Free Web NovelChapter 126: Finding A Shrimp (End)
"Fuck, I thought Kali ate chocolate... only chocolate," I muttered. I couldn’t stop staring at the spot where the guy had been standing a second ago. Now, it was just giant Kali, looming over us like something out of a nightmare. I turned to Malo. His mouth was wide open, his jaw practically hitting his chest. He was completely speechless, just frozen like a statue.
Before we could even process what was happening, the other bandits snapped out of their shock. Two of them pulled their pistols and started firing. The gunshots were loud, echoing off the trees and making my ears ring. I flinched, waiting for Kali to go down, but none of the bullets penetrated her. They just seemed to bounce off her skin like she was made of steel.
Her serpent eyes turned a deep, glowing red. She looked angry now. Truly pissed off. In an instant, she lunged forward. Her mouth opened like a dark tunnel, and she swallowed both of them before they could even reload.
The remaining two bandits, the big boss and one other guy, didn’t even try to fight. They just collapsed. They fell to the ground in total fear. The boss, the guy who was just acting all tough and demanding our stuff, started crying like a baby. A giant, pathetic baby.
Then they scrambled up and ran. They didn’t look back. They ran for their lives into the dark forest, crashing through the bushes.
My whole body started shaking. The adrenaline was wearing off and leaving me weak. I felt cold all over. I almost felt like crying... or peeing myself. I wasn’t sure which would happen first.
Meanwhile, Malo was the complete opposite. He actually started clapping.
"Bravo, Kali. You’ve grown. Big girl now... Please go back to your regular size," he said. He sounded like he was praising a dog for sitting on command.
"What the fuck? That snake is going to eat us if we make one small mistake," I muttered. I kept my distance, watching her every move. My heart was still hammering against my ribs.
Then, right before our eyes, the madness reversed. Kali began to shrink. Her body pulled back in on itself, becoming smaller and smaller until she was back to her regular size. She looked exactly the same as she did this morning, small enough to fit into her bag again.
"..."
I was speechless. I just stood there with my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
"Oh, hey Kali, you swallowed our phones... and the cash too. Please spit them out," Malo said. He walked over to her like she hadn’t just turned into a building-sized monster.
Kali opened her tiny mouth. She made a weird, wet choking sound, her little body tensing up. In no time, she vomited out our phones and the dollar cash. Everything was covered in a thick, greyish slime. The cash was a soggy mess, completely unrecognizable.
Malo didn’t even seem grossed out. He picked them up and handed me my phone.
I just stared at the slimy fluid dripping from the screen and onto the grass. I didn’t reach for it.
"Fuck, I’m going to puke..." I muttered. I turned away, feeling my stomach flip. There was no way I was touching that thing. It looked like it had been dipped in industrial glue.
Malo just shrugged and started wiping things down with some grass. He packed everything back into his bag, and Kali crawled back into hers on her own, looking perfectly content. He noticed I was still standing there in shock, staring at the empty space where the bandits used to be.
"What’s wrong?" he asked. freewebnovel.cσ๓
"What’s wrong? That fucking snake just swallowed three whole people and is still fine... and you’re acting like it’s normal? That is not fucking normal!" I snapped. My voice was shaky and high-pitched. I pointed a finger at Kali. Malo was now casually feeding her a piece of chocolate after all that anaconda-level madness.
"Chill, man. We didn’t kill them, they killed themselves. They were a threat to Kali, and she eliminated them. We should be thanking her. This snake of ours saved our lives," he said. He popped a piece of chocolate into his own mouth too.
"Oh my God... please tell me you’re not serious. You’re supposed to be scared. She might kill us whenever she gets angry, or if we step on her again."
"She won’t. She doesn’t bite those who feed her," he said. He sounded so confident, it was annoying.
"How the fuck do you know that?"
"I know because Kali is ours," he said.
