Arc II, Chapter 38: The Frog Trap

“What are our characters’ motivations?” Kimberly asked.

“Good question,” I said.

I thought for a moment. There were countless movies where things like motivations were dropped leading to the conclusion of the story. By that point, the audience is usually invested enough to not even realize that the protagonists could just walk away.

“They’re headed to the hospital,” I said. “That’s the only set piece in that direction. We just so happen to have someone who is severely injured. Combine that with our innate curiosity or sense of justice and we’re golden.”

Truthfully, I didn’t know what my character would be thinking right then and I didn’t care. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins so fast I could hardly think. I kept hearing a sound I thought was the rushing sewers, but I soon realized it was just my own blood rushing I was hearing.

I took a few deep breaths.

We had gone Off-Screen as soon as Second Blood ended. We were just outside of town square.

There were people everywhere. It was a massacre.

“Guys,” Dina said. “We have to stop.”

“We’ll lose them if we stop,” Antoine said.

“Look,” Dina said. She pointed back to town square. We were quite a distance from the collapsed sewer where we had climbed up, but there were many holes just like it throughout the entire area.

She was pointing to a mound of mud and cobblestones near a tilted statue in the center of town square.

“The time capsule,” Kimberly said.

Dina must have noticed it because of her Outsider’s Perspective trope. It jutted up from a mound created by the flood.

Its lock was still attached, but the capsule had warped badly from its tumultuous unearthing.

“I can bust through that,” Antoine said. “It’s broken. Look.” He put his hand on one of the panels that had been used to build the contraption. “The weld is busted. There’s a crack big enough to get my hand in.”

“Weird,” I said. “You’d think it was too early for us to get this.”

And I was right.

He placed his fingers in the crack and started pulling. He wasn’t wrong. The structure really was broken.

He was making progress. He pulled against the metal. Whatever help I could be, I tried to be. It felt like we were bending it. I could feel it straining on my hands, even though there was hardly any place to put them.

“Somethings in there,” Antoine said. “I can almost see it. Kimberly, reach in here when we pull back.”

She knelt near the large metal structure and began sticking her hand in. Just as she did, it started to vibrate.

It was a familiar rumble.

I managed to say, “Dammit, it was a trap,” just as the mound of dirt near the capsule started to rise and something underneath it began shaking.

“Now Carousel is playing dirty,” Isaac said.

With a pun like that, he must have lost a lot of blood.

We had gotten greedy. And we would pay the price.

“Run!” I screamed as if the others needed to be told.

On-Screen.

The mound of dirt continued shaking. The faces on the back of the giant frog started to be revealed. It had buried itself. That was how the capsule had been unearthed. We had just woken the beast in a way we had never intended.

“Time out!” Antoine screamed just as Chase and Fight Scene flipped on at the same time.

Suddenly, the mound of dirt with a horrific frog underneath stopped moving.

I normally wasn’t around for Antoine to use his Time Out trope. How fun.

“Is there an advantage to running into the carnival area?” he asked. “We could lose it in the buildings.”

He had a point. If hiding was our best bet, the mess of overturned carnival booths and amusement park rides was a good bet.

“We may have to try that to keep Isaac alive,” I said.

The frog would attack the person with the lowest Hustle. That was Isaac and Cassie.

“Sacrifice me,” Isaac said. “I’m not good for anything right now anyway. Let me die for you.”

Cassie was fully crying and embraced her brother tightly.

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“It’s okay,” he said. “He’s a big boy. Might not even have to chew to swallow someone my size. I’ll get to see what else is in there.”

It wasn’t a bad suggestion. I was a little relieved that he was the one to suggest it. I might have even agreed with him if Kimberly didn’t have a better idea.

“Look at the statue,” she said.

I immediately understood what she was saying. The tower was tilted way off its base. Like the capsule, some of its welds had been broken.

Kimberly’s Savvy was tied with mine at that moment. She had picked a learned background as a nurse using Convenient Backstory and she had put her hair up in a ponytail to activate Does anyone have a scrunchie? That transferred much of her Moxie into Savvy as well.

Her plan just might work.

I wasn’t sure her plan would work. The frog was PA 45. Every time we had been that over leveled we had made a point to avoid confrontation. Her plan involved facing almost head-on.

“Ten seconds left,” Antoine said.

“We can’t hope to kill it,” I said. “But we might be able to slow it down.”

“It can’t have high Savvy, can it?” Dina asked. “It’s a frog.”

I shrugged. Sounded right to me.

“It does have dumb looks on its faces,” Isaac said.

“Three seconds,” Antoine said. “You all know what to do!”

And…

On-Screen.

The mound of earth started shaking again and the frog emerged, human skin, bones, and organs, all exposed.