Clariza’s orders were to stay and survey the land below. The law was that no one walks the valley at night. Then it must be a foolish law she thought to herself, her employer knows darkness is her favorite hour to lurk.

In the morning she awoke to a searing acrid smell; what a horrible awakening. The burning air grew as two suns twisted in the sky. Her symptoms worsening, she decided to don a Enviro-Mask.

Clariza switched to her Gilded Galoshes, sensing a murky marsh below. But that wasn’t the case. An hour later she stood on a cobbled road in a thin dry valley. Along both sides of the road stood titanium poles, fifty feet high, with large serpents impaled upon them, mouths down.

She sees a street sign of sorts, but there is a black cross over the name. Wiping it off, it reads Milking Station #7. Clariza realizes the burning ozone is from the stringy snake venom oozing into wells; down into the cold, coal-black water? She prepares her sample kit and kneels over one of the dark openings…SSSSSSSSSS!