Before long, Frog’s army of bragons were healed. But one patient did not recover.
“Why isn’t she better?” said Frog, as he, Major Krung and the Defeat All Foes Team gathered around Kryl. She lay on the scorched earth, still and unmoving. Frog knelt down before her. “Why haven’t you made her better?”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” Major Krung explained. “It is her mind that is broken. We have no remedy for that. Only the Keepers possess the power to enter the UnSlumber. Keepers and, of course, those of royal blood.”
The major peered at Frog.
“Why are you staring at me?” Frog asked. “Do I have something on my face? It’s probably dust, I need to— Wait, you mean me? No way! I can’t do all that UnSlumbering gubbins! I’ve never gone into anyone’s dream business – not on purpose anyway. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Time is running out, Your Majesty,” insisted Major Krung. “Your Keeper is fading fast.”
“You can do it, Frog,” said Princess Rainbow. “I b’lieve in you.”
“Pfff – last time you said that, a lot of things got blown up,” tutted Frog. He took Kryl’s hand, closed his eyes, and tried to think UnSlumbering thoughts…
“Bumdrops! It’s not working!” he snapped, opening his eyes. “I don’t even know where to— Wuuhh?”
Frog found himself sitting cross-legged in a large white room.
“What the … what?” he blurted, leaping to his feet. “Yoiks… I’m doing it! I’m inside Kryl’s dream! I’m actually UnSlumbering! Is there anything I can’t do?”
Frog did a little dance to celebrate his success, before deciding it might be a good idea to look for Kryl.
He gazed around. The room was empty but for a lone figure standing at its far end, staring at a wide wall of shimmering gold.
“Kryl…” cried Frog, walking towards the figure. “Is that you?”
Kryl did not answer – it was as if she wasn’t even aware of Frog’s presence. Frog peered up at the wall and saw that it was not the wall itself that was gold; rather that it was pitted with a honeycomb of tubular holes. And filling each one was a shimmering golden egg.
“No way…” he said. “The golden eggs! These are my brothers, before they were born!”
Frog followed Kryl’s gaze. She was staring at one of the eggs. Frog peered closer. There was something stamped upon its shell in Kroakan:
SPAWN 5.1.3
(HANDLE WITH CARE).
“Is that… That’s me! That’s my egg!” he said. “This is where it all be— Yoiks!”
Suddenly Frog and Kryl were somewhere else entirely. The egg chamber had been replaced with the green-lit interior of a Kroakan spaceship. Frog glanced around to see Kryl watching General Kurg (and a host of other Kroakan troopers) clambering into large oval pods.
“Kroak’s teeth! I hate farsleep – it always gives me nightmares,” said General Kurg. “We’ll see you on the other side of the universe, Keeper. Make sure Spawn Five One Three is trained and ready to conquer by the time he reawakens us.”
“This is the farship that brought me to Kingdomland, isn’t it?” asked Frog. He waved a hand in front of Kryl’s face. “Kryl, wake up! This isn’t real. This isn’t—”
The impact of a mighty explosion rocked the farship. Frog glanced around and saw that Kryl’s dream had changed again. General Kurg and the other Kroakans were already deep in farsleep, and Kryl was alone at the controls. Outside the view-screen Frog saw lightning bolts batter the ship. Frog quickly realized what was happening – Kryl was dreaming of the moment the rarewolf attacked the farship with lightning … the moment the farship crashed.
“We’re going down!” Kryl cried in terror.
“It’s just a dream, Kryl! Wake up!” cried Frog again, as the farship plummeted towards the gardens of the royal palace. “This is UnSlumber! It’s not real! It’s not—”
“BwUUuh!” cried Frog, as he burst out of ice-cold water. The dream had shifted again – he was now bobbing about in the royal lake, moments after the farship had crashed. Kryl emerged beside him, her eyes frantically searching around.
“Kryl, listen to me! You have to wake up!” said Frog, blowing water out of his earholes. He caught sight of Princess Rainbow on the shores of the lake, plucking his golden egg out of the water. “King Kroak stunk your brain up! You need to—”
Frog’s cries were drowned out by the sound of the rarewolf’s savage roar. Everything had changed once more – he now found himself running down a corridor in the royal palace. Running not with Kryl, but Buttercup.
“Yoiks! This dream’s moving pretty fast!” cried Frog, as he raced after Buttercup, the golden egg under her arm. “We’re already at the bit where you run away from the palace! When the rarewolf attacked!”
Frog looked back to see the rarewolf doing battle with the Queen’s Royal Guard. He tried to slow down – to slow the dream down – but he found himself running despite himself, as if caught up in its momentum…
“Kryl! Wait for me! Wait for me— AAAH!”
Frog felt his feet lift off the ground! Again, the dream had shifted – he was no longer in the palace, but rather being flung helplessly into the air, up and up in the middle of a tornado. Buttercup spun around him, clinging desperately to the golden egg.
Frog looked down to see Kingdomland, far below and quickly disappearing. After a moment he realized where – or rather when – they were.
“The rarewolf’s sending us to the Inbetween!” he cried. “Kryl! Listen to me! This isn’t real! Wake up!”
But still they flew higher and higher, until Frog saw the waters of the Inbetween, suspended in the air above him. They would hit it at any moment.
“Wake up!” Frog cried again. “Please—”
Frog found himself on the island on the Inbetween, and the dream began to move at a dizzying pace. He watched himself hatch from his own egg. Then he saw himself take his first steps … heard himself speak his first words … dizzying fragments of moments appeared and disappeared in an instant…
“Stop!” cried Frog, his head spinning. “Wake up, or I’m going to throw up all over your UnSlumber!”
But it didn’t stop. Kryl’s memories came ever faster… Frog saw the rarewolf plucking her from the island … the first traceship attack … fighting to escape the Kroakans at the royal palace … faster and faster until Frog could no longer make sense of anything… Until suddenly he saw King Kroak holding Kryl by the neck – and thrusting her own arrow into her heart.
“Wuuh?” Frog sat up. He found himself sitting cross-legged in a large white room. There stood Kryl, motionless, staring at a shimmering gold wall.
He was back in the egg chamber.
“We’re here again? What the bumbles…?” Frog grunted. “Is this what King Kroak did? Sent Kryl’s brain on a loopy-doopy loop? Some kind of rinse and repeat memory round and round? Well, bumdrops to that!”
Frog strode over to Kryl, who once again peered at Frog’s egg.
“You always managed to wake me up with a shock,” Frog said, waving his hand in front of Kryl’s face again. “But you don’t even know I’m here. How do I wake you up?”
Frog followed Kryl’s gaze to the egg. His egg.
“That’s it!” he cried. “Kryl, if you give as many hoots about me as you say you do, you’re going to find it all sorts of shocking when I do this…”
Frog grabbed the egg. Then he hoisted it high above his head, and sent it crashing to the floor.
As the egg shattered, Kryl screamed.
“NoOOoooo—!”