"We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed.
For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.
When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves."
-Viktor E. Frankl
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"We're not friends! We haven't been friends for a long time!"
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Frank Ramirez was suddenly startled awake by the sudden boom of thunder and the flash of lightning. Panting heavily and in panic. He was 13 years old with short brown hair and dark eyes. His clothing consisted of dark-colored pants that had a patch on it left knee, brown boots, and a white T-shirt that was underneath an old m65 field jacket that was given to him by his grandfather before passing away. On his head was a blue baseball hat.
Trying to take in his surroundings. But his surroundings were where his confusion and real panic started to kick in.
He was standing in the middle of a jungle. The playground, the city, the people were all gone. Now surround him where giant size trees and bio-luminescent mushrooms that grew on them. There were even enormous lily pads that could cover a human's body. Everything around him was ultimately like being on an alien world with only some familiar traits from Earth.
He looked around and noticed that he was still holding his combat knife. Groaning brought his attention to someone else that was with him in the mud as the rain started coming down on them. When he looked to see who it was, he was shocked to see who it was.
That person was Anne Boonchuy. She was a Thai-American teenage girl around Frank's age. She of tall height, with a slender build, light brown skin, and messy auburn hair. He could tell that she was from the middle school near his own by the look of her uniform, which consisted of a white shirt with a purple collar and an "SJMS" crest on it, a short purple skirt, a pair of yellow sneakers, and white socks.
Anne lifted up herself from the mud and whipped it off her face. "Anne?" Frank rushed over to her and helped her up. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, before looking around to see the jungle they were in. "Where the heck are we? And where's Sasha and Marcy?"
"I don't know, but we've better figure out a way out of this place," Frank said, before noticing something sitting on the ground and picked it up. It was an empty musical box that was ornamented with gold and four different gems: purple, blue, green, and red. It depicted a frog in the tropical woods, praising the gems. It also has a small key on its right side as an accessory.
When he looked at the gems, he noticed that they had lost their color. That's when Frank vaguely remembered what had happened. Anne noticed this and frowned. "Wait, what are you doing?"
"This thing brought us here, right? Maybe it can get us out," he said and sheathed his knife into its sheath that was strapped to the back of his waist on his belt. Frank was about to open the box when Anne suddenly grabbed it, preventing him from opening it.
"Wait! What about Sasha and Marcy?" She demanded.
"Your friends and yourself are the whole reason we're in this whole mess, so, I'm getting us out of it," Frank said before yanking the box out of her hands and was about to open it again, when Anne suddenly tackled him to the ground. The box flew out of his hands and landed on the ground.
Anne got up to grab it when Frank swiped her legs out from underneath. He then got up and grabbed the box.
"Frank! Give it back!" Anne shocked, rushed over, and tackling into him again. Pushing him against a tree and the two started a tug-of-war for the box. Anne was athletic, but so was Frank. Plus, being bigger, he had the edge.
"If you what it, you're going to have to try harder than that!" Frank said, pushing Anne to the ground and continue trying to pull the box of her hand again. But her grip on the box was still tight as she pulled with all her might. "Why did you do it, Anne!?" He yelled at her in frustration and some emotions that he'd kept inside about her. "You and I were best friends and then you come back into my life and what do you do?! You steal from my family!"
"I did it for my real friends!" Anne shouted and kicked Frank off of her. He stumbled back a bit, not noticing the edge of a slope that he was backing into. But it was too late, and he started rolling down that slope, before hitting the ground with a hard thud. Anne gasped and rushed over to the edge and looked down with worry. "FRANK!"
Frank groaned as he lifted up to his arms and knees. Concerned for his safety, she stuffed the box back into her backpack, rushed down the muddy slope, and rushed over to him.
But when she looked up, she gasped. Frank looked up to see what she was looking at, and gasped in horror as well.
Snakes. Giant snakes that ranged some normally sized to larger than any Burmese python record. Swooped all over the area in front of the two teenagers, the snakes hissed and slithered over each other. Their green eyes piercing the night as they glowed. It was as if looking at an ocean of the reptiles.
Anne and Frank stared at the snakes in terror as Anne grabbed Frank's hand and pulled him back to his feet. The snakes continued hissing and slithering. Not seeming to even notice the humans that would make a snack for them. Frank took a step back. The snakes still didn't notice them. Then Anne took a step back with her right foot, which was missing its shoe. Some of the snakes looked at them, but didn't do anything. Together, Frank and Anne continued to back up from the giant snakes, not taking their terrified eyes off them.
The first to turn and run was Anne, and then Frank. They ran for only a few meters when the sound of rushing water stopped then. "You hear that?" Ann asked.
Frank nodded, and the two turned back.
A massive flood was now rushing towards them, knocking down trees in its past. Lightning flashed in the sky to show the snakes in the water, with some of them jumping into the air.
"RUN!" Frank and Anne yelled as they made a mad dash to escape the flood. But the flood was gaining on them, and they could feel it. Some snakes were thrown ahead of the water, with a small one landing around Frank's neck. It wrapped around his neck as was about to bit into him, before Frank grabbed it and pulled it off. throwing it back to the flood.
But then, it was too late. The floodwater gabbled them up and now the two were inside the flood. surrounded by the snakes. Anne and Frank held their breaths as their bodies froze up. Staring at all the snakes swinging around them.
That's when the serpents started their attack, going after the two ex-friends in lightning-quick strikes. But luckily, they were about to dodge these attacks. Frank then grabbed Anne's arm and pulled her up with him to the surface. Together, they broke the water and coughed out the water in their throats.
"Dude! Where the hell are we!?" Anne yelled over the rushing waters.
"I don't know!" Frank said. The flood dumping them into a river. They then saw a large truck of a tree and swamp over to it. Climbing halfway onto it. "We've got to get onto dry land!"
"How?! We've got hundreds of snakes that aren't going to let us just swim out!" Anne retorted. And just proving her point, a giant python rose up out of the water and roar. The two screamed before jumping out of the way of the beast when it came down and snapped the log in two.
