"Move, move, move..."
The girl's clear, urgent voice drifted farther and farther from the distant shadows, growing fainter and fainter until it gradually vanished into the darkness and silence.
All that remained were the tree-dwelling animals scattered across the ground, no longer breathing, the mangled mass of human flesh and blood, and two corpses sprawled upon the branches.
Silence swept in.
Then, after an unknown amount of time, the lapel over Spectacles Man's chest suddenly twitched.
Then it twitched again.
A long, S-shaped bulge slowly emerged beneath his lapel.
"Hiss... hisss..."
Then, a pink snake tongue slipped out from his collar, making the distinctive sounds of a little snake.
Afterward, a small white snake with black markings around its eyes slowly crawled out from his chest and coiled itself over his face, his eyes still wide open in death.
"Hiss... hiss..."
After crawling out, the little white snake first shook its head, seeming somewhat dizzy from the aftereffects. It gathered itself, then looked around. When it saw the tree-dwelling animals covering the ground and the two corpses in the tree, its vertical pupils visibly froze.
"His—!"
It stretched out its tongue, seemingly easing its surprise, while also flicking its tail nimbly as if to express its shock.
"Hiss?"
Then its gaze suddenly went blank as it stared at a spot beneath the tree. Its little mouth opened, revealing two tiny fangs, and its round eyes widened.
It looked astonishingly human in its extreme shock.
"Hiss!"
After quite a while, the little white snake suddenly raised its head, as though it had remembered something important. Its tiny body twisted, and it swiftly left Spectacles Man's face, slithered down the tree, and vanished into the forest shadows, heading in the direction opposite the two children.
It quickly disappeared from the woodland clearing.