Chapter V: The Progenitors

The ride through the forest took the majority of the night, much longer than he wanted. For the whole ride, he worried about how he was going to convince Margrett. He tried to distract himself with trivial things, like naming the frog and guessing how many stars were in the sky.

The hopping continued, and in some way, he knew that the frog was tired. They traveled through the woods and mainly traversed the ground as the trees were quite sparse. He clutched the inside of the frog’s ear channel, and it came to a dead stop right before a large clearing.

Just beyond the row of bushes in front of him laid his humble abode. And he began to feel nervous. A lot had transpired over the past week, and there would be a lot of explaining to do; he wasn’t good at that sort of thing.

He dismounted his beast and slid off its back. The slide down was bumpy and slick. His feet landed in the dirt, and he took a long breath.

“Sorry Mr. Frog, you gotta go feed yourself and do frog things.”

With many attempted gestures, he tried to shoo his pet away.

*Ribbit* *Ribbit*

The creature rotates in place and then leaps into the nearest tree. He stares up into that tree.

There is a connection between him and the beast, it feels almost fog-like but secure. It’s difficult for him to describe the relationship in his own words. He just knows it won’t eat him anymore, which he still finds shocking. The rumply steed disappears, shrouding itself within the canopy, and his mind narrows onto one thing – Margrett.

He puffed out his chest and walked through the bush line. He didn’t put much consideration into how he was going to convince Margrett. Or rather, he assumed that his words in the heat of the moment alone would convince her. So, he figured his appearance was the major issue.

As he approached his homestead, he looked for one of the openings in the fence. He was glad he made the fence. It was a good deterrence against most predators and monsters. The fence was composed of local fibers and wood, which resembled a hedgehog.

He found one of the openings and walked through it. From there it felt like an endless journey to the front door. There was no way Margrett would get up this early, but he couldn’t wait. He would have to wake her up. Yet before he opened his front door, he saw a couple of leftover sacks on top of a barrel. He and the wife would reuse them to move and store their vegetables after a harvest, but today, they would serve a greater purpose. He grabbed one of the dingy sacks and funneled it over his head. There were plenty of holes within the sack, and he repositioned the bag around himself to see outwards. He was ready.

He thought he was so ugly and considered the sack to be an upgrade. There was little chance he would ever stare into a puddle again, in fear of jumping at his own appearance. His hands were shaking, and they reached high for the door handle.

*Click*

It was unlocked. He took this as a sign that she was still waiting for his return. The room was dimly lit with a single wax candle. He could clearly see the entire room under a measly candlelight. His new body gave him the ability to see normally in low light conditions, yet the change caused him to become disoriented. His perception of time was impeccable but recently he struggled to grasp day or night.

He crept as quietly as he could to the door at the back end of the cabin. The wooden floor beneath his feet creaked with every step. He passed the door of the workroom and tensed up more and more as he came to the bedroom door. On the door was his and his wife’s initials. They both worked hard to build this cabin a year ago, and this door was one of the last pieces to be put up. It served as a capstone for all their hard work, and he stared at it for several minutes, whilst attempting to calm his nerves.

His hands trembled with excitement and fear for a lack of acceptance. This particular door handle had given him more splinters than he could count, yet he reached for it anyway.

With the assumption that it would open just like the front door, he foolishly slammed into it. Somewhat dazzled, he stumbled and fell back on his butt.

“Oh, I’m dumb, of course, she locked it.”

The commotion and sudden outburst caused sounds to be heard on the other side of the door.

“Who’s there?!”

“It’s me hun, open the door already.”

*Shling* *Pop* *Smack*

She unlocked the door and flung it wide open to the point where it met the inside of the wall.

He raises both of his hand in the air like bean poles, now facing the pointed end of a short sword. The sword hovers right under his elongated nose, which protrudes from his disguise. Slowly, he steps backwards and the blade stays with him.

“Get out you monster!”

“Margrett, it’s me, Alakar!”

She did not hesitate and tried to thrust the sword right into his face. He weaved out of the way, but the blade nicked the cloth. The disguise no longer covered his face, and it was visible enough to see.

“Lies! Get out of my house!”

She swung the sword at him a couple more times and missed. Her pregnant nature made swinging a sword to be a challenge. However, the creature was pushed to the other end of the cabin by this point, cornered with little elsewhere to go.

“Please, it’s really me, believe me!”

The sword was raised high above her head, and it was about to come down with enough force to split his small body into two.

He panics and tackles her legs, bringing her to the floor in a scuffle. The sword flails around in her hand, inducing minor cuts on different parts of his body. He flips her onto her back, and they begin to fight over the sword.

“Quit already!”

There are no options left, the size difference here is getting the best of him. He throws himself onto her arm and sinks his jagged teeth into her wrist.

“Ahhh!”

The sword falls out of her hand and the wrestling continues. The tussle tears their clothes and blood from their wound’s splatters onto their faces. He is losing the struggle, and receives a kick to the chest, causing him to soar through the air. After making contact with the wall, he trembles and staggers to his feet.

They now stand across from one another, and he juts his arms out at her and screams, “Stop, please!”

With a flash, a blue glow filled the room, and it blinded them both. She raised her hands to her face in order to shield her eyes from the overpowering radiance. The temperature within the room began to warm up, and the glow grew in intensity. He tried to drop his arms, but they felt locked in place. His heart raced and his whole body tensed up. There was no stopping at this point, and he started to worry if this anomaly was going to kill her or do something even worse.

