no clue why the hell I hadn''t just... stopped existing. It made very little sense.


    I could sort of feel my body, so maybe I hadn''t died? But that was impossible. I''d felt it as my head literally exploded, along with the rest of my body. Not a pleasant experience, mind you.


    I felt... weird. Warm. Like I was at home, where I belonged. It was a difficult sensation to describe, almost as though something within me begged to remain.


    I had little reason to deny that part of me. Strangely enough, it didn''t take long for me to fall asleep, or at least I thought it was sleep. Perhaps I was just daydreaming, and if I fell asleep, I would truly die.


    I found myself not really caring. I''d already resigned myself to death the moment I noticed the truck swerving right towards me, so if I did die, whatever. If I didn''t, that''s great.


    If my brain cells, or whatever allowed me to think, had been a bit more active and focused, I might have wondered where this apathy came from, but as it stood, I simply slipped away into blissful sleep within moments.


    <hr>


    Drifting in and out of consciousness isn''t a necessarily enjoyable experience, but personally, it wasn''t that bad either. I''d already gotten used to it back at college, where I would go to sleep extremely late and try to wake up early, only to fail and enter into a half-asleep, half-awake state.


    Time was borderline impossible to grasp when I''m like this, and thoughts more complex than simple ''muuh'' and ''maah'' were also impossible.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    I couldn''t tell when it eventually began to happen, but after a long, long while, I found the part of me that wished to sleep forever and never move slowly fade away, while at the same time, I found myself getting tighter and tighter.


    It took me a while to decipher what that feeling meant. I was in a cage of sorts, and as time passed, the cage grew smaller.


    Or rather, I grew bigger. One day, after an indeterminable amount of time had passed since my ''death'', something within me finally decided that enough was enough, and that I needed to dosomething.


    Coincidentally, that was the moment I finally woke up for real. My brain whirred into action, trying to understand everything that was happening and draw conclusions from it.


    As an avid reader of fantasy and sci-fi novels, I had some suspicions. Still, I''d never really believed reincarnation was a real thing, so I held off of that line of thought for now.


    My body felt strange and difficult to move. It didn''t necessarily feel foreign, but rather, it felt... weak. Still, something in me urged to act anyways, and it was difficult to disobey this feeling.


    I pushed my legs, trying to press the cage constricting me away. It was difficult and exhausting, as the cage seemed to be incredibly tough. Still, I didn''t relent as I just kept on going, desperate to escape while also being urged by my strange feelings.


    It took quite a while, maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe far more, but eventually, I heard a crack, and light spilled into the darkness of my cage.


    Reinvigorated, I pushed against that spot even harder, slamming against it with all of my feeble strength. I pressed and pressed until, finally, with a much louder cracking sound than before, an entire section of my cage fell away.


    I was tired, extremely so. Nonetheless, while the strange feeling from before had subsided, for now, my own curiosity pushed me forward. I stumbled out of the cage, dragging myself forward with everything I had.


    I immediately regretted my actions. The light in whatever place I was in wasn''t strong and held an ethereal look to it. Still, it was plenty enough to illuminate the absolutely massive being hovering above me.


    My eyes were blurry, and seeing through them was difficult. Still, I could vaguely recognize an outline of nine serpentine heads hovering in the air. Long, snake-like necks attached them to a massive, scaled body with four thick, strong legs. Despite the creature being far larger than me and barely fitting in the suddenly much smaller-looking cave, I had no trouble taking it all in with my eyes.


    One of the heads of the creature lowered down, approaching me. Surprisingly, instead of immediately rendering me to pieces, it simply nudged me gently with its muzzle. The strange feeling from before roared back to life, urging me to go closer to the monster.


    I was far too exhausted to question it, or anything else that was happening. Under the gentle urging of the creature, and the much more annoying urging of my own feelings, I scrambled forward, powering through the exhaustion until I was right underneath the creature.


    My eyelids dropped on their own, and before I could do much of anything, I was once more deep in sleep, all rationality and sense of self-preservation thrown out the window.


    Nonetheless, that seemed to have been the right thing to do, as the nine heads of the massive monster curled up in a circle around me, shielding me from the dull, blue light that shined from the ceiling.

 Chapter 2 - Devouring Goats

    There have been a couple times in my life where I woke up so completely out of it that I could barely recognize what was real and what wasn''t. However, those times now seemed so nice and easygoing compared to the confusion I was feeling now.


    Waking up surrounded by nine napping serpentine heads the size of large cars, only to then slowly come to the realization that, yes, this isn''t a dream, and that no, I wasn''t willing to try and kill myself to determine if it was or not.


    I wanted to open my mouth and scream, but before I could do that, a dawning realization slowly fell over me. I had likely broken out of what I was starting to suspect was an egg, and after turning my head around to confirm that... Well, all my doubts evaporated.


