Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!! I have finally managed to circle my way to this...let's see what we've got here.
First Impression: Ahhh I loved this. Just as hilarious as promised and yet somehow just as chilling and powerful as the last one. I would argue this is even scarier somehow simple because of just how easily that deception seems to happen there and the thing the ending seems to suggest. It helps that I found myself on the narrator's side this time.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay, let’s continue with our story. Before we officially begin, I’d like to… apologize, if you will. I have spent about one hundred years with you mortals, give or take a few millennia. Sue me for not having the exact number. But, in all of your years of existing, from going to hunter-gatherers that spoke in cave drawings and hand gestures to splitting the atom and ripping a town into dust, you have always been a complicated species. Some of you have done some truly fascinating things. Discovering penicillin by accident? Truly ironic. Building technology that can connect people thousands of miles apart? Absolutely incredible. What a shame some of you use it for less than… stellar purposes. So, forgive me if sometimes I lose my figurative head when one of you decides to play at the less-than-stellar side of the fence. Especially when you target the only being in existence that has known you for as long as I have.
Well that's an interesting way to start there...I suppose its a little better than fangirling, so I'm gonna take this. At the very least you seem pretty upfront about everything that you want to do here, so let's see where we go with this.
But, this story isn’t me begging you to forgive me. Hate me if you wish; I will still outlast you and all of your great-great-great-grandchildren. If you last that long, of course. Things aren't looking too well for you on that end. Regardless, this story isn’t of one monster (or commonly thought of as a monster in Death’s case because Death isn’t, you all just have no manners or decency. Sometimes. Most of the time, you’re okay, I guess), but of a mortal, like you. His name was Richard, and he wasn’t dead. He was alive and well and walking home from his summer job work one hot afternoon, daydreaming about swimming with the girl Jennifer that moved in just a block down his street.
Okay well of course you're not going to avoid fangirling, that was a foolish hope. Love the callback though to keep that whole line consistent, in terms of this being a connected set of short stories. And oooh, it seems we're dipping our toes into potentially somehow turned into something here, either that or the human is a monster which tends to happen more than humans would like to admit.
Nothing was out of the ordinary. Until, of course, something was. And something came in the form of a little red, froggish man. It wore a business suit over its froggish body and a very precarious toupée on its head.
Richard was an average boy who had never seen such a thing before, so he responded very maturely with a sharp, “What the hell are you?”
The froggish man was very offended by that as it gasped and hopped back in offense. “Pardon you, sir! I am a very wise creature, here to impart you with the ultimate wisdom.”
Richard frowned. “You don’t look very wise.”
The froggish man ribbited. “What do you want me to do? Tattoo the words ‘very smart’ right beneath my hair?”
Come on now Richard, its common knowledge that froggish little men are obviously very wise. Jokes aside loving this introduction. It so random and sudden and I love it. The snarky comebacks from our froggish man is also already lovely. I can't wait to see more of this play out.
“That’s a toupée.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s slipping off.”
The toupée slipped off the froggish man’s head and clattered to the floor. “No, it isn’t.”
Richard took a step back. “Yeah, you don’t seem very wise to me.”
The froggish man sighed. “Look, I am so wise that I will tell you the name of my kind. And I’ll pronounce it correctly!”
“Okay.” Richard looked past the froggish man to see if he could walk around it.
Okay I nearly slid of my chair laughing much like that toupée at that line. I love that. I still maintain that our froggish man here is very wise, but I am definitely complaining about these hilarious moments that make us think otherwise either.
“I am a yara-ma-yha-who!”
Richard blinked in confusion. “You just made that up.”
The froggish man shook its head. “No, I didn’t. Now, who’s unwise?”
Richard sighed. “Look, man. I just want to get home. I got algebra homework, and it’s going to take me forever.”
The yara-ma-yha-who jumped in excitement. “I can help with that! If you were super wise like me, it would be so easy!”