Diving below the water, Frank looked back to see the snake coming at them for another attack. Getting an idea to kill it, he pulled out his field knife. Anne, noticing that he wasn't with her, looked back and was shocked to see him actually going to take on the python. She closed her eyes and turned away from what was likely going to be a very gruesome death, but it wasn't Frank that was killed.
He moved out of the way at the very last moment and sliced into the side of the python as it pasted by. Gutting the monster. The python roared in agony as blood and its inside came out, before dying.
Frank looked to Anne as she stared at him with total shock before pointing to the surface. Knowing he wanted her to follow, Anne joined Frank as they came up for air. "Dude! That was amazing! How did you do that!?"
"Well, when your family takes you on some..." Frank stopped and gasped in terror when seeing that they were coming up to a waterfall. But there was also a large rock that was right center on the edge of the falls. "Quick! Swim towards the rock!"
The two swam as hard as they could towards the rock to save their lives. Swinging to be right in front of the rock as they were taken to the waterfall.
Frank was able to make it first and climbed onto it. Anne, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. She grabbed onto the rock, but her hands slipped, and she screamed as her body was moved around the side of the rock. Frank saw this and quickly jumped on his front and grabbed Anne's hand before she could fall to the bottom, which had large and jagged spikes rising up from the surface.
Anne screamed some more as she held onto Frank's hand for dear life. As the water was slashing around his, Frank mustered the strength to hold onto his ex-best friend. He looked down to see Anne staring up at him with wide, fear-filled eyes that were begging him to not drop her, tightening her grip on his hand and arm.
Frank stared at her as he tried to pull Anne up, but couldn't fully do it as she and her backpack were too heavy. Anne stared at him with eyes that were starting to tear up, fearing that at this moment, she was going to die. Her 13th birthday was also going to be her last day of life. But Frank wasn't going to let that happen, and tried again to pull her up. This time, he was more successful, and Anne smiled as she reached up with her free hand to grab the rock.
But then a cracking noise came from under Frank. He looked back, and gasped in horror when he saw the rock at he was on starting to break off.
And it did. Snapping off, the rock, Frank, and Anne fell towards the pool with the spikes. They couldn't even scream as they fell. Looking down, Frank tried reaching out to Anne, and she did the same. They were only a few inches from their fingertips touching when Frank's body suddenly slammed against the side of one of the spikes.
Anne gasped in horror when blood squirted out of Frank's head, before she safely landed in the water.
Frank, however, wasn't so lucky. He slammed again into the side of a spike. Then the side of his head into another one. He would've been impaled into a smaller spike, but as fate would have it, he slashed into the water.
Having watched the horrific thing when she resurfaced, Anne quickly dived back into the water and swam towards where he landed. She didn't have to search long, as she saw his body as he floated towards the surface of the pool. Blood coming out of his head. He had blacked out from his injuries as Anne swam towards him.
2 Hour Earlier
On a cloudy day, there was a small thrift shop in one of the poorer income sheets in the city. It was run by a family that was still struggling to get by every day, as it only consisted of an elderly woman that was pushing closer to death and a young boy that lives with and works for her. Frank Ramirez was that boy. Having just finished with his task, he was about to go do another one when he saw someone that caught his attention. When he saw her, he gasped to see it was Anne.
Frank was shocked to see her. Long ago, the two of them were the closest of friends. They did everything together, until one day, everything just...change. She stopped hanging out with him and started treating him like a stranger when she started hanging out with another girl that she was desperate to be friends with.
He was about to go over and say hi to his old friend when something caught his attention. Outside of the shop and looking at Anne through a large window were two girls.
The first one was Sasha, the ever-same girl that Anne wanted to be friends with. She was a teenage girl of tall height, with a slender build. She has blonde hair wrapped in a ponytail and almond-shaped eyes and black pupils. Just like Anne, she wore the school uniform, but wore a dark blue jean jacket and a pair of grayish-black Mary Jane shoes with small heels.
The second was a girl named Marcy, who was a girl of Asian descent. She had dark skin, black, short hair, and dark eyes. She was slim and tall. She wore the uniform too, but it consisted of a grey-blueish hoodie with a small "SJMS" emblem and a short green skirt and a pair of brown shoes. She also wore a green barrette on her hair.
Frank frowned when seeing them and turned back to Anne. Anne looked around as she stood in front of a shelf. Frank ducked behind the clothes rack and peaked around to see what she was doing. Something was definitely off at her. He looked at what she was looking at and saw it was the music box, which was one of the shops more expensive items.
"All right, Anne. You can do this," Anne said to herself, before looking back at Frank's grandmother, who was snoring. She then briefly glanced at the window to see both Marcy and Sasha silently cheering her on. She really didn't want to do this, seal from not only an old woman, but the grandmother of one of her oldest friends. But she didn't have a choice. Her friends now were counting on her to pull it off. And she wasn't going to be a good friend if she didn't do this.
So, she reached up, grabbed the music box, opened her pink backpack, and slipt it in.
"Anne?"
Anne gasped and turned to see the owner of the voice. What she saw was the last person she'd ever expected to see in the form of Frank. The old friend she'd turned her back on to be friends with Sasha and Marcy. Frank stared at her in a mixture of shock, sadness, and even anger.
"Anne, what're you doing?" Frank asked.
Sweating bullets, Anne suddenly bolted for the door and opened it before Frank could react. He watched from the window as she ran past Sasha and Marcy, who quickly followed before her. Angered that she was actually stealing from him, he grabbed a combat knife that was on sale and rushed out after them A few minutes later as the sun had gone down, Frank found them at a playground. His eyes burned with anger, remembering that this playground was the same one that she and he went to whenever they were still friends. He saw them with Anne sitting on a bench, and Sasha and Marcy standing on both sides of her. Frank approached and confront them.
