It started as a autumn stroll, but got warmer as my calves sunk in deeper, leveling out against the inside of its skin.

The ribs, thousands of them, sored the soles of my feet, and I still had miles to go, walking gingerly, stubbing my toes on once heart-protecting bone, tripping over parts that no longer served Purpose.

The head was a hundred miles away.

The path inside thickened and I stumbled, having to crawl forward for many, many yards. The smell was not yet overpowering in the bowel, but I attrributed that to the refrigerator-chill temperature of the air. When I stood, my wet, coated arms instantly cooled and got my teeth to chattering. I slogged on, the night growing colder, the body ever more difficult to traverse.

The head, it was almost a hundred miles away.

I didn't make it far. I got too cold, too covered in chyme and ephemera, too exhausted tripping over rib after endless rib, and collapsed into the body. Deep inside, it was still warm. I curled up to stop my shivers, hoping that the rumors were not true; that the sun would rise even if I did not reach the head of this hundred-mile long eviscerated snake that connected the desert from the night to the day -- as long as the chosen one walked from the initial rift of the tail, down into the endless gut, along the hundred mile slit in the serpent god's belly, and at last chewed the dead tongue at the head-end. Only then would the sun rise on Earth again.

The way I felt and figured, the Earth was due for a long, long rest; the head was still a hundred miles away.

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