Chapter 5 (Prologue)

Every night there was a different monster. Ree didn't even pay attention to them anymore. What could be worse than what she'd already seen?
She was still trapped inside the lizard ribcage. There was hardly any flesh remaining over the skeleton, and it would have been an easy matter to escape except her leg was bound by an unfamiliar yellow slimy substance that emerged from the spinal column of the dead lizard, encasing her ankle. It was slightly elastic so Ree had some mobility, but she couldn't stretch it enough to snap it.
Ree thought she would be eaten. She had expected it. Instead the monsters brought her food- mostly ants, and mostly dead. The creatures came and went in silence. For the most part they left her alone, though occasionally they would scrape her back with various appendages. Claws, mandibles or stingers. Anything that was sharp.
Tonight's monster was a snake. Just a snake. No extra legs or missing eyes. No smell of decay. Ree realized it really was a snake rather than one of her captors. She watched as it sidled up to her prison. In the darkness it was hard to see its color, but there was no mistaking its eyes- they were shining red with reflected light. Its forked tongue flicked at the exposed ribs of the dead lizard, tasting and probing. Ree wondered what would happen if the snake ate her. Maybe the snake would die from her poison, but perhaps not before it pulled her to freedom. Probably she would die too, and even though that might not be much worse than her present situation, Ree wasn't ready to give up hope yet.
The snake had definitely picked up her scent now, or more likely sensed her body heat. It stared at her, absolutely still. Ree didn't know why it bothered getting all tense and wary- there was nothing she could do to stop it from doing whatever it wanted. Just for fun she flicked her tongue out at it and said, "Boo!" The snake jerked back in surprise but only increased its concentration on her. There was some consolation in knowing she would be the snake's last meal. And that whatever bizarre purpose her captors had for her would be foiled.
"Come on then, stinky," she said. The snake reared its head back to strike. Ree didn't close her eyes, though she wanted to. Prepared for what was in store, she was determined to face the snake with dignity. With a final breath, she braced herself. And then she saw the snake fall down, dead. She caught a glimpse of a misshapen clawed form dragging the inert corpse away.
The monster things had saved her life. Ree was pretty sure that wasn't a good thing.

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Just a short chapter this week. It was almost even shorter because when I opened my Google Documents page I discovered that the last couple of paragraphs had not been saved. Luckily I write a rough draft in longhand before transferring to computer. I call this version that I post the first draft, as I know there will be lots of work to do when I finally finish. Anyways.
This chapter is dedicated to the good people at Amphibians.org, who would never treat a froggy in the manner that Ree has been treated.
The soundtrack is Rusty Cage, either the Soundgarden original or Johnny Cash's amazing cover.
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