It's suffocating--constricting. Thick coils of white wrap around the entirety of your frame with the promise of escape thrown out the window. You don't know how long it's been since he's taken you. You don't know how long it's been since you've last seen another human.

The swamp grounds is home to Chiha; an albino naga who seemed to have taken an immense liking to you. Enough to refer to you as his mate.

It's hot. Uncomfortable. The weather felt stuffy with the mixture of heat and shade. There were flies all over. It makes you miss the air conditioning of your apartment. The only cool place was the makeshift burrow that'd caved in from the ground; a hole big enough to fit the both of you, the walls insulated with mud and dried stalks of reeds.

"Isn't this the perfect den to raise our future brood together?"

Chiha smiles. He keeps you in a nest of soft furs and feathers, the poison in your veins preventing you from moving. He had to be sure. He's always been the meticulous type. You've seen him with the way he carefully squeezes his prey to their inevitable death.

It's a risk he wasn't willing to take, you crawling away when he's out hunting. It's not like you can, anyway, not when his scent is on you. His very musk. He tells you not to get your hopes up. There's barely any boats that pass by the marshes with the fauna too thick and the pathways too small. No one was looking for you anymore. You're missing, he says. They've given up searching. It's better to stay with him. He'll keep you safe.