Period Piece

You are the Warrior.

And in shadow you are invisible to the stalkers of the night.

Makeshift bandages still cling tight to the tender wound, sealing away the smell of fresh blood from those who would prey upon your weakness. They hold fast now, but they will not last the night.

Darkness your shroud, you stay low to the ground, ears sharply tuned to each soft thump of the beast's paws. The rocks below scrape and stab at your knees, but you refuse to yield to that pain. For you are already in pain, and more wounds are only a distraction now. You cannot afford to cry, though your body protests.

The beast snorts with contempt and sulks among the trees. It will not wander far, for it knows you are still near. You will keep hidden now, but you will not keep it forever.

And the beast shall truly know fear when next you meet.

Jacqui groaned as her mind began swimming its way back up to the surface of consciousness. She tried to drag it back down, to deny herself morning and decry any semblance of coherency. But it was no use; consciousness was a fired bullet, rapidly and unstoppably approaching, and no amount of closed eyes could stop it now. She wondered if she could at least discern what had woken her up without opening them...

Her sense of gravity confirmed she was still lying on her back. But she felt strangely weighted down, like a fat, shadowy demon was sitting straddled across her belly, breathing darkness into her face. Nah, it must have been the emptiness of her stomach pressing against other, less-important organs, or perhaps just the weight of her own sins. A certain stuffy silence hovered above and around her. There was no smoke smell, no puddle of moisture...so why had she been awoken? What had tripped the silent alarm in her brain?

She watched the color behind her eyelids drift and transform across her "vision", shimmering splotches of very faint orange and purple and green dancing in frenzied circles. She'd never learned what caused them, but sometimes she liked to pretend it was the afterimage of her brain downloading raw magical energy from the air, like a solar cell storing sunlight. Whatever the case, these particular downloads were a clear indication that the sun had not yet risen, thus waking up was not to be considered an advisable course of action at this time.

Nevertheless, thoughts had already begun taking form, and Jacqui had no choice but to think them now. And her first coherent thought was: "...this better not have been a waste of sleep medicine...".

Her second coherent thought was: "...why are my tits so heavy?"

After a deep sigh and a surrender to the fact that she probably wouldn't be able to do that one weird trick where you wake up and look around to see that it's three in the morning but then throw your head back against your pillow so hard that you immediately fall right back to sleep, her next coherent thought was: "...did I grow a third boob?"

A growing sense of discomfort and reluctant curiosity eventually persuaded her to finally open her eyes for a proper rack inspection. Her eyelids cracked, slowly revealing the glow-in-the-dark star patterns cast upon the ceiling from her favorite night light below. And she craned her neck up into position to stare down the valley between the hills...

...right into the glinting yellow eyes of an enormous frog perched atop her chest.

Under sitcom circumstances, the expected response would have been to scream childishly and punch the intruder in the face, followed by a pause for the laugh track to play. But, as Jacqui's body was still transitioning from a deep, chemically-induced sleep, all that came out was an uncharacteristically husky grumble that sounded like: "...get off my titties, ya fuckin' frog."

"Well, morning glory to you too, sunshine!"

Jacqui inhaled deeply, stretching her arms and legs and not yet registering the presence of a second voice. "...great, woke up with a frog in my throat...".

"Excuse me?" the new voice said, its tone pleasant and bubbly, and decidedly feminine. "I can objectively confirm that I haven't been anywhere near your throat!"

"You know what I mean..." Jacqui muttered, blinking the crusty eye sand away as her own voice found its way back into her throat. "...also, is that you talking?"

"Yeppers!" the frog said, with a pronounced, amphibian smile. "Wow, how neat is it that we're able to communicate cohesively right from the get-go! We're using the same vocal communication structure, spoken language, and even the same dialect! Small universe, ain't it?"

Jacqui squinted for a moment, raising an eyebrow curiously at the talking frog's genuinely interesting point. "...yeah, actually, that IS pretty neat."

She nudged her guest off her breast and onto the edge of the bed, and with a hefty heave, Jacqui managed to bring her own self up into a sitting position. Some cogwheel mechanism in her mind was already hard at work deciding for her that this was obviously just a dream. But even on the off chance it WASN'T a dream, Jacqui wasn't the type of person to let boring old real-world biology tell her that frogs were anatomically incapable of human speech. Why interfere with plot development, right?