    I suddenly became very aware of the fact that my body felt very much different from the one I was used to. With growing trepidation, I looked down at myself.


    This time, I did scream. However, it only came out as nine, slightly different whines that should have belonged to cute little puppies, not whatever... thing... I was.


    One of the heads surrounding me raised up, poking me gently. I should have been terrified, and to an extent, I was, and yet, despite my slowly growing horror, all I did was whine harder, my body acting on its own.


    It wasn''t a pleasant experience. It felt as though I was an outsider to my own body... Although, it was questionable whether the meat sack I currently inhabited truly belonged to me.


    A long, forked tongue slithered outward from the mouth of the head next to me, licking me with surprising gentleness. The tongue felt like a mix between a cat''s and a dog''s, wet and soft while still retaining a somewhat itchy feel to it.


    After a bit of licking, the giant creature got up, it''s massive body suprisingly nimble as it slowly walked away, and I was completely clueless as to whether it was going out or further into the cave.


    Left alone to myself, I collapsed to the ground, my bones feeling quite mushy. I should have been having a panic attack right now, and yet, I felt oddly calm as I processed everything.


    I took a long, real, look at myself. I''d been subconsciously forcing myself to ignore it beforehand in the face of bigger problems, but now, the fact that I was seeing out of nine, very different perspectives, became impossible to further ignore.


    I looked at each of the snake-like heads, staring into my own eyes. It was, like everything else that had happened so far, an incredibly weird feeling. I looked like a much less ferocious and much more baby-like version of the creature from before, lacking all the sharp edges and teeth and sheer brutality that it oozed.


    Still, the signs were there. I was... No, this body was the offspring of the creature from before. I wasn''t very good at ignoring the obvious, no matter how much I wished I was one of those blessed few who could.


    I''d been reincarnated, and I highly doubted that my old world had any sort of science that could create mythical creatures and reincarnate people, no matter what all the conspiracy theorists said. So, that ruled out the possibility of this all being a sick experiment.


    ... Well, if nothing else, at least I had been reborn into something that, unless this world is completely different from what I suspect it to be, should be quite strong. And, judging by my... mother''s... sheer presence, I had enough proof to believe that.


    I glanced at the back of my body with one of my heads. Now that I was conscious of it, it was much more difficult to rid myself of the strangeness of having more than one head, and all that came with the fact. Multiple eyes, noses, ears...


    I grit my teeth mentally and focused back on the task at hand. One step at a time, me, one step at a time.


    As I suspected, I was wingless. A bit of a disappointment, but not an exaggerated one. Further examination revealed my body to be very much reptilian in nature, although I doubted we had cold blood, or we wouldn''t be living in caves like this.


    I sighed, the action feeling quite unnatural to this body. I did it anyway, because sometimes, visual reminders that we are still ourselves are important... Well, for me they are, at least.


    The soft thumps of someone approaching me made me whirl around to face my new, and massive, mother. Well, I assumed it to be my mother, and it could very well be that it was the male hydras who took care of children. Still, it was easier to think of it as a her.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    My eyes widened slightly as my mouths opened up all on their own, acting completely on what I now understood to be pure instinct. Little pitiful whines escaped from me as my eyes glued themselves to what mother was holding tightly in one of her jaws,


    It was a goat, a rather large one too, at that. However, it looked nothing like my old world''s goats, and instead, it looked far, far more ferocious and dangerous. The horns were much larger and sharper, the teeth far more menacing, and in general, it gave off a much more deadly look than any goat had any right to hold.


    The worst part? It was alive. I could tell from the minute twitches and slight shakes as mother''s teeth bit into it. One of mother''s heads, not the one holding the goat, gently approached me, giving me a quick lick. Again, acting outside of my own control, my heads all simultaneously tried to lick mother''s face back, only for her head to retreat.


    Her other heads were staring at me with a look I couldn''t decipher. Reptiles weren''t exactly known to be very expressive, and while I was fairly sure neither mother or I were simple reptiles, that didn''t change the fact that I couldn''t understand her.


    She gently brought the goat in front of me. In the back of my mind, I tried to think of the reasons as to why the goat wasn''t struggling more. Probably some kind of poison, or maybe some weird magic. Did this world even have magic like the one in my old world''s fictions?


    All of these questions were promptly thrown to the back of my mind as, again, my body acted against my will and moved forward, towards the frozen goat.


    It didn''t take a genius to realize what was about to happen, and honestly, I wasn''t really all that against it. I wasn''t a vegan, and I strongly believed that we should know where our food comes from, to at least give that little honor to the deaths of the animals who died to feed us.


    I couldn''t, wouldn''t, stop what was about to happen, but I refused to let it happen outside my control. I pushed mentally, stopping my body in its tracks. It wasn''t actually difficult, but now, instead of being in the back-seat, it was like I was driving my body with a very loud something screaming in my mind to go forward and eat the goat.


