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Lizbert’s mind was a blur. The ground had opened up beneath her and she had fallen down, down, down into the depths of a dark, mysterious place. She blinked several times, trying to gather her thoughts. She could feel her head beating painfully, she smelled the crimson blood oozing from where she hit her head on the way down.
“Strabby?”
Lizbert tried to focus her blurred sight on the bugsnack that waddled up to her. A strabby. Just a tiny, harmless strabby. And yet it gave Liz a terrible sense of foreboding like she had never experienced before. She watched it crawl up her leg, still too disoriented to swat it away.
A new scent hit her nose. Then another, then another. Sweet, spicy, savory, all mingling together with the taste of her own blood that had begun dripping down her cheek and into her mouth. Heart beating hard, she looked beyond the strabby.
Bugsnax. So many of them.
Lizbert was helpless as the bugsnax swarmed her. They covered her like a blanket, the sheer amount of them weighing her down and obstructing her breathing. Lizbert shrieked in terror as the snax covered her vision, and they took not even a second to start piling into her open maw. She could feel them crawling down her throat, forcefully and painfully entering her body. She desperately thrashed around, but the bugsnax kept her firmly pinned. Tears now mixed with the blood that ran down her cheeks. The flavors of the bugsnax were fully taking over her senses. They were delicious. She hated it.
Lizbert could feel herself changing, her limbs rapidly transforming into food. Her mind was being altered, her thoughts and memories being corrupted and replaced. Her own body was rejecting her. Lizbert’s weak and snakified heart beat rapidly as she tried to remember anything. Where was she? Who was she? Desperately diving through her mind, she could find nothing but bugsnax.
Except for one name.
Eggabell.
Nothing more than that, only a name. But with this name came a powerful sense of comfort, even when she could no longer feel her own body. She grasped that name, and held it tight with all the might she had.
She screamed it. She screamed it again, and again. She didn’t realize she wasn’t making any noise, as the seemingly endless bugsnax continued to pile down her throat. It didn’t matter, as every time she yelled it in her mind, she felt a spike of something familiar amongst the chaos. She could feel again. She could move.
Lizbert’s now monstrous and fully snakified body rose high above the waves of bugsnax. She let out a booming roar as she scattered bugsnax everywhere. She struggled to stand as she continued to desperately fight against her own constantly changing and contorting limbs. Lizbert’s mind was completely scrambled, nothing made sense or fit into place. Except for that one name, the one that repeated over and over in her head, the one that she could now stretch her neck out and scream with all her might:
Eggabell.
EGGABELL.
EGGABELL!
*****
“Liz, Liz, wake up!”
Lizbert opened her eyes as she was shaken awake by Eggabell. Eggabell was practically on top of her with a worried expression, shaken from hearing her girlfriend screaming her name in pure terror. Liz’s pupils were constricted, her whole body shaking hard from what she had just relived.
Eggabell’s expression quickly softened.
“It’s alright Liz, it was just a nightmare,” Eggabell spoke quietly. Lizbert continued to tremble, looking at her with a faraway expression. Eggabell took Lizbert’s paws in hers and lifted them for her to see.
“See look, it’s okay.”
She watched as Liz looked at her own paws, saddened by the sight of pure relief flooding her face. Eggabell lifted a paw to Liz’s cheek.
“I’m right here with you, Liz,” Eggabell softly said, “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
Lizbert looked into Eggabell’s eyes as tears began to flow from her own. She was normal again, in bed with Egg, thousands of miles away from Snaktooth. Lizbert couldn’t stop herself from practically tackling Eggabell, wrapping her trembling arms around her.
“Oh, Egg-” she sobbed, burying her face in Eggabell’s chest. There was only a second of hesitation before Eggabell returned the hug, tightly wrapping her arms around Liz. Lizbert shuddered at the contact, overwhelmed by all the emotions still flooding her head.
Eggabell gently rested her head against Lizbert’s. “It’s okay, you’re safe now, we’re safe now,” Eggabell spoke as she wiped away her girlfriend’s tears, slowly caressing her back. “...And it’ll stay that way. Forever.”
They stayed like that for over ten minutes, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Lizbert’s breathing had finally began to slow, basking in the warmth of her mate.
“Liz,” Eggabell mumbled, “would you like to lay back down with me?”
Lizbert slightly loosened her grip and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her mind was still a swarm of blackness and unpleasant memories. She was exhausted.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to speak,” Eggabell gently gave her mate a kiss on the cheek and purred as Liz nuzzled her head against her shoulder. “Let’s tuck in. I’ll spoon you.”
Lizbert let out a shaky sigh as she slowly let go of Eggabell and crawled back under the covers. She laid on her side, and felt a strong sense of solace as she felt Eggabell press against her back and wrap her arms around her body.
Lizbert listened to Eggabell’s soft breathing as her aching muscles began to loosen, strained from painfully tensing in her sleep. Her scrambled mind was finally clearing, her heart being filled with a deep sense of calm and peace. She could feel herself slowly drifting off, but now she wasn’t afraid. She knew she would be okay in the morning, and it was all thanks to her lovely, caring, perfect Eggabell.
The rest of the night Lizbert slept soundly, her heart and Eggabell’s beating as one.