It was a long and grueling endeavor, which emphasized just how much of a mess the frog had made of the transformation. Compared to what could have been, at least.

  Instincts had improved – it easily knew what to do now, where to put its limbs, how to move its body; it was bigger, far more powerful and agile; and its new fingers, with their pointy bits, were so much better at grabbing things that they more than made up for the difference.

  The real problem was its missing arm.

  One less foothold often meant having to overlook easy progress, or that entire paths would turn out to be dead ends. Having to backtrack was beyond frustrating.

  Worse, when something went wrong, it was really hard to recover. The one time a rock had given under its grasp, it had barely managed to latch on and not fall to its end. The fear from that was still lingering heavily.

  Which was why the first ledge it found, it squeezed onto. A shelter far from comfortable, barely more than a jutting rock. Exactly what it needed.

  It settled down awkwardly and fed beyond any real need, more out of an attempt to calm itself. There was something soothing about the action, and it didn’t take long for the panic to slip away.

  For the most part.

  It might have really gotten ahead of itself: all this time climbing, and there was still no end in sight. The chances that this wall really did go on forever...

  But there was no way it would back down now, not without making sure. It would endure and prevail. Same thing with the arm. Another one would have been convenient, but what could it do now? It would just have to be more careful.

  In the end, the frog’s confidence was proven right.

  It reached out one last time, and pulled itself up to find not the end of the world, but more of it. Much more of it than it could have ever imagined.

  So much more, that it faltered.

  First was the sheer variety up here: the ground in all directions was all strange and on so many different levels, full of ravines and valleys, plateaus and mountains. Immense swathes of dusty, rocky ground.

  The sheer size of it all was astounding. Where there weren’t rocks blocking its sight, it looked as if the world kept going on forever, even through the thicker dust up here. The new edges must be impossibly far!

  And all that space wasn’t as empty as down below. Everywhere was full of creatures of any kind! So many, and all so different! Smaller ones for the most part, but there were quite a few that the frog wouldn’t want to get too close to, even if the majority seemed peaceful.

  It had been sorely mistaken about ‘errants’. The otter and that unfortunate, first one had just been two creatures – two out of the immensity up here – that had happened to fall into this one, very narrow ravine. Nothing special.

  None of it made sense! A world so big, with so many features that they were already hard to tell apart... It could maybe fix the terrain into its mind, with some effort. But the creatures, as soon as it turned to look at others, they would move! How could it understand them if they kept mixing up?

  And once it knew one thing over at the mountains and another thing in the middle of the plains, it would take so long to move from one to the other! That was just absurd. How would it ever be able to reach for everything? Down into the ravine had already been hard. Here, it seemed impossible.

  And these where only the things it could see. What if there was even more behind those mountains, before the world ended? More in that canyon? Even the ‘great Current’ was just one of the many whirling up here! And… what was over there? Above even them, far towards the horizon…

  something was moving.

  A shiny thing, so incredibly bright that no detail could be determined. Enthralling. The frog could feel a deep longing growing inside, as if…

  It was gone, beyond the mountains. Only a strange sense of loss to remind of its presence, which was disconcerting: something of that caliber should leave a greater impact, it felt. And just when it was on the cusp of...

  but it was one of many things. There was much more to experience around. So very much, and it still didn’t feel like the entire thing...

  The frog slapped the annoyance away. Then, for a good while, it simply stared, too stunned to move. Pressed down by a different kind of awe.

  Where should it go, when there were all these choices? What should it do? It should be doing something, certainly, but… Maybe one of the other creatures would know? Surely they wouldn’t be as aggressive as the otter had been, not when they looked so calm.

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  In fact, it had feared it would have to search far and wide to find others, yet there were so many just behind the corner! Rather than standing here idle, it should get to know them.

  Mind made up, the frog started to move towards the closest peaceful looking-

  There was a kind of... buzz. Loud.

  And shaking.

  The frog reached forward just in time, before it collapsed headfirst onto the ground. But couldn’t move for a while.

  And then it was gone.

  …

  The frog shook its head as it was getting up, trying to clear its mind.

  That had been strange. And confusing. Gone as suddenly as it had arrived, doing no apparent damage. But it had been a deeply uncomfortable experience. And familiar. Had it felt something similar before? It was so quick, and it had been such a confusing experience while it lasted, that it couldn’t be sure. However… It might have been similar to the shaking that had happened back in the ravine? if weaker.

  … just before the otter had attacked!

  The frog jumped up and assumed a defensive stance, looking warily around for the new attacker, frustrated that its wish for a peaceful encounter had been denied.