    I closed my eighteen eyes for a moment, letting out a deep breath. I could feel mother''s confused gazes landing on me, but she didn''t move, simply sitting behind the goat, waiting.


    When I reopened my eyes, I felt much more in control. I cautiously approached the goat, poking it with one of my muzzles. The goat was three times my size, and while I now understood that it would be difficult for me to truly calculate the size of things until I got a reliable unit of measurement to compare to, like a human, it wasn''t hard for me to know when something was a lot bigger than me. Like my mother, for example.


    I didn''t want to let it suffer. I awkwardly shuffled forward, awkwardly trying to maneuver my heads so they wouldn''t tangle together, which would be... problematic. I gently put my mouths around the goat''s neck, ultimately unable to fit more than four heads, but that was enough. I bit down as hard as I could, feeling a mass of blood spurt against my throat.


    The goat didn''t make a sound as its eyes took a slightly panicked look for a moment before glazing out, slowly losing their shine. It was brutal, and yet, it was so much better than what I knew my body would have done, which would be to simply start eating the goat alive, starting from the soft, nutrient-rich organs.


    I could feel a warmth flow into me as the goat died, and it wasn''t the blood. I shivered slightly at the sensation, feeling a hunger not dissimilar to the one that was also quickly ramping up and demanding flesh. However, this ''other'' hunger demanded death, not flesh.


    It was, again, strange that I could understand these feelings so well, but I chalked it up to ''magic'' for now and decided to deal with them later. For now, I really, really, needed to get some sustenance in my body.


    My heads quickly got to work ripping apart the goat, quickly making a mess as blood and guts flowed out from the wounds I tore open. Still, the goat was delicious, and I didn''t exactly have an audience to what I was doing... Well, not one that would care, at least.


    One of my heads took the time to disengage from the blood festival and peek at my ''mother''. She was still standing there, in all of her gigantic glory, looking down at me in silence. She didn''t seem dissatisfied by my actions, though, which was obviously good.


    Wouldn''t want to piss off the being that would be key to my survival, and could also eat me up in a single gulp, after all.


    Wow... I''d already started thinking about my survival? Way to go, girl. Next up, you''ll start eating humans and spitting lava.


    That was sarcastic, by the way.


    I retreated from the corpse. I hadn''t managed to finish it, but I wouldn''t be surprised if I''d eaten twice my own body weight. There was a lot missing from the goat, after all.


    I quickly started to get drowsy as one of mother''s heads lowered down, chomping down on the goat and throwing it into her gullet with a simple tilt of her head, the goat''s remains flowing down like honey. She didn''t even chew.


    Then, with a gentleness that really shouldn''t be surprising me as much anymore, mother cautiously nudged me into her waiting ''arms''. I waddled forward, still very much unused to having such a different body from before. I knew I had multiple tails sprouting from my behind to counterbalance my head''s weight, but the balance of it all was still a challenge.


    Mother made it seem so easy that I was slightly envious. Only slightly, though.


    I settled down, leaning right against her scaly torso. Her large, clawed feet rested underneath her like a cat, and as her heads wrapped around me, the resemblance only grew. Before long, I was once again drifting back into dreamland, far away from all worries of life and existential crises.


    I hadn''t asked for this, not did I ever particularly want it, but compared to some of the other things that would have happened after my death... This one didn''t quite seem so bad.


    Hopefully, hydras weren''t sexless. I''d died a virgin once already, dying a virgin twice would be far too depressing. Maybe it would buy me pity points with whoever was in charge of dealing with the afterlife?


    ... Still wouldn''t be worth it.

 Chapter 3 - Shattered Barriers

    The routine the following days was more or less the same as when I first broke out of that egg up. I woke up, ate some helpless creature brought to me by mother, and then would go back to sleep. It wasn''t necessarily boring, but it was definitely monotonous.


    Finally, two weeks and fourteen dead animals later, ranging from adorable-looking bunnies the same size as me to nightmarish lions with bone spikes sprouting from them, I was finally able to do more than just sleep and eat.


    I moved around the cave, exploring it. Mother was out hunting, or at least I suspected she was, so I was more or less free to do as I wished during her absence.


    Our home was... bare. There was very little to set it apart from a regular cave without two hydras living in it, and apart from a few scattered bones here and there, we really did leave no trace of our existence here.


    Other than that, though, the cave did have a very beautiful and natural feel to it. There were softly glowing stones stuck in the ceiling which provided a dim illumination to the place, and the few stalactites here and there only made it better.


    ... I was really grasping at straws if I was starting to think of caves as beautiful. I''d already come to terms with what had happened, and while that didn''t mean I didn''t regret dying, I don''t want to waste this opportunity, for what else could it be?


