This is why you shouldn't make hippos at home.
All right, now you're angry. You haven't been in this village for even three minutes, and they've already stabbed you and turned you into an animal the size of a couch - not to mention ruining your outfit. You open your mouth and bellow in anger. The villagers begin to look nervous. Hippos don't look quite so funny up close.
Well, maybe they should have thought of that before they turned you into one. These people are going to wish they'd picked a smaller animal when you're through with them.
The houses of the village are sturdy buildings of wood and clay, but you find that they snap like twigs under a ton and a half of angry hippo. It's even better once you work up some speed. Walls crunch, houses topple, and people scatter in all directions. Fires spread from crushed buildings. Within minutes, what used to be a village looks more like a very flat bonfire. You trample around the ruins until it gets too hot for you, then finish up by chasing all the people down into the river. They splash around ridiculously. You laugh at the sight, but all that comes out is a whiskery snort.
Oh, right. You may have shown the villagers a thing or two, but you're still a hippo. That's annoying.
You don't want to spend the rest of your life as an aquatic blimp with bad teeth. If the villagers can turn you into a hippo, they can probably turn you back. All you have to do is threaten them a bit more. You snort again and stomp menacingly toward the river. The villagers scream and shout and splash around. Several of them seem to be looking for something. Finally, they find it - a young man hiding behind a bush. They shove him out of the river in your direction, and you recognize him as the man who jabbed you with the hippo juice in the first place. You glower at him and stomp the ground again.
He seems to get the message. Slowly, cautiously, he pulls another needle from the pouch around his waist and shows it to you. You can't understand what he's saying, but the tone is clear enough: all right, I'll fix it, just don't kill me. His hands are shaking. Apparently, he's not so eager to stick things in you now that you outweigh him ten to one.
Of course, there's no telling what's in that needle. It could just as easily turn you into a mosquito as into a human. If you ever want to be human again, though, that's a risk you'll have to take.
Written by Chrysalis on 12 May 2009
The end (for now)