*Boom*

The light flared out, and both of them drop to the floor exhausted. Sparkles of blue glow fell out of the air and disappear close to the floor, like snow landing on warm earth. He is blinded by the experience. There was only white, and he couldn’t make out anything within the room.

Soon, the white faded, and features of the room came into his vision. Items like the fireplace, cabinets, dining room table, and chairs were all fuzzy, but it didn’t take long for the things around him to become more defined as his vision returned.

Both of them were in a daze, prostrating themselves on their hands and knees before each other. He was sweating and feared the worst. They tilted their heads and glanced up at each other from their positions.

“Ahhh!!!”

“Ahhh!!!”

He was in shock at the sight before him.

She looked at her hands and screamed again. Her arms moved wildly as she frantically examined her body. The chunk of flesh that was removed from her wrist was fully healed, not even a scar was left, yet that was far from the most dramatic change. She immediately stood up and bolted through the doorway on Alakar’s right. He looked at her with a bewildered expression, yet she paid him no mind. There within the bedroom, she began to ransack the dressers and nightstand, dumping entire drawers to the floor.

He picked himself up. With some hesitation, he grabbed the corner of the door frame and peered his pointy features over the side. She was throwing all their clothes around the place, amongst other accessories, with no contempt for where they might go or what might happen to them. It wasn’t long until she stopped and found their only mirror within the house. She unwrapped the tiny mirror from the folded cloth and wailed. She dropped the mirror, causing it to shatter into a million pieces, and then she burst into tears on the floor.

He looked down on her and felt like he was to blame. Within his mind, he grieved. He was upset about his transformation, yet nothing made him sadder than to see his wife in this state. It wasn’t fair to him; it wasn’t fair to either of them; they were both turned into monsters.

She laid there on the floor surrounded in broken glass while bawling her eyes out. She was a hot green mess, yet he didn’t care about any of that and went to comfort her all the same. He wrapped himself around her and petted her long jet-black hair.

“I promise we’ll get through this; we’ll get back to normal.”

Her eyes were lost, and they bored into nothingness. Margrett was so far removed from her own reality, that it was as if Alakar wasn’t even there. She couldn’t stop crying, yet she was so exhausted. Hours went by, the crying stopped, and they both fell asleep from the draining crisis.

*Chirp* *Chirp* *Chirp*

The night birds chirped, and morning had long passed.

Alakar slowly opens and shuts his eyes repeatedly and failed to acknowledge the puddle of drool and snot beneath him.

“Is that really you babe?”

His eyes opened a bit more in an attempt to look for her, “Yes my love.”

She no longer laid next to him like before, and she had propped herself up against the wall on the floor. There was agony written all on her face.

She winces in pain, “Uh, I know this is a bad time, but I think I’m going into labor…”

He shoots up from the floor wide-eyed in disbelief, “Wait! You’re not due for another month?! I’m not ready!”

“You fuckwad I’m gonna have this baby right now, go get the stuff!”

*Smack* *Plop*

He attempted to run out the doorway, but he slipped in a combination of fluids and smacked his head on a drawer. It didn’t stop him though as he darted out of the room and into the kitchen area. He needed to get some bowls and towels which were in a specific cabinet. This cabinet was too high for him now that he was a little cretin. With a little effort, he ascended the countertops and grabbed some towels in one hand and a large bowl in the other.

*Boom* *Crash*

Here he was climbing stuff again, yet this was no tree. He fell to the floor with his desired items, and the entire shelf came out with it. An assortment of wooden cups, bowls, and towels landed around him. It nearly knocked him stupid if something else hadn’t already. From there he quickly gathered some water from a rain barrel outside. Water went everywhere as he stumbled back into the house. She moaned and sweat in pain as he entered the room again.

He sets his items down on top of the dresser and then proceeds to carefully lift Margrett up and place her on the bed.

Oh, my Gods, I feel the baby coming!”

Her white nightgown was somewhat wet and covered in splotches of blood. It no longer fit here anymore so he had to roll it back to her waist. He wasn’t sure what to do exactly now.

“Uhhh?”

“It’s coming, I can feel it!”

A small head began to pop out, and he had no idea what to expect. He laid his palms out flat ready to catch his first newborn. What came out was odd…

Before he knew it, he held a small green sack in his hands. It was slimy and weighed approximately half a kilogram. The ball was somewhat transparent and firm, and it rippled with an occasional bump.

“Ahhh, there’s another one coming!”

“Twins?!”

He carefully set his firstborn down onto a clean towel at the foot of the bed and prepared himself to catch the twin.

*Plop* *Plop*

To his surprise, two similar-sized sacks came out. There was no umbilical cord, it was weird to him. This was nothing like what he was told by a small-town doctor in Hedgeville. He set his other two newborns on the towel next to their sibling. His mind was filled with uncertainty, but most of all, it was filled with joy.

He rejoices and tries to hide the uncertainty in his voice, “Hun, it’s triplets!”

She still laid on her back in amazement. From her view, there was no way of telling what was going on there at the end of the bed.

“I wanna see them. Lemmy me hold them.”

The sacks kicked off one another, and they suddenly moved around a lot. The one in the middle tore open in the center before he could even contemplate whether or not he should hand them off to his wife. A little green hand appeared out of the torn open hole in the sack. It flopped around with tenacity, and he was dumbfounded at the sight.

“Uhhh, I think we should wait on that.”

“Wait?! I wanna see my babies now!”