That seems like a rather wise and powerful name right there although I definitely won't be blaming Richard for any of his actions now given that something as world altering as algebra homework appears to be on the line here.
Richard narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t even know your name.”
The yara-ma-yha-who groaned. “Who cares? All you need to know is that I am very wise and absolutely trustworthy. Don’t worry about anything else.”
Richard shook his head. “No. I think I’m good, actually.”
The yara-ma-yha-who hopped even closer to Richard. “Come on! At least one little taste of my wisdom. You can say no after you try it.”
Richard, being incredibly smart, took another step back. “No thanks, buddy.”
The yara-ma-yha-who frowned. “Fine. I guess I won’t ask again.”
Well it seems Richard has learnt the lesson of not trusting strangers well, especially ones who look like the yara-ma-yha-who but the way the tone of the yara-ma-yha-who is changing here is making me think that there's a slight chance that just maybe Richard is going to regret denying things here.
“What do you mean-”
Before Richard could finish his sentence, the yara-ma-yha-who quite literally lept into action. Richard felt himself flying into the air, and suddenly the world went dark.
The yara-ma-yha-who had eaten him. I knew that because I know everything, thank you very much, and Richard could guess because everything was soft, slimy, and smelt utterly awful, like moldy battery acid. Not that battery acid can mold, but Richard wasn’t exactly worried about scientific accuracy. It’s tough to worry about many things when a strange froggish man has eaten you.
“Hey! What the hell, man?” Richard wanted to punch the inside of its stomach, but he was worried he might throw up if any of the slimy got onto any other part of him. Besides, didn’t stomachs digest things? Why wasn’t he in excruciating pain from being slowly consumed?
Welp did not see that one coming. Wow. I thought the yara-ma-yha-who was going to end up doing some sort of tantrum based situation or perhaps attack Richard with that toupee from earlier, but it seems like this outcome is definitely much, much worse from the looks of things. Hopefully poor Richard can make his way out this alive.
He looked down at his hands. There was a spot of the slime on his left hand, but it was only turning the akin red. Was that a sign of irritation? Is that the first stage of digestion? Richard didn’t know much about biology, so he had little idea what to expect. Quite unfortunate, really. He might have had a better idea of what was happening if he did.
He brought his left hand closer to his face. The slime looked very inconspicuous. It was slimy, as slimes tend to be. I mean, very astute observation, Richard. That hasn’t been said in this story twice before that. But I digress. The slimy slime was a translucent gray, which Richard dubbed see-through gray because I doubt he knew what translucent meant. He smeared it across the back of his hand until it was a thin layer. His skin looked like it was developing a minor rash, but strangely, it didn’t itch. It just sort of tingled like he had held his hand very still, and all of the nerves took a power nap. He flexed his hand, and the feeling didn’t go away. That’s not what digestion felt like, right? Food didn’t tingle.
Well I'm going to take an educated guess and assume that is not how digestion works because as much as this seems to be a pretty odd and somewhat gross environment to be in, there's nothing there to suggest anything is actually trying to break Richard down into nutrients.
Before thinking about it and bursting a blood vessel in his brain from the effort, his whole world flipped. Soon, he was sprawled against the concrete, the yara-ma-yha-who with an open mouth filled with slime. Richard shook some of the slime that clung to him.
“Yo, dude! Did you just eat me?”
The yara-ma-yha-who closed its mouth, swallowing. “No.”
Richard scoffed. “Then how do you explain why I was just inside of your stomach?”
“You weren’t.”
Richard stood up, realizing for the first time that his legs were tingling badly. Like, way worse than his hands. This was because Richard’s legs were practically stewing in the contents of the yara-ma-yha-who’s stomach, but he didn’t connect the dots.
