Welcome to Gaia! ::

"You think I don't know that?" he grumbled. His tail slashed sand up in a sideways twitch. "I don't think there's a single person here who knew what they were getting themselves into before they came. But it's not so bad..." He flexed his left hand.

His eyes darted over at the jungle before returning to the frog-man. "What'sss your name?"

The sound of rustling leaves met his remnants of ears. It was made magnified in his mind by how pointedly he wanted to hear the noise, and immediately his brain jumped to the only possible conclusion - a trap. This He'd been stupid to come out here to the beach. Someone was lying in wait while this bumbling frog-man served as a distraction. He turned his head slightly in the direction of the jungle, but snapped it back toward the tree Newton was behind. He couldn't let the frog know he was on to his plan.

"Uh-huh," he half-nodded, trying to sound uninterested. Slowly, carefully, he could expose this plot for what it was. Everyone was out to get him, after all. It didn't matter if he hadn't met them before, they had their reasons. The snake was lying in wait in the jungle. Or perhaps the bear. Even Rex could be. "Hm. Did you come down to the beach alone?"

"It'sss not important who I am." He pushed off of the tree trunk with his shoulder so that he stood alone, a little unsteady with his footing in the sliding sand. His tail wobbled back and forth to balance him out. "And you're lying."

"Did you think I wasssn't going to noticsse?" he growled, slipping around the tree he had stood by so that he was in front of Newton's. His eyes were glinting with a look of feverish obsession. No amount of evidence or sincerity would convince him that his bizarre hunches were anything but. "I know what you're up to, why you're here. You want to kill me. You're not the firssst."

He looked over his shoulder at the jungle, then back at the cowering human frog. The headache was making him wince, but he grinned through it. "You can tell your friend to come out, too. You're not fooling anyone."

Zach's nostrils flared in his agitation. Why was the frog denying it? "You know what I'm talking about. One of you tried to stab me. And another tried to ssstrangle me in the middle of the night. And it won't ssstop - not now that sssomeone'sss been killed. Everyone here is a murderer!"

"Who'sss out there!?" He pointed in the direction of the jungle. Someone was there. Someone was definitely there. He'd show Newton he wasn't going to be taken in by lies. His voice dropped slightly in its intensity at the next question he threw. "Isss it the sssnake?"

"I'm asssking you a quessstion!" His tail lashed into the sand again, sending a spray of it flying. No one had leapt from the jungle yet. Where had they gone? He glanced back at the jungle again. "Who's out there?"

It struck him suddenly and with a perfect clarity that sane people normally question, but in his case just made him a little dizzy. The person who had hidden in the jungle was gone. He'd figured them out and scared them off to a new hiding place - lying in wait near his cave. They may have had the head start, but he'd get there before them. No one was going to take his life that easily. He looked back in the general direction of Newton, a little unfocused, baring his teeth. He mumbled a couple of sentences, only one part of it loud enough to be intelligible. "Not going to kill me, not this time, not ever..."

More mumbling and gnashing of teeth ensued at Newton's sudden leap away. It was an enticing sight, but much as he wanted to tear after the potential green meal, he had something far more important to take care of. Something dangerous was was going to get him if he didn't catch it first. Though his senses were no different from a human's, he could swear he knew the frog's mysterious cohort was running off through the jungle.

He slammed his own feet into the sands and took off in the opposite direction of Newton, toward the cliffs he'd made a makeshift home of. Headache constricted his head as he tripped along, slashing his eyes with the glare of sunlight on the ocean water. He had to get back, his life depended on it.