After the strange mountain monster swallowed both the Chef and him, Creek thought he was going the die-a thought that had popped up in his brain too many times in the past few days. Luckily, he was a troll. He caught himself using his hair. Unluckily, the monster would not open its mouth; he spent several hours huddled between its inconsistently sized teeth.
The Chef he not been quite as fortunate as Creek. As she was NOT a troll she only had arms and legs to grab onto things with. Instead of gracefully catching herself it seemed that the teeth had actually caught her. One foot was lodged painfully between two incisors... or maybe they were canines. Creek wasn't sure.
It doesn't even matter, he realized, It obviously doesn't use them for chewing.
Either way, the Chef was screaming and ocasionally cursing at him. She was yelling about deep frying him. Putting him in a salad. Maybe making him into troll flavored ice cream.
Creek tried not to let it get to him. The Chef was crazy. However, as he stared into the bubbling, glowing pool below him a feeling of dread slowly arose inside of him.
After awhile it occurred to Creek that he was sobbing. He had no idea why. Maybe it was because he realized what a huge mistake he had made. Or maybe it was the smell. It did smell awful inside of the monster. It was sort of a sickly sweet smell. Like rotting flesh and flowers. It kind of made him dizzy.
No. He was pretty sure it was the mistake thing.
By the time the monster opened its mouth to catch more prey, dawn was already creeping out. There was a dusting of orange light cast upon everything in site. There were beautiful (albeit large and most likely deadly) insects buzzing through the air. The morning was vibrant and almost had a melodic quality to it.
Creek saw none of this. He crawled out of its mouth and scrambled away. Unfortunately he forgot to account for the steep slope and tumbled down the side of the monster's mountainous body.
He hit the ground and lay there face down. Instead of getting up he screamed and beat his fists on the ground, "Why me, why me, why ME?!" Of course, he actually knew the answer to that question.
"Why am I such an IDIOT?!" He yelled. Just as he was about to stand he caught a glance at his hands. It had been to dark to see while inside of the monster, but with the aid of the gentle early light Creek now saw that his hands were grey.
He began sobbing again without tears. Creek knew he had screwed up. He had betrayed his friends, he had betrayed his king, and worst of all, he had betrayed Poppy.