There was a snake on the dock.

  Logan didn’t believe in signs. He wasn’t superstitious and he wasn’t especially religious. But he couldn’t deny that on his last day at the cabin, the last day before he had to give up the keys to the realtor… well, a black snake with glittering red eyes that twitched its tail and stared….

  It was a little odd.

  It was as if the world wanted to kick him when he was down. Worst week of your life? Here’s one more thing to make it even better!

  The cabin had been in Logan’s family since his grandparents built it in the 1960s, back when the property prices in the Okanagan had been comparable with any other rural area in the country. There had been garden snakes around since before he could remember, but they were always people shy. You’d get one glance of glittering scales before they slithered under a bush or into a crack in a rock pile. Instead, this one lounged at the base of the dock as if it didn’t have a care in the world. If snakes had eyelids, it would be blinking lazily at him, brazen in its relaxation.

  Creepy mother.

  Maybe it was sick. Did snakes get sick? He had no desire to go anywhere near it, but at the same time, he wanted to enjoy his dock for one more day, dammit!

  Logan made his way up the path to the utility shed, his flipflops making slick noises as they stuck to the sun scorched wood. His family kept the lawnmower and gardening equipment there—if the tenants hadn’t stolen them.

  A musky odor wafted from the room as he opened the door. Everything was there—inner tubes, gardening shears, his grandfather’s fishing rod mixed with the tools hanging from the wall. The tenants must have been so focused on their drug business that they hadn’t bothered absconding with the contents of the utility shed. After all, what growing druggie took time away from ruining their landlord’s property to fish?

  He couldn’t help a deep feeling of shame from washing over him as he thought about the state of the cabin. His family had left him in charge of the finances. He’d done what he’d thought best. Every year, as the Okanagan had exploded with tourism, the property taxes grew steeper, so he’d rented it out. What he hadn’t counted on was that the remoteness and water access had attracted the worst type of renter; a drug dealer who turned the attic and half the main floor into a marijuana grow op.

  By the time he’d discovered it, the ceiling and walls were moist and full of mold, the insulation was shot, and his family’s vacation home was ruined. Insurance had refused to cover the repairs—there was a clause for drug dealer damage, apparently—and he couldn’t afford both the repair costs and the property taxes. Hence the realtor.

  Logan ran a hand through his sweaty hair, feeling a tension headache coming on at the thought of the overdue conversation that needed to happen with his big sister. She didn’t know. His sister was always the responsible one, and he couldn’t face the judgment he knew was coming as soon as he admitted his failure.

  Crap’s sake! Couldn’t he have one more day to kick back with a couple of beers, lounge around in the sun and work on getting that skin-cancer tan? Reality could go ahead and stuff it.

  He sighed before grabbing the fishing rod and making his way back over to the dock. Maybe the weird-ass snake had left.

  Yeah, no such luck.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Piss off!”

  The snake raised its head, tongue flashing as if it were tasting the air before apparently deeming Logan no nuisance to its sun-siesta. It lowered its head and went back to lounging around.

  “Ugh,” Logan said, inching forward and extending the fishing rod. He had no desire to hurt it—that would make a hell of a mess—he just needed it to leave.

  A shudder passed through him as the end of the pole touched the side of the snake. He nudged it.

  It reared, its body swivelling closer to the edge of the dock, dark eyes gleaming.

  [Lifeform identified! Initializing System….]

  Logan froze and then dropped the fishing rod as if it had turned into a hot wire. In the background, the snake also froze, jaws wide open and eyes glazed over.

  Had his prescription sunglasses turned into VR glasses? Logan yanked them off, blinking in the glare of the sun.

  But even as he stared, expecting to see that weird-ass text glowing from the lenses, the text hovered in front of his eyes no matter where he looked.

  Was he hallucinating?

  [Lifeform identified! Initializing System….]

  Squinting, Logan put his glasses on again. A shimmer saturated the air. The dock shuddered, and violent waves rocked the shore. But the air was still, the sun bright in the sky, not a breeze to be found.