"Alright then...uh, you," Jacqui said, still rubbing one eye, "What...uh, brings you here?"

"You know, I'm actually not sure how to answer that!" the frog replied, tilting its head. "One minute I'm just another free-floating ball of sentient light-gas cruising freely along the circle currents that string all possible realities together, then the next I'm being snatched up by my tail and sent hurtling in a ball of spirit fire right into THIS plane of existence, most likely destiny-bound to home in on my target...who I can only assume is YOU!"

Jacqui nodded politely, not actually listening one-hundred percent because her brain's bootup sequence was still a bit addled by the sleep medicine. But fortunately, some other background thought process had been automatically scanning and filtering the conversation for important keywords and phrases for her to respond to. "...spirit...sent...so you didn't COME here, so much as someone SENT you here?"

"Apparently, yeah!"

"...then how come you're a frog?"

"Ooh, that's another question without an obvious answer!" her mysterious guest croaked, along with the frog equivalent of a shrug. "I might similarly ask why YOU are a human!"

"I'm a human 'cause my brain doesn't worry about the shape of my spirit's meat vessel after midnight," she replied automatically, before she'd even taken time to examine what she'd said. "So...y'know, whatevs."

"Sounds fair to me!" the frog replied happily, hopping back into the center of attention, between Jacqui's legs. "So, tell me, my inquisitive new human accomplice, what am I here for?"

Her vision finally clearing up enough that she could merge the two afterimages into one, Jacqui finally took a moment to give the alleged spirit frog a proper once-over. It (...she?) was comically oversized for a frog, body nearly half as big as Jacqui's own head, and its skin was a bold, striking blue, possibly azure or lapis lazuli if Jacqui had to place it on a paint swatch. Everything behind the head was splattered with black speckles of varying sizes, and she might have sworn they formed a shape or a letter if she hadn't been aware she was still drunk on Nyquil. On the whole, its body resembled the poison dart frogs she'd seen at the zoo, and fortunately for this frog, the suggestion of it actually BEING poisonous still hadn't yet crossed Jacqui's autopilot mind.

The golden gleam in its eye recaptured her attention and forced her to acknowledge its previous question. "...what?"

"What's my purpose?" it croaked again, patiently. "Obviously I was sent to YOU in particular for a reason, right? Soooo...whatever insurmountable obstacle you're struggling with, whatever deep-seated burning question you need answered, whatever epic and intimate quest you've been eager to embark upon, that's what I'm here for! My purpose! Go ahead and lay it on me!"

Jacqui remained in silent thought for another moment as her eyes executed an asynchronous blink - a blinking process where both eyelids don't quite close at the same time, but rather sort of "do the wave" across a person's field of vision. It wasn't even an accident; she had actually taught herself to do this habitually until it eventually became an automatic response to situations where no other response would suffice.

"...quest?" she finally mumbled. "Quest for what?"

"Precisely what I want to know!" said the frog.

"...I...don't think I have one?"

"I bet you probably do!" It (...no, definitely "she") persisted, eyes glittering over with an entirely unnecessary optimism. "The Great Will of the Macrocosmic Universe wouldn't send me all the way out into this pocket of existence for nothing, right?! Ha ha!"

Jacqui nodded thoughtfully, pushing the bountiful tangle of black corkscrew hair away from her face. "Alright, sure, I'm down with prophetic fantasy cliches and all that, but...why ME? And, for that matter, why YOU? What makes the Great Macro-Universe-thing-that-you-said think a couple of babes like us are the right ones for the job?"

"Oh no, no, no, it's not the UNIVERSE'S quest..." the frog explained, with adorable tiny hand motions to match. "The Universe knew YOU had a personal quest to embark upon, and, for reasons I'm not yet clued in on, I'm supposed to be a part of it! So I think that's where YOU come in! If you've got a quest, or a mission, or heck, even a childhood dream that you've always wanted fulfilled, it's my manifest destiny to help you see it through, right here and right now!"