"What do you mean ours?" I asked. I didn’t remember owning a man-eating monster. freewebnøvel.com
"Look, when we were like 6, we found two snake eggs in the woods. We brought them to PP, and one of them hatched into Kali. PP taught us how to take care of her, and we did. Kali won’t harm us, she knows us. As long as you feed her, she’ll do anything and still remain the cutest snake ever."
I just stared at the snake. I tried to remember being 6, but the image of her giant red eyes kept blocking everything else out. How the hell was that thing my pet? How did I forget something like that? Fuck my memory. I still wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t decide I looked like a snack in my sleep.
After some time, I managed to calm down a little bit, even though the thought of her was still heavy in the back of my mind. It was fully dark now. The woods were loud with the sound of crickets. I sat by the water’s edge and asked Malo what made him so sure the shrimp was even in this pond.
He explained that a tourist had posted a video on YouTube of a glowing fish in this specific lake. After he checked more pictures and zoomed in, he realized it wasn’t a fish at all. It was the mantis shrimp.
Right as he was explaining the details, his eyes locked onto something behind me.
"There!" he whispered.
I turned around, inside the water, a bright, neon light was moving. It was glowing under the surface, shifting between pink and green.
He immediately grabbed his net and rushed back in. He didn’t care about the tiny creatures anymore. That shrimp gave him a hard time. It was small, but it moved like a bullet in the water. It zipped back and forth, dodging the net every time he got close. But eventually, after a lot of splashing, he caught it.
"Open the jar! Open the jar!" he shouted. He came running out of the water, holding the net tight so the thing wouldn’t jump out.
I quickly grabbed the jar from the bag and unscrewed the lid. He dropped the glowing shrimp inside. I could feel the vibrations of it hitting the glass. I sealed it shut as fast as I could.
"We’re making our first 1 million dollars tonight," he said. He was breathless, his face split into a massive smile.
He pulled out his phone, the one Kali had puked up, and wiped the screen again. He took pictures of the shrimp glowing inside the jar and sent them to the contact on the website. A few minutes later, his phone buzzed. They sent us a location for a confirmation meeting.
We packed up everything. I looked at Kali’s bag and stepped back.
"No fucking way. I’m not carrying her," I said.
Malo didn’t argue. He carried both his backpack and Kali’s bag. I carried the jar, the net, and his detector. We walked back to where we left the car, my mind racing the whole way.
We drove to the location they gave us. It was a quiet spot, away from the main road. A black car was already waiting there, its engine idling. The headlights were off.
We stepped out of our car. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves, and we approached it.
Malo knocked on the tinted window.
It rolled down slowly, just a few inches. A hand wearing a black leather glove stretched out. No face, no greeting. Just the hand.
A message popped up on Malo’s phone at the same time: Put the jar in the hand.
Malo hesitated. He looked at the gloved hand and then back at the phone. "I want the money first," he said.
The window didn’t move. The hand stayed there. Another message appeared: Put the jar in the hand.
We exchanged a look. My heart was thumping. This felt like a movie, and not a good one.
Malo gave me a small nod.
I reached forward and placed the glass jar into the gloved hand. The fingers gripped it tight and pulled it inside the car.
At that exact moment, Malo’s phone buzzed loud in the silence.
Payment received.
The screen showed a balance that made my head spin. $1,000, 000
The last message read: Keep up the job, and we’ll make you rich.
A huge smile spread across Malo’s face. He looked like he was about to start dancing right there.
The window rolled up without a sound. The black car pulled away, its tires crunching on the gravel before it disappeared into the night.
I watched the red taillights fade away while Malo just stood there, staring at the numbers on his screen. The light from the phone made his eyes look bright.
"Faye... we’re rich," he whispered. Then his smile faltered just a little bit. "But why do I feel like this is going to come back and bite us in the future..."
I looked at the empty road and then at the bag where Kali was sleeping. I thought about the bandits and the money and the people behind that black car.
"Well," I said, "if we get rich enough... we’ll bite back."