  Then, just as suddenly as it started, the lake calmed, and the dock stabilized so quickly it was as if he’d passed into the eye of a hurricane.

  [Lifeform identified! System initialized!]

  That message again! With a jolt, he blinked rapidly and tried to clear the hovering text. But no matter what he did—closed his eyes, covered them with his hand—the words were still there, hovering. Then they changed, scrawling like text in an old-fashioned DOS system.

  [Lifeform identified as…]

  [Human.]

  [Protocols found for Species: Human.]

  Stolen story; please report.

  [Welcome to the System! Your world is in violation of Edict 10: Preservation of Species. Species: Human have been deemed a threat to the rest of the species on Earth and a culling of 99% of the Species: Human, will commence in 365 days. Only the top rated 1% ranked humans will survive the Day 365 species culling.]

  [The other species within your world have been deemed blameless and as such the System has awarded them with common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary abilities. These species will also receive System notifications.]

  [Countdown protocol for Species: Human, initialized!]

  [Countdown: Day 1 of Day 365 before species culling. Only the worthy survive.]

  [Current rank: 6,488,319,241 out of 8,025,432,612.]

  [You are in the bottom 20th percentile.]

  [Advance and grow.]

  What the ever-loving hell? None of the words meant anything to him. But he could hardly comprehend them let alone function as he wobbled in place. It was like trying to walk while an optometrist gave you a vision test.

  But the snake didn’t seem to care that he was struggling. Its stunned look was gone and in its place was a look that could kill. And had he mistaken its size? His first impression was that it was the size of a small garden snake, but now its black scales stretched over a body as thick as his upper arm and as long as the fishing pole. The sunning siesta snake might as well have been replaced with a snake on steroids.

  “Holy crap!” said Logan as the snake suddenly lunged for him. He tripped over the fishing rod, his hands skidding behind him as he broke his fall.

  Now that he was lying down on the dock, nothing stopped the snake from slithering towards his bare feet and legs like something jacked up on Red Bull.

  That thing wasn’t a garden snake anymore! It had fangs the size of his finger.

  Logan scrambled backwards, the heels of his hands scraping against the wood of the dock, but the snake kept coming. “You can have the dock! It’s all yours!” Just don’t kill me!

  But the snake didn’t care. Slithering, its tongue flickered, just missing the top of his foot.

  Logan reached for the fishing rod, a muscle in his back pulling at the unnatural angle. There! The tips of his fingers touched, and he had just enough leverage to reel it closer so he could grasp it by the handle. Feeling like his heart was about to explode out of his chest, he swung the rod. Anything to push the snake back! But it was a fishing pole! It was like swinging a wet noodle.

  The skinny, flexible end of the rod flicked the snake between the eyes, and it blinked. A sardonic blink. That same reaction a cat might have if a mouse had played a particularly cute trick.

  Right before the cat swallowed it whole.

  Aww, crap. The air grew thick with the thing’s anger, and its red eyes flashed as it darted at him like a rattlesnake.

  Panicking, Logan rolled over, just missing its fangs by an inch. But he’d rolled over so much that he was in danger of falling off the edge of the dock.

  The snake had managed to catch one of its fangs into the wood, its red eyes gleaming at Logan as it jerked its head from side-to-side like an alligator. It was stuck! Adrenaline surging, Logan took the chance to brace to his knees and jump to his feet, skidding around towards the shore as—oh holy hell!

  The snake had managed to free itself and took his retreat as an opportunity, snapping and digging into the back of his ankle, pulling on him and forcing him to trip and fall face first to the dock.

  Ow. Stunned, Logan spat out a glob of blood, his glasses wedged painfully against the bridge of his nose. Blinking, he rolled over once again, kicking with his leg and trying to—

  “Fuck!” he screamed in agony so acute it was as if a meat hook was digging into his foot. The snake had released his ankle only for its whole mouth to swallow half his foot, sandal and all. Red eyes glinted at him as the thing moved, swaying back and forth, finger-length fangs tearing into his skin.

