Humans were fickle creatures. The kind ones, the sort to stop and offer a wee hungry beastie a bite of almond biscuit, were indistinguishable from the brutes. Only last summer, a big group of meanies had clambered into their boats and trawled the swamp for unsuspecting bog log beasts, snaring them in their nets and dragging them away, never to be seen again. Brittle had learned to be wary of mankind as a whole since then.

Which was why, standing before the triggered snare trap, with his fingers gripping the taut rope suspending the human upside-down, Brittle wondered why in the great green swamp he was risking his trunk to help this one.

“You found the counterweight?” the weak voice called from within its shiny encasing.

“It’s here just as you said,” Brittle replied. The shiny, ironclad man knew an awful lot about traps for someone who’d managed to waltz right into one. Brittle tried not to find that suspicious.

He caught movement out of the corner of his hollow eye. Gilly was performing a nervous shuffle, swaying her scaled head from side to side, urging Brittle to forget his moral convictions and skedaddle.

Ordinarily, he would have agreed with Gilly. But deep in his hollow bones, Brittle knew helping was the right thing to do. Even if every other instinct was screaming at him to turn and run. The Great Maker’s mysterious ways worked through even the littlest of bog log beasts, however, and Brittle would rather be reduced to termite fodder than let her down.

He hacked away at the fraying rope, ignoring Gilly’s increasingly desperate antics to move them along. “Hang tight. Won’t be much longer now, mister.”

The man had explained the trap to him. The dastardly device worked on a pulley system, currently obscured by the needled boughs from which the human dangled. Talking must have helped the stranger feel better because he certainly did a lot of it. Thanks to his lengthy lecture, chock-full of big words Brittle didn’t fully grasp, the bog log beast now understood that in order to disable the trap, he had to first sever its log counterweight. The blunt knife he used to prepare his toast and loam sandwiches was already making steady progress through the thick hemp cord. Several more minutes of vigorous sawing paid off at last. The final stubborn strand of rope snapped away, releasing the human from the trap. The stranger struck the mossy ground with a heavy clatter.

Brittle flinched. He watched the unmoving form, unable to tear his hollow gaze away, all the while wondering if he should have refitted the man’s protective helm prior to cutting him down.

“Gilly?” Brittle was too petrified to edge forward and poke the human with a stick. “I-I think I’ve taken my first life.”

The pink and orange lizard thumped her mighty tail against the soft dirt, upsetting a cloud of dust and dried cypress needles. No time to bury the body, she insisted. Dead man or not, it was time to go.

Brittle remained rooted to the spot, his frail voice splintering. “They say death changes you, you know. I can feel it. I’m not a wee, innocent lad anymore. I’m all grown now.”

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Gilly was doing the lizard equivalent of an eye roll.

“The world has hardened me beyond repair.”

The burden of adulthood weighed down upon him as heavy as the iron weights the fishermen used to anchor their skiffs against the current. Brittle supposed it was time to set his life of childish frivolities aside and become a proper adult. He would have to abandon his Mama’s stump hovel and venture out in search of a home he couldn’t afford. And then a job, he supposed. To pay for the home he couldn’t afford. But what sort of a career could a now-grown bog log beast possibly pursue? All the rest of his kind spent their days slurping swamp scum at the top of the water’s surface. There wasn’t any money in that. Besides, Brittle hated swamp scum!

Light danced off of the human’s shiny shell as he eased into a slumped sitting position with a groan.

“You’re alive?” Brittle felt the iron shackles of adulthood break and fall away. His spirits swelled, filling his narrow chest with hot air until he felt light enough to lift from the ground.

“Ugh,” replied the human.

“O joyous day! My carefree youth has returned! I don’t need a job!”

Gilly huffed, stamping her front feet against the ground, informing Brittle it was time to move on.

“Goodbye, shiny human.” Brittle waved his farewells as he tottered past. “May the Great Maker smile upon you for all of your days.”

“No god will have my thanks this day.” The man sat with his head buried in his hands. His sweat-soaked head was covered in unruly tufts of golden sap-colored curls. Wearily, he uncovered his face, pale eyes sweeping across the woodland floor in a daze. “If you would only give me a moment, I would be happy to pay you for your trouble, good s–”

The word turned to ash on the human’s tongue as his stare settled on Brittle. His gray eyes widened, mouth hanging slack, as every muscle in his neck went rigid with fright. He sprang into a swift crouch, hands blindly searching the mossy ground around him for a weapon. He made do with a fallen stick and brandished it at Brittle with vigor.

“Stay back, foul beast!”

Slurping swamp scum suddenly didn’t seem so bad. Brittle cursed his generous nature for depositing him in the proverbial quicksand of predicaments once again. He slowly inched closer to the line of trees, prepared to bolt the moment he reached them.

“Hold it right there, you!” The man gave his stick a shake for good measure. “Don’t move!”

“You just said stay back!” Brittle balled his hands into fists and placed them at his hips. “So which is it? Stay back or don’t move? I can’t darn well do both, you know!”

The man blinked in confusion. “You speak?”

Brittle decided to play this off the best he could. He wiggled his fingertips mystically, still slowly sidling towards the trees. “‘Tis only a figment of your imagination, sir. You hit your head awful hard with that fall. I am but an apparition of your own design.”

“Now hold on a minute. Where did that other chap go? The one that cut me down? I didn’t get a good look at him on account of the blood pooling in my head.”

“Also a figment of your imagination?”

“That doesn’t make sense!”

“My mistake.” Brittle pointed in the opposite direction. “He went that way.”

“It was you, wasn’t it? You helped me.” The tip of the stick lowered as the human came to terms with this new information. His lower lip quivered as more words spilled from his wagging tongue. “But you’re a beast. One of her monsters I’d wager. Why would you help me?”

Brittle tilted his head to the side, recalling all the many reasons that had ever earned him a scolding from Mama. A main culprit rose above the others. “Poor judgment?”