    I hadn''t seen mother do anything that would resemble magic, but as each day passed, I only grew more and more confident that magic did exist, and that if it did, then an entire world of opportunities would open up.


    I licked my lips, the motion reflecting itself through all of my heads. I didn''t exactly have a ''main'' head, so instead, I tended to just have all my heads mirror each other whenever I did something with them, which made the adjustment easier.


    Back on topic, I knew that I could do something ''magical''. After all, the gut feeling in me told me so, and it''d rarely ever lied to me before.


    I tried to meditate like I did in the few yoga classes I''d taken back in the other world. Take deep breaths, keep a calm mind, and focus inward. It was a difficult exercise to do when I had an entire riot of strange feelings demanding both food and death within me, but ignoring them had gotten easier with time.


    When I opened up my many eyes again... Well, I was a bit disappointed. I''d felt something within me, somewhat like the strange warmth I felt every time I killed one of the beasts mother brought to me. However, I was completely unable to do anything with it. Hell, I couldn''t even touch it!


    A low, deep hiss jerked me out of my thoughts. One of my heads twisted around, staring behind me, where mother sat in all of her nine-headed glory. She let out another hiss, one that sounded strangely... pleased.


    I blinked, staring at her with slight confusion. This was the first time I''d understood what she meant with her hisses and sounds, and while it wasn''t even close to real words, even just understanding the meaning behind it was... strange.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Was it because I''d meditated? But that made no sense!


    I was once again ripped out of my monologue when mother licked me, her raspy tongue bringing a small, childish whine out of me. Retreating that head, mother gently deposited what looked to be a two-headed tiger. Like all the unfortunate critters before it''s arrival here, it too was completely frozen.


    Unfortunately for the poor creature, I was both very, very hungry, and also not willing to do anything to displease my very scary mother.


    I killed it quick and easy, and proceeded to satisfy my inner cravings. I had nothing against the tiger, but so was life.


    When I was done, instead of urging me to go to sleep as she''d always done, mother seemed to be much more interested in something else. She prodded me with her nose, time and time again, seemingly trying to convey something.


    I shifted around awkwardly for a while, trying to understand what she wanted. Finally, after a bit, realization struck. She''d been pleased with me when she found me meditating, so maybe...


    With barely hidden anticipation, I closed all of my eyes, once more focusing inward, trying to once again ''touch'' the warmth within me.


    Mother''s nudging immediately stopped when I did, allowing me to concentrate much more effectively. However, instead of doing nothing and waiting as I''d expected, I felt one of her muzzles gently poke one of my own.


    A massive amount of warmth streamed into me through her, forcing a gasp out of me. My own warmth seemed to be stimulated by her own, roaring to life within me.


    It was so much easier to feel like this. I still had no real idea what I was doing and I was basically just trying to wing it, but thankfully my instincts came to the rescue as they gave me a vague sense of what I should and shouldn''t do.


    For now, they insisted to simply get a feel for the energy, but not to do anything substantial with it. Since it made quite a bit of sense not to touch unknown and potentially dangerous stuff inside my own body, I easily agreed to just go along with whatever my instincts said.


    "Good." Mother hissed from around me, her heads circling me like vultures as they stared down at me. I felt a jolt run through me at her ''words'', ripping me out of my thoughts as I stared at her with disbelief.


    "M... Mother?" I asked cautiously, my voice coming out as a quick, snake-like hiss. Now, it was her turn to recoil back in surprise, all of her eyes focusing on me with an intensity that made me squirm.


    A few of her tongues flickered out. "Understand?" She asked / hissed. I was quickly getting weirded out by what was happening, but nonetheless answered positively. "Yes."


    "Smart. Talented." One of her heads hissed, and before I knew what was going on, I was assaulted by an onslaught of raspy tongues. Somehow, I could tell that it was a gesture of affection, and also confirmation. Confirmation for what, I didn''t know.


    As I squirmed around, trying to escape the far too numerous tongues, I was also furiously trying to decipher what the hell happened.


    I looked into what I''m fairly sure is some sort of energy within me, and after I did, I could slightly understand mother''s hisses. Then, when I do it again, I can understand her words.


    Maybe it''s some sort of innate ability of hydras?


    "Mother. Understand, how?" I asked after she''d allowed me to escape her clutches. Her heads tilted slightly, considering my words as she stared down at me.


    "Heritage. Unlocked." One head hissed the first word as another one hissed the latter. Bamboozled, I continued to stare at her stupidly for a bit, having received zero meaningful information from that answer.


    "Rest. Too young." She hissed again, nudging me back into her embrace. I didn''t question it, deciding that it wouldn''t be worth it. I had too much to think over anyway.


    Mother didn''t seem to mind my silence as she wrapped around me, her eyes not closing as she watched me slowly fade into sleep once more.