Hemlock

            The harvest lumbered on, steadfast as a legion of mice dug into the soil at the base of a hemlock’s stem. Carrying pebbles, they used them as shovels, wary of the hemlock’s poisonous roots and stem. Yet it was this very poison they sought, at the whims of Snake, the black-scaled terror.

With a murderous glint in his slit eyes, Snake kept a vigilant watch over the proceedings. “Dig ever faster, my precious workers. I need poison for my fangs.”

            The mice tore away pieces of the hemlock’s roots and stem, carrying them on scraps of wood and laying the plant’s remnants on a slanted rock. With their pebbles, they beat it into paste; letting drops of poison trickle into a readied leaf.

            A mouse, her fur dirtied from toil, worked tirelessly with a pebble. But her muscles had weakened and her efforts had slowed.

            Snake coldly eyed her. “Little slave, work faster.”

            “Yes, lord.”

            Snake watched with glee as she trembled in fright. Though nonvenomous, Snake’s maw still haunted the dreams of mice. The mouse hastened her speed, pulverizing the green scrap of stem with fresh vigor. Satisfied she was properly afraid, Snake twisted around to inspect the other workers.

            Struck with fear, the mouse’s paws trembled. Her pebble clattered from her grasp and splashed the poison collected in the leaf. Drops flew through the air, coating the slaves nearby. They exchanged nervous looks.

Snake failed to hear the splash, too preoccupied with devouring a mouse who had fallen asleep from exhaustion. Sensing something amiss, he turned to gaze at the slaves near the leaf.

Violently, he slithered towards them. “Taking a break? Why, I’ll devour you all!”

            Lunging and catching them individually, he consumed their flesh, pursuing them through the forest until every last one had been devoured. The other mice fled the harvest in his absence as fast as their paws could carry them.

             Satisfied and too engorged to move, Snake coiled himself into a ring, when suddenly, seizures havocked his body. In the final moments before death claimed him, he realized the reason for the mice’s lax behavior. They were contaminated.