It was then, as Jacqui was eyeing her guest dubiously and reviewing this new cornucopia of information, that she decided she must have woken up in some kind of unusually lucid dream. It was either that, or accept that reality was finally starting to crack into tiny, bite-sized pieces all around her. It should have been obvious, really, but dreams were often bundled with an uncanny suspicion of feeling deceptively real for the duration of the experience. And if reality WAS breaking apart, it'd probably be a lot weirder than talking spirit frogs and epic quests issued by formless metaphysical concepts. Tell me the one about truth and fiction again, right?

"Okay, alright, so let's summarize here," Jacqui said, spinning a finger in the air to spool all her thoughts together. "So the Universe thingy says we have a quest to complete together, but neither of us seems to know WHAT exactly the quest is, is that right?"

"Your guess is as good as mine!" the frog answered, helpful in intention but useless in practice. "BETTER than mine even, since the quest is supposed to originate within YOU!"

"Yeah, you keep sayin' that like I already HAVE this quest," Jacqui continued with a sniff. "Maybe it was something I said a long time ago? Man, sure would be nice if life was a video game with a Journal system to manage shit like this for you...".

"Sure, maybe!"

Jacqui leaned back to look up at the stars on the ceiling. "...okay, well hang on, if this is a lucid dream, then shouldn't I have some kind of like, god powers to do whatever I want? I've never done this before, how do you open the menu?"

"Ummm...".

"Computer, Arch!" she shouted, clapping her hands expectantly. "Main menu! Opciones!"

The frog reached up and placed a tiny front foot on her leg. "...sorry, I hope I'm not interrupting some kind of incantation or ritual here, but I think I've got an idea!"

"'bout time. Let's hear it."

The frog smiled and somehow seemed to straighten her back and sit up to attention, eyes glowing warmly. "What if...our FIRST quest...is to find out what the REAL quest is? Eh?"

Jacqui scratched beneath her arm. "Eh...sounds a little redundant. No, not redundant. Recursive? Yeah, recursive."

"Okay then, we'll just leave that one on the table for now," the frog replied, patient as ever. "But you're absolutely positive you don't have any long-standing personal desires you might need to follow up on?"

"Hey, I'm just tryin' to make it through college," Jacqui replied, aiming a stern finger at the frog's nose. "Once I'm stable enough to hold my own in this fucked up economy, THEN I'll worry about all that big picture shit. I take my life one step at a time."

"And as for this dream," she continued, much louder, as she clapped her hands on her knees, "I vote we do just that. One step right out that door and we'll just see what happens. It's a dream, I'm sure my brain knows what's supposed to happen and all I have to do is ride it out."

"Umm," the frog interrupted, as politely as possible, "...not to question your admirable gusto, I'm as excited to tackle this quest as you are, but...I'm not sure if we're as dreaming as you think we are!"

"Yeah? You got a better explanation?" Jacqui demanded, crossing her arms. "I'm either dreaming or I'm dead. And if this is the spirit world...then I'm disappointed by the lack of virgins."

"Wouldn't be the strangest thing I've seen this week!" she replied with a wink.

"Feh," Jacqui brushed her off. "It's probably too early in the morning to be this existential. Now c'mon, we're burning dreamtime. Here, I'll even let you be the spirit guide. You pick a direction and we just start walkin', see what horrors befall us. Mmkay?"

"Oh! In that case, I've got just the thing for that kind of pathfinding!" said the frog with a grin. She flipped herself around, raised her butt in the air, then appeared to clench up tightly. Jacqui watched with crooked brow as one of the black spots in the center of her back pulsed gently, then expanded, stretching out into the emergent shape of...one of those cross-shaped things with a loop on the top, like the universal symbol for ladies. She couldn't remember the name.

"...neat trick," Jacqui said, cracking her wrist. "The Great Will of the Macrocosmic Universe teach you that one?"

"Yeah! You like it?" She beamed, posing her legs as if modeling amphibian underwear. "This should come in very handy when we don't know which way to go!"

Jacqui wasn't convinced. "...you're gonna have to clarify. I mean, ya got a pretty nice ass for a frog, but unless we're planning on seducing information out of our enemies, I don't see the magic happenin' here."

