The trees all around begin to rustle as the strange, stagnant glow of the bayou wafts around them, as if carried by a fresh breeze. The creeping mist seeping through the trees, floating just above the surface of the swamp water like so much yellow-sap dripping down into the goo. It is a haunting aura, a shimmer that reminds me a little of the dead-light, actually. But this is different, it’s simply an ambient presence. The strike of the gong signaling the start of the waves.

  Already now I see the water splashing and churning as many unseen things rush through the waters towards the single boat. The steady, dull ambling flow of the swamp now becomes volatile, as if a sudden current had arisen. As if they were waves from the ocean that swayed the water from here to there, the wet goo cresting abreast the hearts of the trees filling the morass as if the whole swamp had suddenly come into motion.

  On the other side of the swamp I see several furry faces peek out of the trees. Then to my own sides I hear a rustling, as more of my kind break out of the tree-line and peer out over the edge at the stirring action. We often keep our distances from another so it’s hard to tell, but there are lots of us here. Dozens. And there are dozen more bad things. But most bad things go to boat. To hero. There’s meat in the water. Ooh!

  The hero-party has noticed this disturbance as well and, being the professional adventurers that they are, have readied themselves for their stationary battle. The hero is mostly useless in this fight, ironically. Not much room on a boat that small to swing a sword, especially without rocking it. Instead the others, the wizard and the priestess seem to be taking the lead, readying their magics. Curiously I look to the thief, wondering what she’s going to do. I suppose she’ll have to fight for now, she’ll…

I narrow my eyes, looking at the elf holding her bow, which is tightly strung, the nocked arrow arced in my direction.

Uh… wait. Are you going to shoot m-?

  A second later the arrow flies out with a whistle I hear before I see the movement of the vague blob flying through the dense, low hanging branches of the trees that I can’t get to and instinctively I cover my eyes, expecting to feel the impact of the thing in my wet meat any second now. To feel my body being thrown off into the bad water below. The sound of the arrow hitting next to me, vibrating as it shakes in the wood of the tree just inches away from my face gets my attention. Cautiously, expecting the worst, I open my eyes and look at the arrow and see the body of the moist, golden fruit skewered on the shaft of it. OOH! OOH!

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  Ripping the delivered, present-fruit off of the arrow, I greedily bite into it. OOH! Looking back to the boat, I see the thief standing on the tips of her toes and waving to me. The wizard is angrily shouting at her, but the thief just waves her off with one hand and continues waving to me with the other. There’s that smile again. Maybe she’s not so bad after all? I bite the fruit again and wave with the other hand. Ooh!

  Screams and hollers echo around myself and I look, as the juice drips out of the corners of my mouth. I look at the many eyes glaring my way and I jump just in time as a barrage of sticks thwacks onto the spot I was just standing on, thrown by the horde of jealous creatures around myself.

“Fruit stealer!” cries one voice.

“My fruit!” hollers another.

“No, my fruit!” responds a third.

  “Ooh! Ooh!” the noise all around myself grows louder and louder as they cry, thinking I stole their fruit. They dumb! Dumb dumb! All fruits my fruit! I swing by my tail and land on another branch, my half-eaten prize still held securely snug against myself. In one swoop as I land on the branch, I shove the whole half of the fruit into my mouth, stretching my cheeks wide. In a display of dominance I pound on my chest several times to remind them to not touch my fruit! Mine! Ooh! They scream in rage and beat their own chests trying to assert themselves, resulting in the swamp erupting in a loud cacophony of cries and ape screeches.

  Red. Heat. The world erupts in an explosion, as a large fireball blasts away at the edge of the tree-line. One of the trees on the river's edge shattering apart entirely, splinters and fragments of wood fly all around us with violent force. I watch in horror as one of the apes is skewered by a piece of jagged bark and is sent flying off into the distance. Others simply vaporize instantly in the inferno. Another is on fire and screams and screams. His instinct is to jump into the bad water to put it out and I watch in horror as he plummets down off of the trees.

  But he never makes it to the bad water. His bad thing was still near. A long, witchy hand catches the flaming, screaming wretch in mid-air and I watch in disgust as his stomach is ripped agape by the invisible, clawed, twitching fingers in a second flat. By the unseen hooks that now dig their way up through and past his guts that are falling out into the water beneath his kicking legs. As the sharp hand claws its way up through his evisceration towards the inside of his throat, swinging him around like a meat marionette as his neck bulges out wide. All the while he screams and screams and screams. But his screams are muffled now and choked as if something were in his throat, blocking his airway. It claws further, past his esophagus and I watch as his eyes pop out of his skull, having been stabbed from the inside, skewered on the end of two long, unseen, pointed fingers.

  Something clenches them tightly and rips them back out the way it came, with such force that the front of his skull breaks inward, his neck breaking in the back and his spine jutting out awkwardly as the two eyes are dragged down through the inside of his own head, neck and body until it pulls them out through the opening in his bowels that it came it through. I see the two pupils staring back into my eyes and then a moment later, they disappear beneath the surface of the bad water.

I gulp, swallowing the mushy mouthful of chewed fruit I still had in me.