It was a beautiful overcast morning. Rain dribbled down from the fluffy clouds. The vernal pools stayed at a perfect warm temperature for all of its inhabitants. The water rushed through an overflow and took the waste along with it.
The genius leadership of Quetulopus took Egosum’s humble species from flopping masses to spell casting mages. No longer were the amphibian races stuck cowering in wet places, away from the large civilizations of men.
Now they were industrializing before the mammal's eyes. They would never have expected the slimy folk to expand the borders and the swamps they call home.
The terraformers and warriors took the front lines to their enemies through complex spell craft and entrenched them in the muck that his people were so familiar with.
Egosum swam amongst his tadpole brethren with delight in his heart. The caretakers had just tossed delectable flakes into the water and sent a chain reaction of feasts across the surface.
The flavors of the specialty blend foods could only be fully appreciated by them now that they had been mentally fortified.
The brain enhancer created by the great lord Quetulopus allowed even the most dull of the spawn to understand language and the complexities of food before leaving the water.
The only fear they had in their private pools was being too close to the enhancer during a surge in fear of being driven made by the overload of information. The more intelligent of the spawn knew the truth.
He had no such phobia and preferred to bask in the signal it gave off.
Egosum was proud to be one of the smartest of his brethren. With the help of the enhancer, he had learnt several languages, studied the path to mage hood, and got an internship set up all before the ripe age of one.
The mind tremors and memory blips were a fine price to pay for monumental advancement.
The pain was temporary, but power was forever as long as he was alive.
Life was good.
The hundreds of vernal ponds that millions of his kind thrived in dotted the humid swamp. Industry was booming now that they didn’t need to cower from the crocodiles and encroachment from other tribes.
His graduation to toadlet-hood was only a week away. His tail had shrunk to a paltry size and his limbs grew more functional by the day. It was all coming up in his favor now. Soon enough, he was going to walk out of the water and strut his stuff.
He settled down in his favorite spot of muck on the bottom and digested his food while waiting for the next feeding time. The ground shook lightly, stirring him from his light sleep. 'That was new.'
The water rippled at the surface as more quakes hit the pool.
'That was a little nerve-racking actually .' It was a new sensation to him and his fellow tadpoles.
They scattered around the pool looking for places to hide from the unseen threat. It was a disgraceful sight to see from the nation's next generation of warriors. They were genetically modified by their great lord to heal faster, grow larger, be smarter, and what do they do at the first sign of trouble?
They run and cower like the pansies they are. This would be why they did not reach his level. He was nearly able to leave the water while they struggled with only back legs kicking fruitlessly behind them.
Egosum swam to the surface to finish the rest of the food now that the competition had fled. He took small bites as he attempted to get a look at what was going on through the glass sides.
Salamanderkin, frogkin, and toadkin were running around the pathways like the humanoids they had become. He felt butterflies in his stomach as he watched them moving on two feet. The envy of the bipedal motion drove him mad.
Some scooped up the developing spawn from nearby ponds while others just seemed to be fleeing from some unknown terror.
It baffled him. How could adults be so scared of something that they forsook the future?
They will grow old and die without leaving any offspring behind like the useless warriors they were.
Egosum lifted his upper body out of the water to look further into the distance. The sight was by no means pretty. The sky was red in all directions. Demons spawn flew in the sky in the distance.
Was it an attack on their nation from the allied beasts? He wasn’t sure, but the disorganized nature of everything made him fear for his future.
He could see large figures in the distance clashing with spells and weapons. The red-tinted clouds lit up as fire and lightning painted the sky.
For Egosum to be able to see the fighting was already a horrible sign as they were already in the deepest part of the swamp, away from the wild edges that housed the front lines.
A particularly powerful shockwave rocketed across the vernal pools knocking the tall grass over and sending ripples cascading along the surface of the water. The pressure wave was rapidly approaching from his point of view.
He needed to duck out of the way. The deceptively fast wave came in full force across the surface stunning him in the process and knocking off the grates that blocked the overflow and the cage around the brain enhancer that stopped the spawn from getting too close.
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His rigid body floated along the surface, stunned by the concussive force.
The ripples sent him slowly floating back into the place he knew housed the brain enhancer. He fought for control of his muscles only to barely twitch in the process.
He felt his tail bump into the back of the pond as the slight buzz of the enhancer shook him in place.
He was directly touching it, channeling the waves through his body.
A searing pain traveled from his extremities inwards. His developing arms shook as he tried to flee the intense agony.
The hot feeling reached his torso and worked its way up his spine and into his head. The waves of pain surrounded his mind, attacking it periodically, flooding him with sights and sounds that were not present.
Phantom pains assaulted him until he was too exhausted to fight off unconsciousness.
His mind went into the darkness to protect him from the stress.
A gloomy expanse entered his vision as he stared out over a gray and vast swamp. He was lost. The surroundings looked nothing like the world around the vernal pool he was used to. The civilization that his people had built up was gone. His fellow spawn had disappeared. He was no longer swimming in the warm pools of water that he called home.
