It was a hot day in Sao Paulo. The streets were jammed with traffic, and the air was dirty. Emily had lived in Sao Paulo for many years, and was used to days like these. She hated the heat in the air, and would always try to leave the city if the weather was like this. However, today it was a Wednesday, and so she had to stay in the city to work.
She worked through the morning. She was a secretary in a large company, and so her job was mostly typing, using the phone, taking notes and organising her boss. She managed to struggle through her pile of work, and by midday had finished. She was hot and sweaty from her cramped office, and decided that she would go out for her hour or so of lunch she had freed herself.
She gathered up her lunch and left the building. The street outside was just as hot as her office and she needed to find somewhere cooler to go. She walked down the street, bumping into people as she went. There was a haze over the town, and the air was acid to taste.
Emily walked down towards the river. She knew that the air would be cooler there and she would have a chance to sit and eat her lunch. After a couple of minutes' walk she reached it. To her dismay the walls by the side were already full of people. She walked for a few minutes, trying to find a place to sit. Soon she was at the end of this stretch of the river, where the water disappeared into a tunnel.
She looked round, trying to spot a place to sit. When she had satisfied herself that there was none, she decided that she would go into the tunnel, in the hope that it would provide shelter from the fierce rays of the sun. There was a raised ledge above the water, and she walked along it into the tunnel.
After going a short distance into the tunnel she came to another one, joining the main tunnel. It was much cooler than outside, and this new tunnel was dry. She went in and found a place to sit. Although the tunnel had an unpleasant smell, it was preferable to the smog outside, and besides, she soon got used to it.
Emily checked her watch. She still had forty-five, maybe fifty minutes before she needed to be back at the office. Compared to her cramped working space, this place was wonderful. There was no noise of people, just the river running along. Most of all, the tunnel sheltered her from the heat. She took out her lunch and started to eat. She did not have much of interest, just what she had thrown together that morning. She had a couple of sandwiches, some chocolate and an apple. She slowly ate her lunch, enjoying the quiet.
When Emily had finished her lunch she checked her watch again. She still had twenty minutes until she needed to start to go back. She set her alarm, leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes. She slowly drifted off to sleep.
Twenty minutes later Emily was awoken by the alarm. She picked herself up, brushed the dust off her coat and set off towards the water. When she had reached the junction she turned upstream and started the walk back to the street. She was only a hundred yards from the exit, and from there it was only another five minutes to get her back to her office. She checked her watch. She could easily make it in time.
Slowly Emily picked her way along the edge of the river. The ground was slippery by the edge of the water and it made her progress hard. Suddenly she saw movement the other side of the river. She looked up. There were a number of rats running along the edge. To her disgust she realised that she had slept with rats all around her, and they were one of her least favourite things ever.
Watching the rats she resumed her progress. Suddenly one ran in front of her, stood on its hind legs and squeaked at her. She took a step back from it, not wanting to be near one of them. It could see that she was nervous and came closer. Emily became painfully aware of the number of rats all around her and started to regret coming into the tunnels.
Another couple of rats joined the one in front of her. All of them were huge, and she hated even the smallest ones. She turned and started to run away. The ground was slippery under her, and she was loosing her footing. After a short way she lost her footing altogether and slipped. She felt herself fall and land hard on the concrete edge. She slipped, and went into the river.
Emily struggled to find a place to hold onto. The river was quite strong, and was slowly pulling her down, further into the tunnel. The edge and the base of the river were both concrete, and neither offered anywhere to take hold of so that she could pull herself out.
Emily gave up on trying to get out of the water and let herself be pulled along. Eventually the concrete base of the river gave way to earth. The river came to almost a complete standstill, and was no longer pulling her. There was a little light from above, just enough to show Emily where she was.
It appeared that she was in an underground lake. The water was only waist deep and she waded through the water to the edge. There was a narrow earth bank which was obviously well walked on. She pulled herself up onto it and sat down.
Emily reviewed her situation. She was due at the office five minutes ago, and was completely lost. She knew that she could get out by walking back up the bank, going upstream, but there were the rats. She decided that she would see what lay in the other direction, downstream.
Emily walked for a few minutes, but it all looked the same. This underground lake must be bigger than she had thought. She carried on going around the perimeter, looking for a way out.
Suddenly Emily was knocked to the floor. She fell into the water with a large splash. Around her she could feel something holding her. She took her head out of the water and looked down at her body. To her horror, there was one of her even less favourite things on her, a large snake. It had one coil around her, and was holding one arm tight against her body.
Emily had heard stories of snakes in the rivers, and had seen a few small ones before. However, this one certainly was not one of the small ones that she had seen. It was almost a foot thick and perhaps twenty to twenty-five feet long. Even a small snake terrified her, and this one was huge.
The snake was an excellent swimmer. It twisted in the water and soon had another coil round Emily. She thrashed wildly, not thinking straight because of fear. She beat the snake, but her fists had no effect on it. Another coil followed its second, and these three covered all her upper body.
The snake started to tighten itself on her. The coils moulded themselves to the shape of her body, over her breasts, and then thin around her waist. They tightened slowly, in time with her breathing. Emily knew that she had to hold her breath to stop herself from being crushed. She took a deep breath and counted how long she was holding her breath. She had not even reached ten when she had cause to gasp. Another snake was swimming towards her!
With her gasp the snake round her tightened a lot more. She tried to hold her breath again, but was overcome by fear, and could not do it. She could tell that with much more of this breathing would become hard. The snake looked hungry, and she realised that if she did nothing soon she had a good chance of becoming snake food.
The crushing was continuing, slowly but unstoppably. The coil under her breasts was pushing them out of her top. Another one was over her mouth, and she could taste its skin in her mouth. She tried to bite it, but her teeth were useless against its strong skin. Luckily for her, her head was being kept above water by the snake and she was just managing to breathe under the coils.
Slowly even the simple luxury of breathing began to leave her. Each breath was now noticeably shallower than the ones just minutes beforehand. The strong embrace was relentless, crushing her, taking her every last drop of strength just to keep them from getting tighter every time, and yet even this was not enough.
"Help!" she screamed. As she did so she realised the stupidity as the coils closed another inch. The echo of her cry came back to her, taunting her stupidity. The coils were so tight that she could feel the blood of the serpent pulsing under its skin, slow and controlled, contrasting against her quick panicked beats.
Breathing was now a struggle, each breath needing more and more effort just to force the little bit of oxygen into her lungs, trying to keep her alive and conscious. She could tell that she was fighting a loosing battle, almost powerless against the great snake around her.
She could feel the effects of the lack of oxygen on her now. She was light headed, and feeling very scared. "I don’t want to be snake food," she thought to herself. Soon the strength of the snake was too much, its immense muscles crushing the last drop of air from her.
Finally she fell unconscious. The snake released a coil and quickly started to rip at her clothes. Once her top was off, revealing her breasts, the snake opened its mouth over her head and took it in. The second snake then ripped at the rest of her clothes. The larger snake removed the rest of its coils and moved its head further down her body, taking her breasts into her mouth. The smaller one was efficiently working its way up her legs.
Soon all of Emily was disappeared except for one of her legs. The smaller snake started to bite the leg in its mouth and slowly worked its way through. Once it was off the large snake finished off the job, and Emily was gone, leaving no trace except for the ripped clothes floating down the river.