He could remember what was said, all that could be remembered was arguing with Sasha, who tired standing up for Anne with a smirk of arrogance, only for that to disappear when Frank pulled the knife on them. It was stupid to have it with him, but he wanted to make sure that Anne's friends weren't armed and to prove his point.
The only thing he could remember about that exchange was when he argued with Anne. "What happened to you, Anne. How could you steal from my family store?"
"I didn't have a choice," Anne said back to him. "This is what friends do for each other. Sasha said so."
"Is that right?" He asked, narrowing his glaring eyes.
"Come, Frank. Can't you just let this go? Friends forgive each other, right?" Anne asked with a nervous smile. Frank's eyes gained a sad and depressed looked to them, when she said that. However, that was only for a moment, before he glared coldly at her. Saying something that would echo in the young girl's mind.
"We're not friends! We haven't been friends for a long time!"
That one line hit Anne hard as she stared at him in disbelief, but knew that it was the truth. Some more things were said, then Anne opened the box and looked inside. But there was nothing at first.
Suddenly a flash of colorful light erupted from the box, blinding everyone nearby.
Frank gasped when he woke up again, alone. Having been dragged onto dry land away from the pool. A sharp pain came from his hand and grabbed it at the location of its source. When he looked at his hand, he gasped when seeing that his head was bleeding from under his hat. He sighed and looked around, but Anne was nowhere to be found.
He stood up and looked back at the waterfall that nearly killed him and Anne. Wherever they go, they couldn't go back that way, now. That when he heard the sound of footsteps that he turned back and saw Anne standing away from him with his knife in hand.
Hesitantly, Anne approached him and held out his combat knife to him. Frank stared at it for a moment before taking it from Anne. "You save my life?" he asked Anne, looking at her in bewilderment. "Why?"
"Is it really that big of a surprise," Anne asked with confidence. "After all, we're..." she paused for a moment before slowly and sadly finishing her sentence, "...friends..."
Frank sighed in annoyance when she said that and turned away. Looking down at his knife before turning back to her, he sheathed the weapon and asked her, "Do you still have that box?"
"Yeah, but..." Anne pulled out the box from her backpack and held it out to Frank. "We've got a big problem."
She opened the box, but nothing happened. No lights. No taking them back home, just an empty box. Just like how it was before. Frank took the box and started opening and shutting it repeated, before giving up. "So... we're really stuck here in giant snake land?" he asked no one in particular.
"There's got to be something we can do, right?" Anne asked, hoping that Frank would have a solution. Frank tossed her back the box before looking around. But then he spotted something that made him gasp. Walking past Anne, he approached it and Anne followed.
Laying on the sand near a river that was connected to the pool was a wooden cup. Normally, it wouldn't mean anything thing, but for Frank, as he picked it up, it could only mean one thing. "Someone made this cup," he said, taking off his hat rubbing where his head was bleeding.
"Dude, let me a least fix you up," Anne said, taking out a first aid kit her mom made her have with her. As she started wrapping his head with some gauze and bandages, he turned to her with a big smile.
"Anne, do you realize what this means!?" He exclaimed.
"That we can drink from it?" She guested poorly.
"No! That someone lives here!" He explained after she finished bandaging him. "Someone had to have made this cup and they could help us get home!"
"Can we even go home?" Anne asked. "Besides, we still have to find Sasha and Marcy."
"We?" Frank asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, we! What if they got teleported here with us?"
"Then where are they?" Frank asked. Anne was about to answer, but couldn't. She really didn't know where they were or where her friend. Knowing that she wasn't going to survive for long out in the wild, he wanted to bring her along. However, a part of him was a little hesitant to do so. But it was better if they both watched each other's backs. But he wasn't going to get her full support if he didn't promise to help her find her two 'friends'. So, he turned to her and said, "Look, one thing is clear, Anne, and its that this place wants us dead. If we're going to survive, then we'll have to work together if we're going to find your friends and get back home."
Anne looked a little sudden by this, but knew that Frank was right. She didn't have any survival skills and didn't like the outdoors. They may not be friends, but Anne had to partner with him to find her friends and get home.
She sighed and nodded. "Alright. Then let's go." Frank nodded. The two then awkwardly stared at one another before Anne asked, "Where are we going?"
Looking towards the river that connected to the pool, Frank followed it with his gaze up as it led off into the dark forest. The rain had finally stopped, and the mushrooms had kept the night evenly lit. Making the journey they were about to undertake easier for them to travel. Anne and Frank shared a silent glance, before nodding and started making their way alongside the river.
The journey took so many days and nights that it was hard to tell how many had pasted since they were sent into the jungle. While Anne had her backpack, all Frank had was his phone and combat knife. They couldn't call anyone as there was no single. The journey took them into lands that were so alien to them. It was as if they were shrunken down and standing in a swamp. Large insects and arachnids crawled around the tree and ground. With no food, they began to starve and were starting to get desperate.
It was nighttime, and for the past few days, they could see a trail of smoke coming from somewhere the river led to. Believing that it was likely from a campfire or chimney, the two teenagers headed towards it. But after days and nights of not eating, they were at the end of their will to continue on and were now laying on the ground underneath a lilypad.
Their clothes were covered in dirt, sweat, and had tears in them. They were exhausted from many sleepless nights. Even when one took watch so the other to sleep, the sleeper couldn't stay asleep from all the creepy-crawlies that traveled around and on them. Frank had now lost both of his shoes and socks. The bottom of his pant legs was torn up and covered in mud.
"I can't...I can't go on," Anne said to Frank.
"We're so close, Anne," Frank said, but his body was telling him that it wanted to quiet too. "We...We're so close..."
"No way, dude. We're definitely going to die out here!" Anne exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. "There were so many things I so wanted to do. Like, open a restaurant."
"Drive a car," Frank said.
"Go to Thailand."
"Eat a hamburger no last time."
