The lamia sways her head in a circle, dragging your eyes to follow. She’s using some trick on you, somehow altering your mind to drag you towards her. That can’t be good. No matter how sleepy you are, no matter how much her words sound right, there’s something wrong with what she’s doing. You have to resist.
“Sleep little human, rest in peace.” Her grin widens, a beautiful grin; her smile makes you want to smile with her, but you resist the temptation, resist the idea that this feels good and joyful.
The colors wash over your sight, blurring your vision. As you push to stay alert the colors fade from your sight and the jungle brightens. For a moment you resist, but a surge of drunken euphoria fizzles through your head as the colors change, washing over your vision as the jungle darkens. You push the colors away, but the cycle repeats, each time the struggle to push her pulsating colors out of your mind harder, the colors brighter and jungle darker.
You try to focus to break her growing hold on your mind, but the longer you look the more vivid the colors feel, and each thought struggles to form. Every attempt at breaking free feels like another hour of staying awake long after you’ve grown far too weary. You could fall forward and go to sleep in an instant if you let yourself, and you use more and more mind strength just to stay alert of what’s happening.
You feel scales slide around your lower body, looping over your legs and hips before another slithers above the first. The lamia’s tail squeezes your body, holding your heavy arms down. Her soft, squeezing tail hugs you in growing coils, rising up your body, rubbing your arms, the lower loops getting thicker and heavier with each new loop. You feel sleepier than before and your eyes droop, so hard to even think about staying awake. The entire jungle is a painted blur, your thoughts increasingly painted blurs.
Your head droops as you follow the lamia’s sway, each rotation harder to keep up with than the last. You feel powerless, pulled along by a string, your body and, increasingly, your mind no longer under your control as her soft tail wraps tight around your chest and her beautiful hypnotic eyes wrap tight around your mind. The pretty, colorful thoughts tell you to give in, it feels good, just relax. You still feel harsher thoughts warning you, telling you to resist and wake up.
With a slow drop, a wave of sleepiness coaxes your eyes shut, but a resistant thought perks you up and you pop your eyes back open. You just get a continued dose of the lamia’s hypnotic eyes and droop again. If you’re going to resist, you might need help. Maybe you can still call someone.
-32a Bagheera! You could call out for help from Bagheera! He can stop this lamia from hypnotizing you.
–32b On second thought, what if Bagheera just thinks you’re trying to argue some more? You’re not confident in the plan, but it’s all you got.
-32c On a third, pretty, colorful thought, it would take so much energy to call out . . . and you’re so sleepy . . . why do you need help, anyway? Doesn’t this feel so good . . . ?
Duth Olec's Cuckoo Cosmos 