The swamp around him was equal parts familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He felt an intimate attachment with the mud beneath him and the moss acting as his pillow.
It was the strangest sensation he could remember in his eventless life.
He took his first steps forward when the sky lit up with a strange iridescent sheen. Blue wisps manifested all around him in varying sizes as the light condensed.
They looked…..appetizing.
Egosum performed his first hop since he was laid. His back legs sent him flying into the air, slamming down face first into the mud.
He would need to get used to that if he was going to live through this.
The blue wisps around him started to float closer with strange noises becoming more and more clear as time went on. One of the smaller orbs finally got close enough for him to reach.
He pushed himself forward with his hind legs and threw his tongue out to snatch it from the air. The sticky surface came into contact with the blue light and enveloped it partially. He sucked his tongue back in and felt a light warmth spread from his mouth and down his throat.
It was an incredibly pleasant feeling that he needed more of.
The wisps floated forward towards him as he went to town on anything that came close.
The noises coming from them became clear enough to understand.Therey were screams and shouts mixed in with harsh sounds. It stumped him now that he could almost make out words from it.
Words that he didn’t know, but he could get the gist of.
They were cursing and yelling about something. If it was about being eaten by him, they wouldn’t be floating within his reach so they had no real reason to complain in his opinion.
Whatever it was, it only became louder as the bigger wisps came closer and closer. It was a beautiful backdrop to his meal.
The feast was wonderful. Nearly endless food that floated straight to his mouth. It was a dream come true.
Of the massive cloud of wisps that converged on his location, only the largest ones remained. The warmth of the motes of light had been coalescing more and more in his bottomless stomach.
The heat was beginning to pile in him, forming a mass he could innately feel near his center.
He could finally make out what one of the lights was saying as it floated within his reach.
“I know you can understand me. I am the young master of the Hidden Lake sect. If you eat me, I shall make sure your entire family is brought to ruins, your arms and legs are chopped off, and your eyes are-”
The rant ended as the wisp found itself sliding down his throat. It was a rather talkative piece of food for Egosum, but It didn’t mean it was inedible.
“Please, I am the master of the Rolling Stone sect. I do not deserve this sort of punishme-” Another large wisp disappeared into his gullet.
“What kind of cruel afterlife is this?! I cannot have lost to the hermit. I-”
“I was the ruler of an empire. I had dozens of wives. I was immortal. You are nothing but a-”
He looked around at the remaining wisps. They were very noisy despite how easy they were to eat. The fullness he experienced from these floating creatures did wonders for him. The words had even started to make sense by the time there were only a few left.
He gulped them down with gusto when he finally hit the brick wall of satiation. All that was left of the mass was a single big wisp, the largest of them and far too large to eat in his current state.
“So this is the punishment I receive for all the cruelty I spread throughout my life. I guess this is fair. To be eaten by a frog. How humorous.” The light lamented its past and stayed suspended in front of his slowly parting maw.
“I am a toad. Though I guess I am also a frog. What strange syllogism.” Egosum pondered on the strange fact of life. He was definitely a toad and definitely a frog so he could give the wisp a pass, but he was walking on this ice.
“I see. Well, are you going to eat me or not.” The mote of light gave him sass as he stared it down from the ground.
“Well, I’m starting to want to now that you gave me some attitude.” He looked up at the blue substance suspended above him with visible displeasure.
“Hold on. I apologize. I just wasn’t expecting to actually have a choice or to be able to speak with you. If I may ask, where are we?” It glowed brighter with each second.
“I don't know. I'm stuck here the same as you. Shall we get on with this then?” The frog crept his tongue forward to force it down into his stuffed stomach only to be rudely interrupted.
“WAIT! You don’t need to eat me. Wouldn’t It be nice to have someone to speak to in this bland stinking swamp?” It bobbed up and down as it tried to persuade him.
“This so-called stinking swamp feels pretty comfortable to me.” His mood only worsened as the wisp spoke more.
“That was a joke. A joke. Who wouldn’t find this…” The wisp undulated around as it seemed to glance at its surroundings, “.. charming place comfortable?”
“My thoughts exactly. Now, it's eating time.” A light twinge of pain threw his aim off, sending him crouching on the ground, cradling his head in his arms.
“Hah. Serves you right. Die! Die! Die!” It took on a red glow as the anger in its emotions leaked into its being.
“What happened to the repentant voice from earlier?” Egosum fought through the pain to talk.
“That's when I thought my eternal death was inevitable.”
“I’ll fight through this pain if it means I get to eat you.” He looked up to the floating being and flinched as the aches came back in full force.
HIs body started to flicker in and out of existence. The world around him lost more of its already monochrome-color, leaving vague details and opaque shapes littering the ground.
“HAHA, see you never sucker.” The wisp took his final moments to mock him again.
“I will devour you the next time we meet. Mark my words!” He had never been vexed quite so hard in his short life and he refused to take it lying down.