"Definitely eat a hamburger," Anne said with a smile. The two former friends laughed together. But then something else came up in her head. Over the past few days they were forced to work together, she'd forgotten what Frank was like to be around. Sure, he didn't want to talk to her most of the time, and she could understand, but it was the moments they had to really just talk that reminded her that Frank was fun to be around. "You know, it's times like this that reminds me of when we hung out. What happened to us, Frank?"
"You became friends with Sasha," Frank responded, turning his head to her.
"What?" Anne asked, sitting up and looking down at him with a raised eyebrow.
Feeling that it didn't come out right, Frank sighed and sat up. "No, seriously. I feel like everything started changing when you and she became friends. After that, you didn't come to play with me, you didn't talk to me. Hell, you stopped looking in my direction. I guess that's why I was so angry at you. You threw me away."
Anne looked at Frank with a look of sadness and astonishment. "Oh, Frank..."
"Wait!" Frank interrupted her and placed his hand on her mouth. "Do you hear that?" The two former friends paused for a moment to listen. The night air had its usual crickets and other creatures, but there was another sound, and it had a musical tone to it. "Is that...an accordion?"
"It's coming from over there," Anne said, pointing in the direction of the sound. Having regained their strength, they got up and headed in the direction of the sound. Peaking around a tree to see what the thing was, they were astonished by what they saw.
The accordion was being played by a frog that was walking on two feet.
The male frog was a turquoise frog with a pale lilac tongue, a dark turquoise bang, long dark turquoise hair, and a small turquoise beard. He wearing a flat broad-brimmed dark blue-violet hat with a low top, decorated with a red reed (cattail) sticking out of it with two narrow green leaves. His right eye was always wide open, resembling an egg yolk with its yellow color and round convex shape. Oddly, the frog was wearing black denim shorts with an always-open width, an open indigo vest, and an old darned scarf, one half of which was red and the other orange. Shod in soft rag boots of two opposite brown shades. The nose of the right boot is torn off.
The music they've been hearing came from a light green accordion that looked similar to a caterpillar.
"Frank, what is that thing?" Anne said as they watched the frog humming and playing the instrument while walking down a path.
"It's a frog," Frank said. It was also unreal to say, but it was true. They have been sent to a world of frogs. "We should try and approach him carefully. Don't want to spook 'em."
The frog, One-Eyed Wally was walking down the dark and beaten path within the woods, still humming away while playing his accordion. It was the same path that he'd taken when traveling to Wartwood, so he felt safe when going down it at night. He was minding his own business, until there was a sudden loud snap of a branch, and rustling caused by Frank and Anne.
He turned in the direction of the noise, his heart having a little jump when he heard the snap. "Hello?" he asked in fear. Nothing was there. Just the winds blowing around him ominously. Rustling the leaves and skittering noises all around him. "What's that?"
As he looked off in that particular direction, two dark and threaten figures with glowing appeared from the bushes behind him. Until they were standing twice as tall as Wally. That's when Wally felt their presence behind him and slowly turned around as the figures approached him.
"AAAH!" He screamed, walking backwards until tripping over and falling on his butt. The figures continued to approach him and one of them reached down towards him. "No no no no! NOOO!" He scrambled to his feet and ran away as fast as he could.
But, in reality, there were no creatures that were trying to hurt him. There were not dark figures. It was just Frank and Anne. They had come out of the forest to say hello and ask for help. When Wall tripped over, Frank bent down to help him up, but then he ran off. Now all they were doing was standing there in confusion.
"What was that all about," asked Anne.
"Don't know, but I'm sure that it's nothing to worry about," Frank said.
The very next morning, Frank and Anne were sleeping under the same lilypad that they were under last night. Awakened by the painful growling of their stomachs, the two got up and headed down to the river, after grabbing their two new weapons. Two spears that they made from some strong branches. Frank used his combat knife to sharpen the end of Anne's spear into a sharp edge, before tying his knife to his branch.
Together, the reached the flowing river and swam out towards a rock in the middle of the of the river. Frank got on first, before helping Anne onto it. Then the two waited for a moment until the fish started swimming down the water in their direction. "Easy," Frank said, spear ready to strike. "Easy...Easy..."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Frank and Anne were startled by that scream of terror. "Someone was in danger!" Anne exclaimed before she and Frank jumped into the water and swam to sure. They then ran off to find the person in trouble. Running on some trees that were knocked over, before reaching an area that was near where they found Wally. And what they saw made the two gasp.
There was another one of those anthropomorphic frogs that got caught in a rope trap the humans had set up and was hanging upside down.
The frog was a much smaller height than Wally was with mostly reddish-pink skin, with a paler pink underbelly. He had short orange hair underneath a dark forest green hat with light green goggles. His casual frog-like body structure consisted of slightly orange eyeballs with black pupils and blue irises, a large elongated light green tongue that extends to certain lengths, and four short limbs with four-digit hands and two-digit feet. He was wearing a sleeveless jacket paired with black shorts.
This was Sprig Planter, and when he saw the two humans approaching him with spears, he gasped in horror. "Giant heads! Spindly limbs! Face bumps! THE BEEEEAASSTS!" He shouted, pointing at their in fear.
"Whoa! Whoa! Cool it!" Frank said, raising a hand to tell Sprig to calm down.
"I have bad news for you, beasts! I taste terrible!" Sprig exclaimed in defiance.
The two teenagers blinked, twice. "Ew, we are not gonna eat you," Anne said.
"Yeah, usually we just cut open frogs," Frank said, using his spear to flip Sprig around and placed his knife on his stomach. Sprig, understandably got scared and spun himself around and looked at the two humans in fear. "I'm kidding! We're not going to hurt you!"
"W-Well you tried to eat Wally!" Sprig said accusingly.
"We tried to ask 'Wally' for help." Anne explained to Sprig. "He ran off screaming the second he saw us!"
"That does sound like Wally..." Sprig said, holding his chin. He then looked back at the two teenagers. Unbeknownst to them was that a large shadowy finger was approaching from behind, and when Sprig saw it, he gasped in fear.