Well that's definitely not a good sign there. For a moment I was honestly going to believe the yara-ma-yha-who about the not stomach thing because random tangles really don't seem like the sort of thing you'd get while being slowly dissolved but if this particular creature was deceptive enough it does make sense and of course the narrator seems to be pretty knowledgeable about this situation anyway so nothing to question there although it seems like Richard is going to end up being convinced despite how he pretends not to believe the yara-ma-yha-who.
“Then where was I?”
The yara-ma-yha-who narrowed its eyes. “You see, really funny story.”
“I’m not laughing. You just ate me.”
“No, I didn’t. I’ll prove it to you.”
Richard put his hands on his very slimy hips. “Oh, yeah? Just like you proved you weren’t wearing a toupée?”
“I wasn’t wearing a toupée!” The yara-ma-yha-who ribbited in annoyance. “Look, kid. I am a very wise yara-ma-yha-who, and now, I have given you some of the yara-ma-yha-who wisdom. The yara-ma-yha-whoisdom, if you may.”
That almost definitely sounds like the sort of thing that can get one killed by accident. Come on Richard, you can do it, you can see through whatever trap the yara-ma-yha-who appears to be setting, provided of course that the first touch of that slime from earlier hasn't already pretty much doomed Richard.
Richard groaned. “Look, I’m awful at geography.”
“Not anymore! Now you’re super cool and wise.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “Will you leave me alone if I play along?”
“You won’t want me to!”
Richard sighed. “Okay, fine. The capital of California is Los Angeles, right?”
The yara-ma-yha-who jumped in excitement. “Correct!”
Richard blinked. “Wait, really?”
Well I am even worse than Richard at Geography so I would definitely buy that although from prior experience I am pretty sure that is not the correct answer. I could google and know that for certain but I'm sure we'll get the real answer soon enough so I'm gonna save some time and just keep reading.
“Yes, absolutely!”
Richard pulled out his phone. “I’m looking it up just to make sure.”
Instead of running away screaming like a reasonable person, he opened Google on his phone. He felt less cautious now. The yara-ma-yha-who, while stupid, was harmless. Who needed to run away?
“Yeah. It says right here. The capital of California is Sacramento, not Los Angeles.”
The yara-ma-yha-who frowned, ribbiting in acute displeasure. “That’s wrong.”
Ahhhh well this is something you don't see often enough, a protagonist in this day and age actually using google to try and get the one over some ancient being out for vengeance. Well this one might not be either of those things but the yara-ma-yha-who at least qualifies as an interesting creature to talk about so I'd say it counts.
Richard blinked, wildly gesturing to his phone. “Bro, it’s Google! Are you going to fight Google right now?”
The yara-ma-yha-who hummed. “One question for you, Richard. Did the inventors of Google have Google while making Google?”
“Are you just saying Google a bunch of times to be confusing?”
“No, I am asking a very important question that you must ponder immediately. The inventors of Google didn’t have Google to Google things when making Google, so the inventors of Google could make Google Google however they wanted. Google.”
Richard blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
The yara-ma-yha-who hummed. “Why, this is quite a problem. You clearly haven’t gained enough wisdom to truly comprehend my question.”
Ahhhh...the yara-ma-yha-who's secret power is rather easy to guess at this point. Clearly our froggish man here wins with the power of arguing with the same skills that the average toddler brings to the table. Richard really doesn't stand much of a chance and it looks like he's about to get eaten once again very soon.
“I don’t even know if you know what you’re asking, dude.”
The yara-ma-yha-who sighed. “Oh well, I will just have to give you more wisdom. That way you can keep up.”
Richard sighed. “Look. You said I would have enough wisdom to know all of the state capitals, and you were wrong. You don’t even know your state capitals. Leave me alone. Now I have to wash all of this gunk off. My mom’s going to kill me.”
“Your mom won’t even notice.”
Richard groaned. “Do you even realize how ridiculous you sound? Nothing you’re saying makes any sense!”