"Thanks for the compliment, it's all in the squats!" the callipygian frog added politely with a twinkling smile. "Anyway, the other thing you're looking at is a directional arrow! And if I know my cryptic symbology and mysticism like I think I do, it should currently be pointing toward the location of our next objective!"

The frog was right. The line protruding from the loop part of the symbol was a pointed shaft that had been slowly shifting back and forth, like a compass pointing inexactly north.

"...ya don't say," Jacqui mused, tracing an invisible line from the arrow out into the ether of the world beyond her room, trying to gauge the location in her brain. "So it's like a waypoint system for our quest? That's awfully convenient."

"Call it whatever makes it easiest to digest conceptually!"

"Mm," she regarded her, still focused on pathfinding. Maybe lucid dreaming WAS like video games after all. "...so that would mean our destination should be...".

The frog glanced back at her, bubbling with anticipation.

"...Purgatory."

"Oh my gosh, really?!" she exclaimed, almost physically vibrating with excitement. "Purgatory itself is right outside your door? Wow, the Great Will of the Macrocosmic Universe sure has impressive aim! Oh, we're BOUND to find quest advancement in a world-between-worlds place like that!"

"Yeah, it's a trip of a place," Jacqui agreed, somehow knowingly. "You should hear some of the crazy shit I've seen go down in that place. I guarantee we'll be up to our tits in adventure faster than you can order a coffee!"

"That's an oddly specific turn of phrase that I'll pass on contemplating for now!" The frog returned, symbol retracting back into her skin. She flopped herself frontways again. "I'm refreshed to be dealing with someone who clearly knows the local scene so well!"

"Oh, hell yeah. Trust me, there's no better place to start our dream journey than Purgatory."

"Humm..." the frog hummed, looking down at the wrinkled bedsheets. "Historically, I've heard it said that 'a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step', so I suppose our first single step through the local gate to Purgatory is a great place for the remaining nine hundred ninety-nine to follow!"

"Damn straight!"

"But, thinking about it for a moment..." she continued, voice trailing off alongside her gaze, "...if that's the case, it might imply that our journey of a thousand steps will only move in one direction! And what would we be using as a basis for this calculation? The equivalent of one thousand miles if we straightlined it on a map from point A to point B?"

Jacqui remained silent, oddly content to watch the frog's thoughts spinning madly behind her intense, glowing eyes.

"And if THAT'S the case - and I'm laying no fault on whoever originally philosophized this one - I don't think they took into account the fact that we'll still have to walk BACK after the journey is over…er, assuming it'll be a journey we even succeed at, of course! And if our prescribed journey is only supposed to be one thousand miles, well, adding the return trip would actually make it TWO thousand miles! So..."

Jacqui sat back on her palms and raised an eyebrow, a smile slowly emerging across her face. What a marvel modern medicine was, that it so effortlessly conjured up dreams such as these...

"I mean, obviously it's entirely workable if you say the journey is a thousand miles BOTH WAYS," she continued, sifting her leathery front legs through various explanatory motions in a curiously human way. "In that example, you would walk five hundred miles, then you would walk five hundred more, just to be the one who walked a thousand miles to fall back down at your own door! Oh gosh, so many stipulations involved!"

She tried to hide it, but Jacqui couldn't NOT snort behind an otherwise muffled giggle. "You did NOT just make that reference!"

"I'm not sure what reference it was that I made, but I'm glad it brought a smile to your face!"

Jacqui just shook her head and sighed, not realizing until now how much she'd needed a laugh like that. Listening to a talking frog debate the finer points of what amounted to a roundabout '80s music reference was probably the second or third weirdest dream she'd ever had.

"Thank you, this has been Debunking Idioms with Me, the Amazing Human-Language-Speaking Frog!" the frog said, taking a short, amphibian bow. "Join me again next week when I tackle the one about the pot and the kettle!"

"Hey, yeah," Jacqui interrupted, shaking a finger as she regained her composure. "What am I supposed to call you, anyway? You got a name, or do I get to input one?"

The frog hesitated, then shrank back down, looking back up at her sheepishly. "...uhmm...well, I'm trying to think of how to say it using our current form of language, but I can't confirm that it'll translate correctly from transdimensional spirit language to...whatever you call this one."

"What, your universal translator's broken?"