Frank and Anne turned around and gasped when they saw a giant green praying mantis coming front of the forest and was approaching them.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" Frank exclaimed before he and Anne ran off. Leaving Sprig still tied up.
"Where are you going?" He asked them as they abandoned him to the mantis. As it got close, he swung back and forth to try and break free.
Frank was running until he heard Sprig shout and looked back. As the mantis drew closer, his eyes widened when he saw that Sprig was still upside down. Anne, noticing that Frank wasn't with her, stopped and turned to see him facing Sprig. "Frank, we've gotta go!"
Sprig had tried chewing the ropes to break free, but the monster mantis had already reached him. Letting out a screech again when seeing its easy meal. Sprig stopped chewing the rope and screamed.
Frank growled in frustration. He wanted to leave, but didn't want to abandon the frog. Deciding that he wasn't going to let Sprig die because of him and Anne, Frank brought his spear back, yelled, and threw the spear at the mantis at full force. The mantis was about to grab Sprig with its arms when the spear hit it in its neck. Frank then rushed over, picked up a large rock, and spun his body around before smashing it into one of the mantis' legs.
He backed up as the mantis screeched in pain and agony, before Frank's spear dislodged itself from its neck and dropped to the ground. He picked it up and backed up as Anne rushed over to him. "Frank! Are you out of your mind!?" She yelled at him. "There's no way we can fight that thing!"
"Not unless we work together," he said, untying his knife from his spear. The mantis turned towards the two as they stood ready to fight and protect Sprig, who stared at them with wide eyes.
The mantis attacked with its front legs, but Anne used her spear to block the attack. Frank then ran around the back of the mantis and jumped onto its back. Feeling this, the mantis bucked around like a bull to get him off, but Frank held on as tight as possible. Anne threw her spear and hit the mantis in the chest, making it freeze to screech in pain. Giving her partner the chance to jump onto its shoulders.
Again, the mantis tried to buck him off, but Frank held on tight to its antennas with on hand. With the other holding his combat knife, he started stabbing into the insect's head reappeared. Breaking through its tough exoskeleton and stabbing into its brain. After ten stabbings, the mantis fell forward and crashed onto the ground dead. Gritting his teeth out anger, Frank twisted the blade while it was still in the brain. The mantis' body twitched violently before going limp.
Frank panted as he got off the creature, before falling to his knees from using all of the energy he had at that moment. Anne walked over and helped him stand back up. "Frank, are you okay?"
"Yeah, just took a lot of me," he said. The two then walked over to Sprig as he looked at them in shock and awe. Frank moved away from Anne and used his knife to cut Sprig down, then Anne caught him before he could hit the ground, before setting him down gently.
"You... you saved me!" Sprig said in astonishment, staring at the two teenagers with wide eyes. Then his mouth formed a big smile. "You're not beasts at all! You're heroes! Ugly, ugly, ugly heroes!"
"Call us ugly again, and maybe my friend here will cut you open," Anne told him in a joking way.
"Ha. You're not gonna hurt me," said Sprig. "You got names, strangers?"
"My name's Anne. Anne Boonchuy," Anne said.
"Hi, I'm Frank Ramirez," Frank said. "So, what about you? What's your name?"
"I'm Sprig Plantar! Put 'er there!" Sprig happily held out his hand to them. Anne and Frank looked at one another.
"Uhh... okay..." Anne grabbed and shook his hand. However, when she pulled away, she cringed when seeing her hand had become covered in slime. "So... your hand just barfed on my hand."
Sprig then turned his attention to Frank and held out his hand. "Uh, why not just a fist bump?" he said with a smile, hoping to not get the same slime that Anne was rubbing off on her clothes. Sprig fist-bumped him. Before Sprig could ask Frank a question, they were interrupted when both his and Anne's stomachs grumbled. They looked down and stared at their bellies as they pleaded for sustenance. This made the two teens blush. "Uh, you wouldn't happen to have anything to eat?"
"Well, you did kill a mantis," Sprig said, looking back at the dead mantis that had its skull broken into and was bleeding green blood from. "Those tastes really great with butter."
Anne gulped. "Yeah, things that aren't bugs...?:
"No bugs, eh? We'll have to hunt around a bit." Sprig said before turning an running off to find the strange creatures something to eat. "Stay here! I'll go looking for something!"
"How do I know we can trust you?" Frank said, giving Sprig a suspicious look.
Sprig stopped and turned back to them. "Whaaat?" He then gave them a cutesy face. "Does this look like a face that could deceive you?" He asked, blinking his puppy eyes.
Frank rubbed his chin. "Well..."
"Yeah, I guess not," Anne said before her partner could finish. Sprig hopped along into the woods to find them food. Leaving them with the carcass of the mantis. Frank then turned to the carcass and walked over to it. Anne noticed this and raised an eyebrow when she saw him pull one of its front legs off. "Dude, what are you doing?"
"I'm starving, Anne!" Frank exclaimed, waving the arm around. Grandpa always told him that when you kill an animal out in the wild, it was best to eat it so that it didn't go to waste. Plus, who knew what Sprig would bring back.
Digging his hand into the end where the leg connected to the body, Frank pulled out some of the mantis' meat. Anne could only watch in disgust as he forcefully shoved it into his mouth. A first, she watched him struggle to chew it, but the struggle didn't last, as he seemed to enjoy the meat. He swallowed and looked at the mantis.
"Huh. Taste like a crab."
Sharing the leg with Anne, the two ate all of the meat inside of the mantis leg together. Even Anne was had to admit it was good, even though she was disgusted with herself. This left only the exoskeleton of the arm and its tibia. This was the part of the limb that had a role of spikes and was used with the femur gasp pray. Knowing it would make a perfect weapon, Frank broke it off and tied it to the end of the branch he was using for his spear.
After he was finished while sitting with Anne on a log, Frank stood up and admired his newly made weapon, which looked like a scythe.
"Cool!" Frank and Anne looked to see Sprig walking over to them with a bucket that was filled with mushrooms and roots. "You made a mantis scythe!"
