Shane didn’t know many pleasures in life. In fact, he only knew four; Sleeping, eating, piano music, and his mom. To put it candidly, his mom was his only friend. But why didn’t he have friends? He seemed relatively normal. He brushed his hair, ate three meals a day, played video games, he had a job, he could even carry a pleasant conversation. So what was it that set him apart from others? What made people avoid eye contact with him in the hallways at school? There wasn’t anything evidently strange about him, so surely it would be easy for him to make friends. At least, it should be easy for him.

Well, he simply could not have close relationships. His mom was difficult enough to be around. He was vastly better off on his own. Of course, there wasn’t anything evidently strange about him, but if you take a closer look, you would see that there is a snake in his head.

A viper, more like. And a vicious one at that. It slithered around his brain, squeezing and pulsing, attempting to gain control over his every thought and action. It had the most venomous of fangs. They were so sharp they could cut through a rock, so dangerous they could take almost any life, and so pearly that they would have you mesmerized as they sunk deep into your flesh. Oh, and it was bloodthirsty.  It craved the copper fluid so much that its teeth pulsed with an intense ache.
When you are that desperate for something, you tend to seek it out.

But this viper had a high disadvantage when it came to that aspect; it was trapped in Shane’s crowded skull. Its actions were very limited. He could writhe and twist around Shane’s brain all day, but there was no escaping. The teenaged skull of this lonely kid was the viper’s permanent home. There was one thing the viper could do to satisfy his desires, however; it could whisper.

Surely, whispering was a strange ability for a viper to have. But surely, this wasn’t your usual viper.

The viper whispered heinous things to Shane. Its tongue was a constant flicker in Shane’s ear. Although it was silent most of the time, its presence always demanded to be felt. And when it wasn’t silent, it was so loud that Shane could hear nothing else. It was not in any way friendly. Its smooth whisper was doomed to haunt Shane’s ears with evil words telling him to kill, rip, shred, and tare other people.

But Shane had no desire to do these things; he was not a violent man. Benevolent though he may be, it was hard to be around another person when a voice loomed over his head telling him to kill them.

To a problem this drastic and never ending, there was really only one solution. Shane spent his days isolated in his room, trying to pass the time as the viper slithered around his skull, impatiently waiting for the opportunity to strike.