B20C12 - Cobra Senses

I felt my teeth suddenly turn mushy. They became puffy flesh, like rotten gums.

And then I heard the sound of something growing inside my mouth. I felt it, too.

Fangs!

They grew and curled back up against the roof of my mouth. Of course, Spawn had had his poison sacs removed. So . . .

Then it occurred to me: This morph was created from DNA. Surgery wouldn't affect that. The fact that Spawn had no poison did not mean I didn't.

I had fangs. Hollow needle teeth. And above those fangs, up in my mouth, poison filled the sacs.

Between those fangs my forked tongue whipped . . . out, tweedle-tweedle-tweedle as it wiggled. In. Out and tweedle, tweedle, tweedle. In.

It was like smell. Only not. I was tasting the air. But tasting it with more refinement than the world's greatest food lover. I was tasting individual molecules.

My sight was excellent. It was even in color, which was a relief. Different colors than normal, but color.

In addition, I felt a new sense, a new awareness added to the others. It took a while to figure out. But then I realized: I could sense heat. Not like the difference between a hot stove and a block of ice. This was infinitely more refined. I could sense the difference in heat between the side of a carpet strand that was toward the faint sunlight, and the side that was in shadow.

The only real problem was hearing. Snakes don't have external ears, you know. Mostly I was hearing through vibrations in the floor that seemed to travel up my body.

But then, I'm used to that. It's pretty much the same as when you're in cockroach morph.

Mostly, though, I was a creature of sight, with that questing, tasting tongue to back me up and an eerily precise ability to sense minuscule differences in temperature.

And that's when the snake's own mind appeared within my consciousness.

Cold.

That's how it felt. Like a ghost was standing beside me. Like someone had opened a door in my brain and a rush of Arctic air had blown in.

The snake heard the sound of footsteps approaching, climbing the stairs. It was wary. Not afraid, just . . . ready. Like Clint Eastwood walking into a saloon. Not afraid . . . just making sure his gun hand was free.

Tongue out, tweedle, tweedle, tweedle. Tongue in.

Wary and hungry.

I sensed heat. Not much, since what I was sensing was cold-blooded. But enough. The wide-set eyes spotted jerky movement, eight legs motoring.

<The human is coming again,> Ax said.

The cold, calculating, emotionless machine that was my brain noticed the odd sound in my head and dismissed it. Irrelevant. What mattered was hunger and movement and warmth.

Tongue out, tweedle, tweedle, tweedle. Hmmm. The musk of a bug. The scent of a spider. Movement, warmth, and taste.