Well I have a feeling the yara-ma-yha-who isn't exactly talking with the intention of making much sense. Either our froggish man here wants to confuse Richard into freezing in place and being easy prey or the yara-ma-yha-who is talking with an goal beyond our imagination at the moment.
But, as soon as Richard took a single step forward, the world went dark again. The yara-ma-yha-who had eaten him. Again. Richard groaned. “Stop doing this! Not cool!”
He leaned against one of the walls of the yara-ma-yha-who’s stomach and crossed his arms. If the yara-ma-yha-who let him out last time, maybe it will again. Richard’s hands seemed to be slightly redder this time, less like a rash and more like spilled fruit punch on his hands.
Okay yeah that definitely sounds like Richard is being setup to have a really bad time there. No doubts anymore that the yara-ma-yha-who is definitely slowly trying to warm Richard up into being eaten without Richard even fully knowing what was going on.
That was weird, right? That wasn’t normal. Spoiler alert, in case you don’t know, absolutely none of this is normal. Please go home, Richard. Honestly, these stories would be half a page short if I had any say. All it would say was that I marched down to whatever moral or creature needed to stop and made them stop. Then everyone went home, and I got to worry about literally anything else. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Unfortunately, that was not my job. My job is to suffer whenever someone decides to ruin something. Which was only about, let me think, every second. Every day. Since the beginning of all.
Which isn’t annoying at all, thanks for asking. I’m not upset.
But I digress.
Felt that one there narrator. Gotta say you're being a lot more relatable in moments like this when you're not just fangirling over death and trying to insult us readers at every opportunity. This feels like a heartfelt little plea and there's some genuine sympathy being created there.
Soon enough, he was sprawled on the sidewalk again in a very thick pile of slime. “Yo, dude. Why do you keep doing that?”
The yara-ma-yha-who hopped in place. “Do what?”
Richard blinked. “I don’t know. What were we talking about?”
“State capitals.” The yara-ma-yha-who smiled. “And how the capital of California is Los Angeles.”
Richard blinked. “Dude. No it’s not. We just established that it was Sacrmento.”
The yara-ma-yha-who shook its froggish head. “No we didn’t.”
Richard blinked. Thinking felt like shoving potatoes through a pasta drainer. “We didn’t?”
“We didn’t. Yara-ma-yha-who’s honor.”
Ooooh I am loving this little manipulation starting to happen here. We can see the ridiculous amount of slime now starting to take over Richard and the fact that he seems to car so little is very much a sign that somehow this is also making Richard susceptible to slowly believeing in everything that the yara-ma-yha-who is saying.
Richard groaned. “Let me Google it. Just in case.”
“No! We just established that Google lies to you.”
Richard froze. “We did?”
The yara-ma-yha-who nodded. “You threw your phone to the ground in rage and everything.”
Richard rubbed his eyes. “I don’t remember that.”
“Well, I do.” The yara-ma-yha-who smiled, which looked a little weird because frogs weren’t supposed to have teeth. Or maybe they were. Richard couldn’t quite keep track.
“Man. I’m just going to… lay down. My legs feel funny.” Richard bent down to look at his legs. All he could see was his jeans, absolutely covered in slime. They seemed baggy and loose, as if his legs shrunk. But that didn’t make sense.
Oh well yup that is definitely not a good sign. Love the gradual way you have this little takeover done. Honestly if it wasn't for the narrator being there to guide us a bit we'd hardly notice there ourselves right up to the point where things are starting to get bad. The yara-ma-yha-who really does have a lot of wisdom, just not quite for what it said it does.
He sat on the sidewalk, right in the pile of slime. His arms were as red as the yara-ma-yha-who. Maybe he was sunburnt. How long had he been outside? His mom was going to be worried.
The yara-ma-yha-who hopped closer, looking down at him. “You should probably take a nap.”
Richard blinked again. “Nap?”
The yara-ma-yha-who nodded. “Studies show that the best naps are taken on the sidewalk. Concrete is excellent for back support.”
