Yuuta leaned against a jagged boulder, gasping for breath, his frog chest heaving like a poorly-oiled steam engine. Soot clung to his green, slimy skin, and his tongue lolled slightly from the corner of his mouth. The forest fire behind him crackled and popped, vomiting thick smoke into the once-clear sky. The acrid scent of burning wood mixed with ash and lingering monster stench still haunted his nostrils.
"Fuck..." Yuuta muttered, wiping a bit of soot from his face with his three-fingered hand. He looked back one last time at the inferno, the scorched forest now a blazing wall of chaos. Whatever that one-eyed nightmare was, he hoped it got fried into ash.
But hope was a fragile thing.
He didn't wait around to find out.
