Slime oozes out of my pours as I wiggle and push. It opens up its mouth to bite off my head. Pop!
I slip free of its hand, land on its snoot, and jump to whatever fate awaits me aside its teeth. Something smacks against my back. I feel the skin over my left shoulder slice open as I am flung into the woods. With a slimy thwack, I hit a tree and tumble between its roots.
I don't know if I'm lucky or not. I lay there in a hole made of two small roots and a bundle of ferns. I pretend I am dead. I'm very good at pretending. But acting is another matter entirely.
My breath is quick and sharp. An itch by my ribs cause my side to twitch. And I can't stop trembling from the cold. When did it get cold? Frogs shouldn't tremble from cold.
I hear the crunch of muffled leaves and twigs as the creature's soft paws bound over them. I can feel it getting closer through the vibrations in the ground. The branches rustle as they brush through its fur. As a human, I'd have loved to run my finger through that fluffy fur too. But as a frog it was prickly death striding towards me.
I look up as a shadow eclipses my hole. We look at each other for a moment. I can see in it's eyes that it's trying to think of how to get me. Its body is too big. Its arms are too short.
My brain is frozen. There is no longer a way to act to get me out of its hungry glare. As soon as I try to jump it will grab me. Even if I make it past it will chase me. I couldn't stay here since there were no bugs. My tummy rumbled from all the exercise. The pain throbbed in my shoulder. Worst than death, it could just keep me alive for a bit longer and have some "fun" with me.
My breathing wouldn't calm under its soulless gaze. Drool dripped on me as I waited. As I caught my breath, I noticed a crack in the side of the dirt. It was small, but maybe (just maybe) if the dirt was soft enough and gave a little, then I could squeeze through and dig to whatever was on the other side. At least it wasn't starvation in a hole.
I jumped for it. One of my hands reached through the crack and my four froggy fingers pulled my body up as my other hand scraped away at the mud. It was soft with dew and began to widen. I start to squeeze my body into the gap, pulling and kicking at the mud to force myself through. The sand and pebbles grated against the cut on my shoulder as my bones rotate and flex to fit. If I could cry from the pain I would. A real frog probably would have just accepted death instead of suffered this, but I wasn't just any frog and I was almost in.
The skin and fat of my body shifted as I wiggled. All I could see was mud as I reached and pulled at the space before me. Widening the hole and pulling myself in, I pushed out more dirt. My hips were almost through as my legs began to kick at the air to make the last few centimeters.
On leg flicked up to create momentum, claws wrapped around its ankle. A sharp pain dug between the two bones of my leg. With a cutting yank the force pulled me back towards the pit. My fingers slipped through the mud until only fists of it were left in my hands and I rose back up into the hot air of the forest.
Hot?
Two heavy jets of warm air blew me this way and that as a wet drippy feeling rolled down my leg. Blood? Saliva? Both? My ankle hurt worse than my shoulder.
I wished more than anything at that moment that I was poisonous. But what if this creature was immune? What if little frog me was its favorite dish? Was I as tasty to it as nectar laden bees were to me? Noooooo!
It opened its mouth. I threw the dirt into its eyes and nose. Bet a frog never done that. I fell to the ground with a thunk. I hopped to the left, avoiding a sneeze, then hopped forward to the right. I was beyond fear now and just running.
I didn't know this part of the forest. It was darker. It was sticky.
I felt another paw smack into my back. My body tumbled deeper into the forest and it hopped after. It chose "fun".
"Aaaahhrg!" I croaked. I hit a rock and find my feet again. Pain shoots through my bloody ankle. Bloody ankle? That almost sounds like a curse. It would be funny if it wasn't making me want to cry.
I leaped away from the rock, but Redzilla leaped up too and hit me back into the ground. I tumbled onto some dry leaves, icky and sticky leaves. Was I just bleeding so bad that the dirt stuck all over me or was it something else?
"Help!" I croaked out of desperation. My vision was getting blurry and wet. Oh, shipe, I could cry!
Redzilla jumped around me some more--"Help!"--Pawing me to the left, then pawing me to the right--"Ack!"--The very vitality and anatomy that kept me alive when hitting the ground after leaping up high was prolonging the inevitable. I jump out of its circle, but it jumps right after me.
"Waaaa!" I let out a teary croak.
My legs were pretty powerful. On a normal day a full jump made me feel like Superman leaping over buildings in a single bound. I'd jump up onto roots, leap off of tree trucks, and pretend that it was pure skill as a natural genius and not my perfectly normal froggy legs. Now, however, I could only get half the distance. And it hurt.
My one good leg got me about ten wobbly feet. It was far enough that Redzilla couldn't smack me down again, but close enough that it was right next to me a breath later. I jumped again. It followed.
I can't think, just jump.
Can't think, just jump.
Thwap!
Jump!
"I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!"
I slammed into the ground on my injured leg, then slipped on a leaf stinking of decay. Gaining a few inches, I floundered on my injured shoulder as I tried to crawl away. The ground was getting stickier. I couldn't shake a leaf sticking on my head. The area under me felt spongy.
I heard a chirping behind me. I had herd that sound before as a human. I thought it was cute. Now, it was terrifying. It was like the rumble of a cat just before it pounced: 'Don't worry, I'm just a bird---Death From Above!'
My eyes shifted. Behind me was Redzilla framed in the torn fragments of white wisps. It slowly padded forward chirping with a toothy grin. Laughing at my pain.
Redzilla's tail wiggled and back legs hunched.
Swooch!
The ground rose and two long, black legs shot out of the leaves. The legs pulled at the white whisps above the beast's head, wrapping them around it, and then pulling it under.
Redzilla screamed. The ground shuttered. Then silence.
I think I'll just bleed out now.
***
Breaths... minutes... hours... I don't know what kind of time units they used in this place. I don't know how much time passed as I lay on the spider's trap door waiting to be pulled down next. I really didn't know anything about this world.
My whole body hurts now. My blood moistened the sticky fibers holding me to the leaves. I couldn't move anymore. Even though I was once a human, now I was just a frog. A dying frog. I didn't even know how to survive as a human, what made me think I could survive as a frog?
The ground lifted again. My whole world tilted like I was some bloody door decoration. Four long black legs pulled out a large black body with four more legs following behind. Each leg was tipped with two claws. Then the door smoothly settled back into place.
I held my breath. I refused to make a sound. I'm not here. I'm just a leaf. Don't mind me.
It slowly shuffled it's legs around half mending the web and half turning. Then eight black orbs turned to me.