They say humans have the ability to adapt.
To the smell of sweat on train seats during the evening rush hour.
To the blaring horns battling on elevated highways.
Even… to loneliness.
But has anyone ever gotten used to waking up as a giant frog in the middle of a magical swamp?
Rio opened his eyes.
He could no longer smell the detergent from his bedsheets.
There was no noisy hum from the old AC unit that always broke down.
Only mist.
Only the stench of mud.
And the sharp sound of unfamiliar insects slicing through the silence.
He tried to get up.
But the body wasn't his anymore.
What he saw were webbed feet.
Greenish skin.
He looked down into the puddle beneath him.
It smelled awful, but it was clear enough to reflect something he once wouldn't have recognized.
Big eyes. Slimy skin. A round, swollen body.
A frog.
But not an ordinary one.
This body… was large.
Roughly the size of a human child. Maybe eight or nine years old, compared to the massive tree roots surrounding him.
He stood still. Stunned.
As if a laugh was stuck in his throat.
Or perhaps a cry—quiet and unresolved.
Something hung around his neck.
A dark blue scarf.
Wrinkled. Torn at the edge.
The same scarf his mother had given him on his 13th birthday.
He was still wearing it.
Even though… his body was no longer human.
"...What is this?"
No words left his mouth.
Only echoes inside his head.
His throat didn't remember how to speak like it used to.
His last memories were hazy.
He remembered a room.
Dim lights.
And then… the light.
Not from a window.
Not from the sky.
But from the floor.
Then… darkness.
And now… a swamp.
Fog.
The stench of mud.
Rio jumped. Slipped. Got up again.
The fog was getting thicker.
Every direction looked the same.
Dark.
No signs.
No map.
No voices.
Stay calm, he told himself.
But even his own thoughts couldn't calm him.
He didn't know who to talk to.
Himself?
His mother?
"Mom... I wonder what you've been dreaming these past three years."
Three years.
Three years since she last opened her eyes.
And the only thing still tying him to that world... was the scarf around his neck.
The reflection in the water stared back at him.
A frog with a scarf that was far too big.
The fog had not cleared.
The path was still unknown.
But those eyes—Rio's eyes—held a flicker of resolve.
He leapt.
His slimy feet hit the damp earth.
He didn't know where to go.
But he knew one thing.
"At the very least, when Mom wakes up…
I can't let her see me like this."