"Yeah. By the way, that mantis leg was actually pretty good," Frank said, stabbing the mantis scythe into the ground and sat back down on the log. "So, what's in the bucket."
Sprig then dumps all of the food he'd collected in front of the two teens on the ground. Anne picked up a pink root and Frank grabbed the least poisonous looking mushroom. The two look at one another before carefully taking a bit. Both of them smiled. "Hey, this is pretty good," Anne said with Frank nodding.
"Mm-hmm." Sprig sounded knowing. "So, first question: What the heck are you, and where did you come from?!"
Anne wiped her mouth before answering. "We're human beings and we come from..."
She and Frank stood up together and moved one arm over their heads. "ANOTHER WORLD!" They shouted together in perfect sync as their words echoed.
"Either that, or this is a dream," Frank remarked.
"Woooow..." Sprig said in awe at their awesome. "Do you know how you got here?"
Frank glanced at Anne as she looked at him. Could they really explain how this all started because his ex-friend stole from him a magical music box that teleported them to this frog world? It was not something that they like to bring up that much, as they don't even know everything about that box or if her friends were teleported to the world with them. Not to mention the fight that fight they got into they almost got them killed. So, Anne just nodded to Frank, letting him explain.
He turned back to the little frog as Sprig waited for an answer, before sighing. "Nope," he lied, which surprised Anne."One minute, I was in my world and the next thing I knew I was here with Anne. No, all we're trying to do is get home. We don't know how or if we even can go home." Frank then looked at Sprig with a smile. "But enough about our depressing life. What about you? What were you doing in the woods?"
"Proving that I'm responsible!" Sprig responded in a heartbeat.
"Oh, yeah? How?" Anne asked.
Sprig blinked and just stood there for a moment. "Uhhhhh..."
"What?" Frank asked, unsettled.
"There they are!" Yelled Wally after popping out of the bushes.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the two teens were surrounded by an angry mob of frogs that were advancing towards them with pitchforks and torches. Frank looked towards his mantis scythe and tried to grab for it, only it to be futile as the frogs suddenly jumped him and Anne. Knocking them down to the ground and started wrapping them up in tight layers of rope. With their backs pressed together, the villagers had tied them up and had the humans bounded to the ground. They tried breaking out of the ropes, but it was no good. Being old 13, they didn't have the muscle mass to even strain it.
"Take your stinking paws off us, you damned dirty frog!" Frank shouted at them, with one side of his face laying on the ground.
"But we don't have paws!" shouted one of the frogs in the crowd.
At first stunned and unable to move, Sprig tried to jump in. "No! You guys got it all wrong!
"Ha-ha! You caught the monster! Sprig I'm impressed." said Sprig's traditional and over-protective grandfather, Hopadiah "Hop Pop" Plantar. Hop Pop was an elderly anthropomorphic frog of small stature. He had mostly reddish-orange skin with a light orange chin and chest. His casual frog-like body structure consisted of slightly reddish-orange eyes with black pupils, a dark green tongue, four short limbs with four-fingered hands, and two-toed feet and white tufts of hair coming out of the sides of his head. He wore a grayish-green waistcoat with a buttoned yellow shirt and a light blue ascot and grayish-brown trousers with light brown socks that slightly covered his feet.
On his head was Polly, Sprig's younger sister that was still in her tadpole form. Even though a tadpole, she had arms instead of legs and was more globular in appearance. She had a yellow bow with lighter white/yellow polka dots. Unlike the other amphibians, she had a blue tongue rather than green.
Anne looked at Sprig with a look of betrayal. Frank was unable to look at him with his back against Anne's. "Dude, what the heck? You set us up? I thought we were connecting!"
"Dick move, man!" Frank shouted.
"N-no, no, no! This wasn't my plan," Sprig denied fervently.
Before he could finish, another, even larger red praying mantis dropped down from the air. Closing its wings. The mantis screeched a loud roar at the frogs, scaring the mob as they gasped and screamed. Among the villagers was Mayor Toadstool. He was a sizeable amphibian that walked around with a gold cane and wore a gold ring with a ruby gem on his left hand. He wore a maroon coat lined with beige over a white shirt and a lilac scarf. For his lower apparel, he wore puffy pants reminiscent of medieval men's wear accompanied with dark brown boots. All this portraying the clothing of an upper-class frog.
"Hurry! Everyone! MANTIS FORMATION!" Mayor Toadstool quickly yelled. Immediately, the townsfolk got into formation by climbing on top of one another, forming a pyramid of frogs alike that would have been bigger than must praying mantises. But this mantis was much bigger than just another mantis.
Not at all scared, the red mantis screeched and used its front legs to hit a bunch of villagers off the top of the formation. Everyone started running away in random directions.
Being so close to the large insect and currently tied up, Frank and Anne screamed. But then something started cutting their restraints while they felt something on top of them. Frank looked up and saw that it was Sprig standing on the two of them, using his mantis scythe to cut them free. "Sprig? What the hell are you doing? This better not be a trick!"
Sprig didn't pay any mind to the accusation and finished cutting them free. He jumped off the humans and handed Frank his scythe back. "I'll distract that thing. You get out of here!" With that final word, Sprig ran of towards the red mantis with a war cry. Taking out an old slingshot from his back pocket, he grabbed a rock and loaded it. "Hey!" Sprig fired the rock at the Red Praying Mantis' head.
It didn't hurt it, but it did make it angry.
"Ha-ha! Oops." Red Praying Mantis shrieked and retaliated with a swing of one of its forelegs. Sprig could only scream in terror as he faced death. But in the nick of time, Frank blocked the attack with his mantis scythe. The mantis backed up a bit as Frank started wildly swinging his weapon at it. Anne ran over to Sprig and picked him up, both of them watching Frank in shock, as was the rest of the frogs. The mantis swung at Frank, but he jumped forward, swung his scythe at one of the four legs that the predatory insect stood on, lobbing it off.
