What if You had the most Terrifying Animal Ability

A Night Walk

                         “Imagine you’re walking down a dark street on a chilly night.”

The one working street light is flickering intermittently, illuminating the wet pavement for only the briefest of moments. The sounds of your footsteps are punctuated by the occasional splash of a puddle crashing against the soles of your shoes.

However, yours aren’t the only footsteps that can be heard.

You’ve become aware of another set of footsteps, slower and quieter, coming from behind you. You stop and almost straight away, so do the footsteps behind you. With bated breath, you begin to turn to face your follower but as you do, you’re sprayed with a mysterious liquid.

It’s hydrogen cyanide.

This person, your attacker, has just shot it at you from their special glands, and don’t think you’re safe because it’s only hit the skin — hydrogen cyanide is absorbed by the skin, and quickly at that. If you’re lucky, you’ll only be badly ill but if not, you could find yourself riding the pale horse.

This is precisely the ability that dragon millipedes have:

…and which they use to defend against predators when they feel threatened. An ability like that in the hands of humans would be disastrous — imagine what could come of a simple bar fight? Or a heated argument between a couple? Black Fridays would go from being undignified scraps to shopping slaughter.