  Feeling like he couldn’t get enough air, Logan kicked, shaking his leg as if he were doing frantic calf raise exercises, but the snake only dug in deeper, causing agony to tear through him so strongly it made him feel lightheaded.

  He kicked the thing with his other leg, but his flip flops made the kick ineffectual, and it caused yet more pain, this time to the toes of his other foot. The snake’s skin was hard, like rock.

  It continued to gnaw away, its fangs digging in deeper like a razorblade. If he didn’t do something, he was going to lose his foot, even his life.

  Frantic, he scanned everything around him, trying to come up with anything that could help. It must have been only a few seconds as he considered and discarded options, but to him, everything moved at a snail’s pace.

  He could flop over the side of the dock into the water, but if the snake followed, he’d drown. He could try crawling back to the cabin with the snake attached, but that could cause the thing to dig in its fangs even deeper and make his situation worse. There was nothing on the dock but a discarded beach towel, sunscreen and the fishing rod.

  Wait a minute.

  With desperation enhanced by agony, Logan grabbed the beach towel and threw it over the snake’s head, covering its eyes. Then he pulled on the end of the fishing rod and reeled it closer until he could grab the fishing line and unspool it. Leaning forward and screaming when that caused the snake to dig in deeper, he wrapped the loose line around its body, just below the towel covering its eyes.

  When the snake felt him tightening the fishing line around its neck, it released his foot, skidding down, fangs shredding his skin.

  “Hell yes!” he screamed in stunned relief, letting his arms go boneless, which released the tension on the line.

  That was a mistake.

  The snake latched onto what was in front of its mouth: his big toe. Its fangs sliced Logan to the bone.

  “You mother--! Fucking! Fuck!” Blood poured onto the dock, saturating the towel red and making everything slick.

  This time his desperation turned into rage. He pulled on the line so tightly that it cut into his palms, pulling, pulling, pulling, until it broke through the snake’s tough hide, sawing through like sharpened steel.

  But the snake didn’t make it easy. He’d lost feeling in his toe as the thing continued to sway back and forth, mindlessly gnawing away underneath the towel. With a last frantic pull of the line, the snake’s tail finally twitched, its body lifeless as it slumped to the dock.

  Ding!

  What…?

  It sounded like a cooking timer.

  The weird text was back.

  [You have defeated a level 1 Sunning Siesta Snake!]

  [You have received the title, Eager Beaver! Wow, not even five minutes after System Integration and you’ve already slaughtered your first unique being! 10 bonus attribute points awarded. This achievement earns you the enmity of all snakes and causes them to attack you on sight.]

  Was he in a wilderness reality show? Nothing else made sense.

  “Hello?” Logan questioned with a rasp, scanning the cabin and the land around the beach. But just moving his head made everything sway in a sickening lurch. He was losing blood and based on the amount trickling onto the dock, a lot. He didn’t think he had that much blood in his body. That wasn’t a good sign.

  He needed to get to the hospital, and stat, but his phone was all the way back in the cabin and there was no one around or even within shouting distance.

  This must be what survivalists felt when stranded in the woods in a crisis without a cell phone. At least there was one positive—he’d have a hell of a story to tell his sister and there was a chance she’d feel so sorry for him that she’d forget about how he’d had to sell the cabin. Yeah, and pigs would fly.

  ….Like regular old garden snakes transforming into murdering behemoths. Okay, medical attention! Obviously, that was a must if he was thinking in tangents while bleeding out.

  Bracing himself, Logan moved the blood-soaked towel, getting his first look at the damage. The snake’s mouth was still latched onto him, so that was the first step. Steps forward! He’d made progress.

  It was surprisingly easy to pry the snake’s mouth away from his big toe which allowed him to scoot back with a wet squelch.

  Gore.

  Gushing blood.

  Shredded skin.

  And where the fuck was his toe?