The mantis screech in pain, and turned all of its attention to Frank. He saw it coming towards him, and he started swinging his scythe, getting it to back off just a bit.
"What's he doing?" Sprig asked, before looking at Anne as she was still holding him. "Did you know he could fight like that?"
"I...No," Anne said.
The mantis swung one of its legs at him, but Frank used the blade of his scythe to block it. He then jumped up and dodge when it stabbed both legs at him. He raised his scythe and was going to cut off the two limbs, but the mantis retracted its legs, making him stab into the ground. Letting go of the weapon, he jumped back when the swung at him again. With a warcry, Frank rushed at it, grabbed his scythe, and went for another one of the mantis' legs. Only for it to fly up, and then come back down to crush him. Luckily he rolled out of the way and jumped back with the insect swung at him again. But this time, it cut his right leg. Drawing blood.
"Frank!" Anne screamed, her eyes flashing blue. She then placed Sprig down, grabbed her spear, and charged at the mantis. Surprising Frank as she ran past him.
The red mantis swung at her with both legs, but she jumped and dodged the attack, before stabbing into the monster's chest. The mantis reared up and screeched in pain, before using one of its back legs to kick her off.
She landed next to Frank, who turned to her and Sprig. "We've gotta work together! It's the only way!"
"How?" Anne exclaimed. Frank looked around before spotting the role that the villagers used to tie them up.
"Sprig, we'll distract that thing while you tie that thing up. Anne, let's go!" Frank got up and charged with a warcry. Anne followed him.
The mantis swung at Frank with one leg, but he dodged it. Then it saw Anne coming at it and swung at her, but she too dodged. Sprig collected the rope and rushed at the insect. With one of the two ends, he ran underneath it and then started hopping all around, over and under the mantis. Frank and Anne kept its attention on them by swinging their weapons at it. It was only able to swing at them a few more times before Sprig was about to bind its front legs shut.
Once he was done, he landed on the ground and pulled as hard as he could, but failed to tie up the monster. The mantis struggled to break free. Anne then looked at the ground and saw the other end of the rope thinking quickly, she grabbed it and pulled. The rope tightened, and the mantis' limbs were pulled closer to its body.
Seeing his chance, Frank ran around the end of the creature and jumped on its abdomen. The red mantis flicked it abdomen up, sending Frank flying up into the air. See that he was no in the air, Frank looked down as saw he was falling towards the head of the mantis. So, he grabbed his mantis scythe with both hands, and let gravity take him. The wind rushed in his hair and took off his hat as Frank fell towards the mantis. Glaring at it with teeth-gritting as his eyes flashed red.
And then, Frank swung the scythe down before landing, stabbing the blade in the top of its head and out the bottom. The body of the mantis went completely stiff as green blood squirted out of its head. It's pupils dilating before blood filled its eyes. Frank held on as the insect died and fell over on its ground with a loud thump. Shaking the ground under its weight for a second as green blood rain down onto the ground.
Frank panted, shock by what he had done. What he and Anne were able to do together. He pulled the blade of the mantis scythe out of the mantis' head and jumped off it. He then walked to Anne and Sprig, who were both staring at him with wide eyes filled with shock and awe. He looked at them and said, "Honestly, I'm just as shocked at you."
The frogs that had run off popped out of the bushes when they heard the mantis get killed and stared at it in astonishment. They then started cheering for the beast's defeat and death. Leading to Frank, Anne, and Sprig cheering, "We did it!"
Frank and Anne high-fived one another, something that they hadn't done in years before turning to Sprig and raising their hands. "Up top!" said Anne.
But instead of high-fiving the two with his own hands, Sprig high-fived Frank and Anne with his tongue. Covering them with his froggy saliva and grossing them out. "Should've seen that coming..." Frank murmured, flicking his hand to get rid of the slimy fluid from his palm.
The moment was only ruined when Mayor Toadstool walked up to them with his hands behind his back with Wally walking next to him. "Well, now that that's settled, what the heck are we gonna do with this thing?" the Mayor asked, as the townsfolk followed behind him with their pitchforks and torches. He grabbed his coat and an evil smirk appeared on his face. "Maybe we oughta run it out of town just to be safe. Let it be someone else's problem."
"What!?" Anne and Frank shouted, before Frank stepped forward with an angry expression. "Are you kidding me?! We just saved the ass of each and every one of you!"
"He's right!" Sprig shouted, running up to block Frank and Anne from the villagers of Wartwood. Holding his arms out from his sides, he gave the frogs a firm scowl. "They're not a monster. They're just lost and need our help. We should take care of them." Frank and Anne looked at the little frog with surprised expressions. They hadn't known Sprig for more than an hour, but he was still willing to stand up for them and protect them. This made smiles form on their faces, grateful that he was with them.
But then again, the moment was ruined when Mayor Toadstool asked with a raised eyebrow. "Are you crazy?"
"Yeah. What if it goes nutty tomorrow and starts eating people?" Wally added.
"Not gonna happen, asshole," Frank said, resting the scythe on his shoulder.
That's when Hop Pop came to his grandson's side with his hands up. Polly looked weary at the two humans, while the old frog said, "Don't worry yourselves silly. I'll keep an eye on 'em, both of 'em," he said, referring to both of the humans as he placed his hand around Sprig's shoulder.
Mayor Toadstool took a moment to assess the situation that was in front of him. He really wanted to run out this 'Frank' and 'Anne' out of town. Appeal to the fears of the town to earn him for favoritism with them. However, Hopediah's farm was far enough away from Wartwood that these two creatures wouldn't cause any trouble for anyone. At least he'd have enough time to intact his plan and get away for a bit. "Hmm," he hummed before throwing his hands up. "Have it your way, Hopediah Plantar, but I don't like it," he said before turning to the villagers. "All right boys pack it in.
This dissatisfied the frogs that were really looking forward to running something like the two humans out of town. But there nothing that they could do but go back to their boring lives. Some of the frogs grabbed the rope around the mantis and started pulling it back with them to town. Talking about how the thing tasted real good with butter.