Richard rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t think of a way to disagree. Maybe the yara-ma-yha-who was right. He should just sleep. That made sense.
Well yup that looks very much like the our froggish man here really lining things up for the final kill there. Richard is definitely much too far gone to be doing anything and now it looks like his own mind is flexing around everything the yara-ma-yha-who is saying to make that sound like the correct outcome.
The yara-ma-yha-who leaned over Richard. “What are you doing?”
“Looking at the sky.”
The yara-ma-yha-who nodded. “The sky’s my favorite shade of green.”
Richard shook his head. “The sky is blue.”
The yara-ma-yha-who laughed. “No it isn’t. It’s green.”
Richard blinked. So it was. The sky was green. The sky has always been green.
Richard felt sick.
“You look a little confused there.” The yara-ma-yha-who sat beside him.
Well...there we go...that was a lovely little gradual slide there. I think you've done a wonderful job mapping this and honestly as hilarious and simple it all seems on the surface, taking a step back to really look at it, that is honestly some properly terrifying stuff there.
Richard tried to think about it, but words kept clunking uselessly around his head instead of forming coherent sentences (aren’t you glad I’m narrating instead of this guy?). So, he nodded. “I promise.”
The yara-ma-yha-who grinned. “Beautiful.” It bent down and swallowed Richard whole.
Richard didn’t even mind. If the yara-ma-yha-who swallowed him, it had a good reason. He scooped up some of the slime and wiped it all over his face, down his neck and arms. He spread all over himself until he couldn’t feel anything anymore. By the time the yara-ma-yha-who spat him back out, he was basically one large ball of slime.
The yara-ma-yha-who smiled down at him. “Do you feel wise yet?”
Richard shook off some of the excess slime. He went to wipe off his face only to discover he has no hands.
He hopped in surprise.
Oooooh well well that's something that was nicely foreshadowed. It looks like our friend here doesn't simply consume people but rather uses it to spread and make more like them to then potentially end up doing something even worse, but I suppose that grand plan is something we'll never really get to know.
Never before did Richard know that the ocean was filled with salt-flavored soda. Or that the moon was a movie projector for aliens. Or that vaccines turned your blood into saltwater taffy. Why didn’t they teach those things in school? Everyone should know that!
Richard shook his head. “I have so much wisdom that I need to share it with everyone!”
The first yara-ma-yha-who nodded. “You do! Everyone in the city, the country, the sun!”
Richard nodded. Even the secret race of robot lizard potato people living in the sun needed his wisdom. “Where do I start, wise yara-ma-yha-who?”
The yara-ma-yha-who grinned. “Well, let me show you how it’s done first. Then we can worry about that.”
Richard hopped in excitement. “Okay! Let’s go, then.”
Welp, it looks almost like the yara-ma-yha-who here is somehow linked to all the wild conspiracy theories that seem widespread on the internet there. Now I'm wondering if this is meant to ultimately be some sort of reflection of that here.
Richard nodded. Of course. The toupée was painfully obvious. “Right, sorry.”
The yara-ma-yha-who turned around. “First destination, your friend Jennifer’s house!”
Richard grinned again. “Okay!”
The two yara-ma-yha-whos hopped down the sidewalk, deadset on spreading their “wisdom” to the world, their feet leaving thick trails of slime in their wake.
Well if that isn't the most chilling line there to end on...I don't know what is...and to think that could so, so easily also be a totally hilarious line is somehow even more chilling.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, a lovely addition to this growing collection and I have to say this one is so far my favorite. (I know picking a favorite from two isn't a big deal but I really did love this one more than the previous one which I did already love). The humor is lovely and terrifying in equal measure and I think when the narrator isn't actively trying to insult everyone too much and be over protective, the narrator is actually quite a fun person to have on our side explaining all of this. (We really do appreciate all the hard work you put in there narrator)
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
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Reviews: 4130
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