  … Surprisingly, no attack came. It didn’t lower its guard of course, and looked around carefully, but there really didn’t seem to be anything aggressive nearby.

  Though the same couldn’t be said for the others.

  What had once been a peaceful landscape, of creatures crawling around and mostly leaving each other be, was now a senseless battlefield: all were fighting indiscriminately, with no apparent need. And in more than a few cases, uncaring to their own safety, with small creatures attacking much bigger ones.

  Whatever the source of the humming attack, the frog must have not been the target. It still decided to step back towards the ravine and hide behind some boulders, before it became a victim of that rage: when there was no winner and each creature was on its own, anything could attack. Even when it seemed as if two creatures were fighting together, they were moments away from turning against each other.

  It was a slaughter. And it was dismaying. The frog might have wanted something different from the sameness of down below, but this was a bit much.

  For a time, it just stood there, observing the creatures giving battle, hoping they would stop. Most of the bigger ones had already quit fighting after all... though they might just have scared the rest off, what with the carnage surrounding some of them.

  It definitely wouldn’t be going near those.

  As soon as the battle died down enough, and thoroughly bored with waiting, the frog decided to just try and head down into the craze. No matter how many died, more would come up from ravines, caves and the like to replace them. Waiting for the fight to be completely over before making contact was a good way to be stuck here forever!

  There were now some areas calmer than the rest, if not remotely as peaceful as before the attack. And the vast majority of creatures didn’t feel strong enough to be a threat.

  It would approach the closest group, where even the strongest thing felt entirely harmless. With some luck, it would even find which one had caused the whole ruckus.

  The frog landed in a painful roll against the ground and then hobbled back to its ravine as fast as it could. All the while, it struggled to reach back and pluck the few that had managed to cling on and throw them off. It wasn’t funny being on the receiving end of that. Then, it kicked away the pointy one that had decided to laze right in the way of its foot – that had hurt! – and then ran for its life.

  Fortunately, the creatures were quick to give up – far more eager to engage in fights with each other when their paths met – and as soon as it had put enough distance and vaulted over a few crevices, the frog found itself alone once more. As alone as it could be in the middle of a battlefield.

  Still, it wouldn’t take risks again after that debacle: it climbed all the way back to the edge of its ravine and hid once again. Only once it was certain nothing had followed did it start to feed, to replenish its strength and patch up its wounds.

  Meanwhile, it pondered its carelessness: even though those little things were much weaker, the otter had fallen to something even lesser than them. Because the frog really had been even lesser, back then!

  It had assumed its superior mind would keep it safe, but clearly that wasn’t the case. And maybe it should reevaluate that ‘superior’ part, too. How could it have missed that the things could simply team up? It could easily handle one, or even a few of them, but not a throng. If one of the bigger creatures nearby had joined in…

  This time it had been lucky, but it’d better examine the situation more carefully before heading out again.

  A long time later, it was still watching carefully from its spot, feeling conflicted.

  The two more humming attacks that had hit, although much weaker, hadn’t helped its nerves. The perpetrator still a mystery.

  At any rate, it had gotten a better grasp of them: they were more than just sound, and not a shaking of the ground or the air, but something that… ran deeper, in a way. Throwing everything off course. As if nothing could be trusted anymore, and nothing would ever be the same.

  Fortunately, the awful feeling went away as soon as the attack was over, though not every creature was as quick to recover, or to endure in the first place.

  The smaller creatures were actually peaceful at their normal, only lashing out when others wandered too close. It was the hummings that sent them into a rage, and it took them long to go back to their quiet scurrying.

  There were a few creatures that felt as strong as the frog, or even more. Those didn’t seem to be influenced by the humming attacks at all. Or maybe they were – in the same measure as it - but they recovered quickly enough that it couldn’t make sure through its own dizziness.

  Also, it wasn’t just a matter of size. It was deeper than that. The stronger the creature – and there were some way beyond the frog – the more… complex, it was: what they did, they did for a reason. As a part of a greater whole, rather than arbitrarily as the smaller ones. The frog wanted that for itself.

  Some were collecting rocks; some were digging; some were doing strange dances. And there were the bad ones that were attacking other complex creatures, even without the hummings' influence.

  The frog felt profound dislike for these last ones. These predators. It had already despised the otter, but they felt a step beyond in viciousness. It would be avoiding them as much as possible obviously, but the others… perhaps approaching them would be different? For one, they weren’t as likely to maul it in case of a humming. And also, it wanted… contact.

  It didn’t know why, what this would accomplish besides putting itself at risk. But it should be able to handle itself, as long as it found a creature that wasn’t too strong, right?

  No, the more it thought about it, the more sure it was: these creatures knew something it wanted, and so it would learn from them!