This just left the Plantars, Frank, and Anne alone in the forest. Sprig sighed sadly and held his arm. Turning to look at Hop Pop, and got ready to given a scolding about how irresponsible he was. "Looks like I'm back to causing trouble for the family again, huh?"
Hop Pop and Polly looked at Sprig. The old frog then smiled as he asked, "Trouble? Sprig, standing up to that angry mob to help these creatures out was... Some of the bravest and most responsible stuff I've ever seen!"
"That was pretty cool, Sprig," said Polly while atop Hop Pop's head. "It was also really dumb!"
"Yes. Really, really dumb."
Sprig gasped in amazement. "You think I'm responsible?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, just this one time..." Hop Pop tried to make Sprig understand that he actually meant something else, but Spring started cheering. Frank and Anne shared a glance, feeling that they're just the third wheel in this conversation, they checked their phones to see if they could get a signal. Unfortunately, it was no dice.
Putting away her phone, Anne turned to the frog family and said, "Welp, this has been great, but just give us a map. We've gotta find our way out of this kooky place."
"Oh, a map won't be enough," Hop Pop get out a map from his coat and opened it. Showing it to the two humans the valley that they were in and they show the mountains that surrounded it. "This here valley is surrounded by mountains that are impenetrable this time of year."
"It should clear up in a couple of months," Sprig told Frank and Anne.
"When you say a couple of months, do you mean two months or more than two months?" Anne asked.
"Two."
Hop Pop then continued by saying, "But until then, you try to cross those mountains-
"You will die," Polly finished.
Hearing that, Frank looks up as he was about to have a bit of a meltdown hearing the bad news. "Oh, that's just great! That's just really great, man!" He yelled, throwing down his mantis scythe and stabbing it into the ground. "What're we going to do now, man!? Where are we going to stay? Where are we going to sleep?"
Turned out the solution was quite simple. The two human teenagers were invited back to live with the Plantars back at their little farm. The Plantar farm consisted of a housing unit surrounded by fields and a little shed where tools are placed. The house was quite aged and was made from the stump of a tree as is the case for many houses in Wartwood. There was a small yellow wooden front door and a circular window beside it. A bio-luminescent mushroom had also been implanted beside the door acting as the light of the front porch. The house appeared to have three floors and had a red wooden roof with a large branch protruding from the side. Moss and grass are also seen prominently growing throughout the exterior of the house. There was also a small wooden chimney set atop the third floor's roof. The back porch also had access to a lake.
Hop Pop took the kids down to the basement and turned on the light, reveal that space was made of stone walls and lighted by bio-luminescent mushrooms. There is a small hatch located in front of the main door and wooden staircase leading to the basement. In "Flood, Sweat, and Tears", the basement is flooded when river lampreys drill a hole into the floor's base which resulted in Anne temporarily sleeping in the living room's couch.
"All righty. The kitchen's upstairs. Breakfast at sunrise, sharp," he told the two teenagers. Then he decided to take advantage of the situation that the "Also, just so you know, we're a farming family and if you're going to be staying on this farm, then you're working for us."
"Okay. Thanks, dude," Anne said.
"Yeah, and I can do farm work," Frank said. Hop Pop then left the underground room to let the two get comfortable. The two ex-friends looked around their new living conditions as they held sleeping bags that they were given by the Plantars. There were a few boxes here and there and some fungus sticking out of the wall, but it was overall empty and gave them enough space to set themselves up for the night, and possibly for two very long months. Frank sighed and walked over to one side of the room as Anne walked over to another. "I guess this is the closest thing to a home we'll be having, huh?"
"Yep," Anne said as they rolled out their sleeping mats on the floor. She was a little uncomfortable with sleeping next to a boy in the same room. However, there was nothing that could be done. "At least Sprig's family was nice enough to let us stay."
"Yeah," said the boy. There was then a knock from the behind them. Turning around, the two saw Sprig coming in from a cellar door with a bunch of old plushies in hand.
"Hey! Gettin' comfy?" asked the young frog, before tossing some plushies on the ground. "Brought some toys to keep you company. I'm too old for these." he picked up one of the plushies and held it out to the two teenagers. But when he looked at his toy again, he suddenly started to change his mind. "O-oh, except for this one. Oh, and this one. Oops. this one too. Sorry. This one as well." Frank and Anne smiled as Sprig ended up picking every single toy up and holding them in his arms. "I'm glad your livin' with us, monsters."
"Yeah, us too, weird little frog boy," Anne said.
"Okay," Sprig said before starting to climb out of the basement. Accidentally dropping one of his toys as he left. He then stuck his head back in. "Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. Seriously, they can drain a body in seconds."
"Ew!" Frank grabbed his mantis scythe and handed it to Anne. "You might want to sleep with this," he said, to which she accepted the weapon. Frank then looked at the toy that Sprig dropped and walked over to it. He picked it up, squeezing it light that made it squeak. He smiled at it.
He then heard the sound of a zipper opening and turned around to see Anne reaching into her backpack. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm going to give this one last try," Anne told him before bringing out the box. It was wrapped up in a piece of cloth to prevent it from getting damaged while on their journey.
"But Anne, we've tried every night since coming here and it hasn't worked," Frank said, walking over to sit on his sleeping bag.
"Maybe it'll work this time," Anne suggested. With one hand on the bottom and another on top, she blew on it and then slowly opened it. "Come on, come on!" She was expecting some flashing lights, and interdimensional magic to take them back home and finally end this nightmare. But to no avail. Nothing happened. It was just another old music box.
She then closed and opened it 3 times more and sighed in disappointment. "Looks like we're gonna be here for a while," Anne said before putting the box back in her bag. Frank laid down and turned his body to have his back facing Anne. As she stared at his back, she couldn't help but think how lonely he looked, but then remembered what he told her in the woods yesterday and started to gain a look of guilt.
Anne laid down and the two drifted off into sleep.