"...nnnnnnno," the frog said with a tilt of its head as it stretched the word out, "...I just don't think it follows the same linguistic syntax and structure as talking like this does."

Jacqui sighed and rolled her eyes. "...then just give me something to call you by, or I'm gonna refer to you as...'Ass Lips' from now on."

The frog, unnerved at the prospect of being branded with an embarrassing nickname, made a weird croaking noise that sounded like "heckit".

"...Heckit?"

"Ehhh… little bit more of a 'qu' sound!"

She mouthed it to herself before testing it out loud. "...Heqet. Heqet? Like that?"

"That'll have to work!"

"...where have I heard that name before?" she asked, as if her brain could render a dream AND process trivia memory simultaneously. "Feels like I should know that name for some reason...".

"Maybe I'm relevant in your future somehow, and you're just remembering in the wrong direction!" Heqet offered.

"Of course you're relevant to my future ya nitwit, we're going on a quest together."

"Ain't that the truth, ha ha ha!"

Jacqui focused her stare with laser beam intensity for a moment, attempting to further divine the dream-frog's identity from sheer willpower alone. She'd never been good at mythological figures, save for those defined by their hit points and rare item drops. Maybe a character from an old cartoon? No? Hmm...

"Okay then, Heqet," she finally said, shaking out her hair and pressing her face up close and personal. "If we're talkin' quests here, then I think I know what ours is gonna be."

"You figured it out? Wonderful, let's hear it!"

Jacqui grinned and tapped her nose with one finger. "We're gonna find out who the fuck you are and who the fuck sent you here!"

It was Heqet's turn to respond with confused silence and an asynchronous blink. "...ME? Your quest is to get to know more about ME? But...th-that should be MY quest, not yours!"

"Didn't you say your quest was to help me in my quest?" Jacqui replied coolly, thoroughly pleased with her casual reversal of the expected plot development. "If your quest is my quest, then my quest is your quest, the more we get together, the happier we'll be, etc, etc."

Heqet gave her a very froggy look.

"Don't worry about it."

"...well...a-alright then!" she assented with a loud croak. "If that's what you truly desire, then I daresay our quest has officially begun!"

"Good!" Jacqui agreed, pumping a fist in the air. "Let's get down to business, then."

"O-kay!"

Jacqui took a deep, resolute breath, filled with a newfound confidence for this exciting new dream story she was about to make happen, and stood up.

...and immediately regretted it.

She doubled over as her body knotted up with an instant, wrenching pain, like a pair of phantom hands had reached inside and tried to tie her bladder and other nearby parts into a giant bow. It sent her staggering forward a step or two before she caught herself against the wall. Her fingers slowly condensed into a fist as a low growl rumbled out of her throat.

Wait...I AM still dreaming, aren't I? she thought through clenched teeth. I shouldn't be able to feel it this bad while I'm unconscious...maybe I'm not quite as deep asleep as I thought. Maybe lucid dreams like these only happen when you're right on the cusp on consciousness...goddamn cheap-ass sleep medicine ain't doin' its job...ugh, guess we'd better get movin' if I wanna have any fun with this dream before the Shark Down Under wakes me up.

She spat out an extra f-bomb for good measure and pulled herself upright, hobbling over to the stack of cardboard boxes she called a dresser and rummaging for a change of clothes. Under normal logic, the stink of sweat and other bodily fluids present on her physical body probably wouldn't disappear just because her dream body had changed clothes. But under dream logic, frogs could talk and two plus two equalled barbecue ribs, so fuck it. Besides, she wanted to at least look presentable for her new friend, didn't she?

"Yo, you need anything before we depart?" she asked, slipping off her sweatpants and tossing them into the corner.

"Nothing but the Great Will of The Macrocosmic Universe's blessing!"

"You sure?" She quickly pulled up her jeans, only to encounter a hard stop as she tried to bring them over the speed bump. "It's dangerous to go alone, y'know. Get your weapons ready!"

"I don't have any weapons..." Heqet answered, fascinated to watch the pants-on dance.

"No armor neither? You just run around naked all day?" Jacqui replied - ironically, as she was removing her night shirt. She turned away from her guest to fish for the good bra.

"Is that...not correct frog protocol?" she asked worriedly.

