Don't Look Into Its Eyes
"Watch out!" Tyson shouted, dropping the books from his arms as he ran toward Hermione.
"What...?" Hermione barely had time to turn around when the wall behind her exploded.
CRACK!
Stones and dust went flying across the entire corridor, and from between them, an enormous mouth filled with teeth appeared, opening directly toward her, about to swallow her in a single bite.
Hermione froze completely from shock and fear.
"HERMIONE, MOVE!" Ron shouted, but it was obvious he wouldn't make it in time.
Luckily, Tyson did, slamming into her from the side and knocking her out of the way just as the enormous jaws snapped shut where she'd been standing a moment earlier and crashed into the wall on the other side of the corridor.
Tyson and Hermione rolled across the floor and quickly tried to get back up.
Ron pulled out his wand with trembling hands. "W-what the hell is that thing?" he managed to say as he watched an enormous body begin sliding out of the hole, covering part of the corridor like a wall of scales moving past them.
The enormous creature shook its head after smashing into the wall, then slowly rose again until it nearly reached the ceiling of the corridor, looking down at them as it opened its enormous mouth full of teeth once more and let out a chilling hiss.
Hermione wanted to look up while her entire body trembled. Ron and Tyson weren't doing much better.
Their eyes slowly traveled over the creature. An enormous serpentine body covered in gray scales. A mouth packed with teeth, drops of some dark liquid dripping from it.
And little by little, their gazes began to rise toward its face...
Toward its eyes.
"If you look into its eyes, you'll die."
A calm voice suddenly echoed through the corridor, strangely composed compared to the chaos around them, reaching all three of them at the same time.
Hermione shut her eyes on pure instinct. "Ron, Tyson, DON'T LOOK!" she shouted immediately.
"I WASN'T PLANNING TO!"
Ron immediately lowered his head, staring only at the floor.
Tyson looked away as well.
A deafening hiss filled the corridor.
Hermione felt every hair on her body stand on end. "It's a snake," she let out.
"You're crazy! No snake could be that big!" Ron shouted.
But the sound of something enormous dragging itself across the stone made all of them shut their mouths.
"No!" they heard Tyson shout, and Hermione felt herself being shoved away again, followed by the sound of something crashing hard.
Then Tyson grunted.
"Tyson!" Hermione shouted, seeing Tyson fly toward a nearby wall and slam into it hard.
The enormous snake's tail also shot directly toward Ron.
Ron ran and threw himself to the floor.
The tail barely missed his head and slammed into the wall behind him, cracking it apart.
When Ron lifted his head to look at the wall and realized he could've ended up the same way, he went even paler.
Then he saw the tail rise again, this time to crush him like a fly against the floor.
Ron moved, rolling across the ground to avoid it, but the tail was faster and would crush him before he could get away.
But before the tail could slam down on him, Tyson appeared right above him and caught it with both arms.
His feet seemed to sink into the floor, cracking the stone beneath them from the sheer force he was holding back.
Tyson roared from the effort.
"Not pass!" Tyson shouted, using his strength to save Ron from being crushed.
Just as those words left his mouth, Ron, who had been stunned by his friend's strength, felt as if he could finally see his face clearly for the first time. Without that fringe that always seemed to cover half of it.
He saw a single enormous, inhuman eye.
That made Ron's expression fill with confusion and, at the same time, surprise and, for a moment, even fear.
"Y-you... what the hell are you?" Ron stammered, frightened.
"Watch out!" Hermione shouted at that moment.
Both of them turned their gazes to the side, careful to keep them below the creature's head. The enormous jaws opened and lunged toward them.
"Tyson, move!" Hermione shouted as she raised her gaze only slightly, careful not to look any higher than the creature's enormous jaws. She could see the snake lunging directly toward them.
Tyson, who was holding the snake's tail to keep Ron from being crushed, couldn't move. He could only widen his eye in fear as he watched the teeth getting closer.
"SSSSSEEEE."
A sudden hiss rang out, but this time it seemed to come from somewhere else.
Then the enormous snake stopped before closing its mouth.
At the same time, the tail Tyson was holding quickly began wrapping itself around him at incredible speed.
Something slammed violently into the floor.
Hermione heard stone breaking.
Then, Tyson's roar.
"TYSON!" Hermione shouted again, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.
She saw Tyson's feet being dragged quickly across the stone.
"It's got me!" Tyson's shout rang out as he was dragged farther away.
"TYSON!" she shouted again, finally pulling out her wand, but without knowing where the monster's eyes were, she didn't dare raise her gaze enough to aim properly.
"Reducto!" she shouted, aiming blindly toward the nearby scales, but the spell bounced off and went flying into the ceiling. "Atabraquium!" Hermione cast again.
Several magical cords tried to bind the snake, but once again they didn't manage to do much before it began disappearing through the same hole it had come from.
"NO!" Hermione shouted, trying to run toward the hole.
"Hermione, stop!" Ron shouted, finally snapping out of his shock and stopping her.
"It's taking Tyson! We have to do something!" she cried, hearing Tyson desperately trying to grab onto the floor.
"Hermione!"
"TYSON!"
And that was the last thing they heard from Tyson before his voice disappeared along with the sound of the snake dragging itself away.
Hermione remained completely still.
Ron was breathing so fast that he looked like he was about to faint as he clutched his head.
He tried to remember what he'd just seen, or rather, it seemed like his brain was trying to make sense of it.
One eye.
He was sure of it.
But every time he tried to reconstruct Tyson's face in his head, the image seemed to change. One moment he remembered that enormous eye, and the next his mind tried to put something different in its place. Two eyes. A scar. His fringe covering part of his face.
Anything that made more sense.
It was the same process Gema had gone through, except this time it had happened in a matter of seconds.
Hermione also noticed Ron's condition.
"Ron?" she asked worriedly, not knowing what to do, not only about Ron, but also about the hole Tyson had been dragged through.
Ron's entire body began to tremble, but as if he were holding himself together through sheer force of will, he finally opened his mouth.
"It..." Ron swallowed hard. "It took Tyson," he finally said.