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Tommy crutched himself slowly toward the river. The cool night air feeling quite nice on the webbing between his fingers. His foray at the beach the other day helped open his mind to other possibilities. He needed to get out of the entertainment room more often...and a stroll down by the river was just the thing he needed. He's been hesitant to come back to this place ever since he met that deer woman...she was...bathing and quite nude at the time. Tommy, being the bashful gentelman he was, had hightailed it (so to speak) out of there as fast as possible. But once again, he was tired of the awkward use of his shower...his form just wasn't meant for it anymore.

He stopped a little ways downriver and placed his towel down near the bank. Slowly, he slid his mutated body which had no place in the water into the slow moving river. He kept his shorts on, worried that there may be someone else around...

Tommy tried his best to swim around...floundering aimlessly would probably be a better word. His hands acted like gigantic flippers...but did more to drag him down than anything else. He more than once panicked at the feeling of being swept away by the easy-flowing river. His feet were now almost permanently dug into the soft mud at the bank of the river, a death-grip made for keeping him hung upside down during sleep.

A soft splash, barely noticable to most, but clear as day to the bat-man, caused him to look in that direction and shoot off a few bursts of echolocation. The fear of predators was predominant in his mind, both human and bat. He had heard stories of the more feral islanders...ripping apart guards and staff memebers...he shuddered. The sonar came back, giving him an oddly distorted view...the water disturbing the soundwaves coming back to him. Just some driftwood? He looked fearfully over in that direction. He was even more crippled in the water than he was on land. This was a bad idea he muttered to himself.

Tommy's arms floated on top of the water, being able to due to the extremely large surface area. His head kept on looking about while his nose kept up with an almost constant stream echolocation. Something was out there with him. The tune of Jaws went off in the back of his mind. A coping mechanism for Tommy...relating any and all situations that may be stressful with movies. Because movies weren't real...right? This couldn't really be happening.

Duh Dum...Duh dum...duhdum...duhdumduhdumduhdumduhdumduh...

A loud...familiar sound erupted in Tommy's large ears. His echolocation gave him a split-second by split-second strobe effect of something coming...no...flying...no...barreling toward him! Tommy let out a loud squeak, eyes wide but not in any position to do anything. As soon as the top of his head was engulfed by...something...the rest of his body began flailing around. "AHH GETITOFFGETITOFF!" he screached out, trying to get to the bank...dry land...anything but this horrid water. Instead, he feet lost purchase with the riverbank and he began to drown.

Being let go only allowed Tommy the benefit of drowning on water instead of froggy saliva. The bat-man kept on flailing, getting further and further away from the edge of the river as he went. He tried to cry for help the few times he managed to keep his head above water...but soon even that died out as his struggles diminished. With each time he tried to raise his hand to grab onto something...anything, the webbing between his fingers just pushed him further down into the water.

Tommy's feet found purchase on the side of the bank by sheer dumb luck...something nudged him in the back, but he didn't pay it any mind as his flailing was now directed at climbing out of that damned river. He dug his clawed thumbs into the river's edge and with a mighty haul, he hurled himself out of the river and plopped onto his back, chest heaving. He began coughing violently...and then heaving as water diluted blood erupted from his mouth as he threw up his '********!" He cried out, slamming a fragile wing into the ground and then yelling out in pain from that...which of course was followed by even more cursing. After he was spent though, he shot a murderous glare at whatever thing may be watching him at the moment.

Tommy ran a forearm over the top of his head a few times, trying to clense himself of the feeling of being inside a giant frog's mouth. His eyes darted around the riverbank, searching for the suspect of his very near mastication. He let of a very long stream of echolocation...no...no...THERE! His echolocation did not fail im this time. He could clearly "see" the same piece of driftwood looking thing that he saw before. As he trained his large ears toward it, he could hear the soft sound of the water being disturbed by each small movement.

"...You tried to eat me...Newton..." he called out softly toward the amphibian.

Tommy frowned, his anger quickly dissipating into the night air. How long had it been since he'd seen the frog-man? Months...could he have changed again? Already? Or was his mind just muddied from the last one? He knew very well the feeling of being lost to the animal...and he was loath to think it happened to the kindly frog man. With a sigh, he crutched himself on his knuckles closer to the river's edge...but still leaving himself a few feet of leeway. The water had a murderous eye toward his current form that Tommy had recently found out.

"Newt...it's...it's okay, man..." he called out softly, "I know you didn't mean to." Oh God, I hope you didn't mean to. "Let's forget it ever happened, alright?"

"I haven't seen you in a while, man...how've you been?"

Tommy watched as Newt made his way unto the bank ...he eyed him as his tongue whipped out and gobbled up some unseen grub...Tommy knew that look...that almost dazed appearance. A battle for a mind...or had it already been lost? Tommy couldn't tell, honestly. His experience was a bit different from Newt's...for instance, Tommy had been covered in blood.

But the frog-man had changed since he last saw him...he must be finished now. He wondered briefly if his own mind would be affected in such a way...creeping along at night...stealing the life-blood from sleeping critters...he shuddered at the though. At the croak, Tommy looked back to Newt, a bit startled. He thought for a moment just what to say...he decided to go for to the heart of the matter. If the answer was in the negative, this conversation was useless.

"Newt...can you understand me?"