"I ain't gonna lose any sleep over it." Heh.

"Then I'll stick with nudity until you politely inform me that it makes you uncomfortable!" Heqet replied with a hop and a wink.

"Alright then, here's the gameplan!" Jacqui announced, glasses glowing eerily in the night light as she secured her trademark hoodie in place. "We stroll on down to Purgatory, partake of the magical Water of Life, and then consult the ultimate and most comprehensive fountain of knowledge known to us humans!"

Heqet bounced up and down some more, brimming with limitless excitement. "Wow! Now THAT's a quest! I can't wait to wrap my tongue around this one! You really think the Fountain of Knowledge will have the answers we're seeking? And we, the lowly wayward pilgrims, will be allowed to enter into such holy sanctums?"

"Yup," Jacqui nodded, flashing a grin as she straightened her frames. "The wi-fi's free in Purgatory!"

Heqet's mouth opened, revealing the barrel of a loaded question, but she stopped, glanced aside, and reeled it back in again with a smile of surrender. "Wi-Fi" was surely the name of some very highly respected Human Deity of Wisdom, and who was she to question the merits of foreign deities? What did transdimensional spirit frogs know about Human customs, anyway? She decided it was best to keep her plump blue frog lips shut and get educated before insulting all of Human culture altogether. She turned back up toward Jacqui, giving her a firm and decisive nod.

"So it's settled then!" Jacqui said, grabbing her umbrella and striking a dramatic pose as she struggled to cobble together some kind of inspirational sendoff speech - a task made far more difficult than it needed to be by a certain lingering pain threatening to flare up again.

"With our weapons in tow and the fires of determination in our hearts, let's get out there and…turn this quest into a CONQUEST!"

"Yahoo!" Heqet rejoiced, hopping along at Jacqui's side as they strode over to the door. She couldn't quite decide if that enthusiasm sounded forced or if Heqet was just genuinely that excitable.

In fact, she still wasn't completely certain if this entire dream was forced or genuinely playing out on its own. There seemed to be some inexplicable, vague compulsion drawing her into this silly quest bullshit, calling her own lucidity and agency into question. She might also have challenged her own sanity, and whether or not this mystical journey of self-discovery was nothing more than a menstrual fever dream built only as a cheap distraction to snooze away the midnight cramps...

...but then again, she pondered, why we always gotta rationalize everything? Why not just let it go and see how far down the rabbit hole this dream goes?

What's the worst that could happen?

...shit, you're not supposed to think that part. Fuck.

"I am legit the most excited possible frog I can be right now!" Heqet bubbled as they moved onward into the main dorm hall, headed for the front entrance. "I'm especially curious to see what sort of trials this plane of existence has to offer us!"

"Bring 'em on, I'm ready for anything," Jacqui challenged, brandishing her umbrella before her like a sword. "Why d'ya think I brought this little baby with us?"

"...it's not going to rain," Heqet said matter-of-factly, eyeing the little baby in question. "I'd totally know if it was going to rain, you can trust me absolutely on that one!"

Jacqui paused, then leaned down toward her companion and replied mysteriously: "...I never leave home without my umbrella."

She was met with a similar pause, followed by a bright and shiny "...alrighty, whatever completes your existence!"

For a moment, Jacqui wondered if such boundless optimism was an attempt by her subconscious to insult her normally dry personality. Why else would her so-called spirit animal be a little ball of sunshine and rainbows so radically different from herself?

...then again, what the hell would I know about "spirit animals"? she asked herself. What the hell do I know about anything? I should just stop worrying and just dream the damn dream, god... "Okay, Heqet!" she announced, pushing open the glass door that led out into the dark, midnight world of Dreamland. "It's a beautiful night for a vision quest tonight! As we stand poised to take this first step of our journey into Purgatory together, do you have any thoughts?"

"I don't mind reiterating that I'm so excited to be here with you tonight, Jacqui!" Heqet chimed in. "My entire body feels awash with replete anticipation, I don't even know if I can feel my little amphibian legs anymore! What deadly perils await us out there? What treacherous fiends and friendly faces stand ready to greet us on our path? And what joyful new bonds of friendship will we--"

"We're here."

"...wait, what?"