Wirt woke up to the most intense pain he'd ever felt. Not a single nerve was resting, they were all in alarm, yet his body refused to move. He opened his eyes and saw he was in a hospital room. He could hear something nearby.

ribbit

He turned his eyes to see Greg asleep in a chair, with a their frog on his lap, safe and sound. And loud. This comforted him, now he knew that Greg was at least safe. Maybe he could just remain where he was and pass peacefully into the next world. At least this way he knew that the Beast didn't have his hands on his brother. Suddenly, he remembered.

"Beatrice..." He said weakly. He had to save her. He tried to force himself to sleep again, and just as his eyes drifted off, he saw a doctor rush into the room.

"We got him!" She said. "Stay with us, kid. Don't drift off!" She urged, but it was too late.

"Awk!" Wirt woke up along a riverbank, surrounded by the corpses of the frogs, all maimed in different ways, with the rubble of the boat around him. Looking down, he noticed that he was still impaled by several pieces of boat debris. Moving his hands down to them, he gripped the pieces and with that little strength he had, pulled them out painfully. "Ack!" He screamed as he pulled the last piece, completely covered in blood-oil. He could feel his immune system becoming prone to pneumonia.

He sat up, trying to get a grip around the frog corpses around him, unfortunately, their bodies still covered in mucus. He instead decided to roll over further into land. He coughed up more and more oil, feeling himself bleed an immense amount of it. Wirt noticed that the axe was next to him and he promptly picked it up. He looked in the direction of where the debris was coming from. Likely where he had floated from. The unknown looked much foggier than before, with snow beginning to fall.

"Well...no use delaying this burden." His voice cracked, limping quickly up stream from the river bank. He was more than positive that he was on the wrong side of the river, and contemplated swimming across the river, regardless of his advancing cold. He looked at the other side and knew he had to get to Beatrice. He could only imagine that torment she was suffering at the hands of the Beast.

The first time, he nearly fainted and the stream pushed him back to the side of the river he started on.

The second, he got over halfway, but the river got too strong and pushed him back.

The third he blacked out and awoke once more to where the debris took him to begin with.

"Agh!" He screamed in anger and kicked the metal and wooden pieces of the boat. "Why!" He cursed out loud and began to ran up along the river again, hoping to see if he came across a bridge or something. The fog getting heavier and heavier, and temperatures fell drastically, causing him to shiver violently.

He stopped once he heard the sound of a fishing line being thrown. He looked up the river where he could make out the shape of a fisher...fish?

"Hey! I need your help!" He desperately called out, the fish looked at him with a stoic, blank look. "Please! I have to fix all of this..." Wirt continued to run up the river to catch up to its location. When the fish just continued to look at Wirt blankly, did he become even more enraged. "Come on! I'm trying to help you and everyone else in this place!" He lashed out, again receiving nothing in return. "You think its easy to know all these problems are your doing!" Wirt points at the fisherfish. "Do you know how hard it is to fix all this!" He gestured at the entire unknown. "That's what I'm trying to do!" He finally broke and fell to his knees. "This is my burden...of my own making...please." He cries, gripping the dirt in the ground.

Just then, he hears that the boat landed in front of Wirt. He looked up and there was the fish, holding its fin out for Wirt to take. Wirt wiped his eyes and took the fin in his hand.

"Thank you." Wirt smiled.

"Isn't this better than being that warts' little guardian." The Beast told Beatrice, who was trapped in a large wooden birdcage. Most of her dress ripped, the majority of her feathers gone. She wasn't sure if Wirt was even alive anymore, she was unable to see the her back to check the few blue feathers that remained.

"You're a monster..." Beatrice sobbed. "You killed him." She looked at him with a weak frown.

"He grew into a burden. He had something I wanted," He brought the teapot up in front of her. "So I construed a lie that made it seem it benefited him and I." It laughed at the idea. "And now, with the Tome in my hand, the light in the teapot, and a young, beautiful and..." It looked at Beatrice with a look of sinful desire. "Fertile witch." It walked away, to read into the Tome, several of the undead guarding her cage.

Beatrice knew exactly what the Beast insinuated, but she was too numb to the situation. She missed Wirt. She wanted to help him, to be with him. She wanted to see his smile and watch him do something of his that would bring a smile to her in return. But without him, no one else knew where she was. She was fully prepared to accept whatever fate would happen to herself and the Unknown. She failed to notice the feathers that lead to her cage, and at that moment trailed all the way back to where Wirt had finished crossing the river.