The Top

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The wind died out. The snow had stopped falling. All Allan could hear was the crunch of snow under his shoes. He looked up and saw that the sky had turned blue. A good sign. 

Allan passed a wooden sign that said: 'The Frog at the Top of Frosty Peak.' The sign had the illustration of a frog on it, and under the picture, there was a large text. As he read it, he had another memory unlocked: he had been here before he was fully literate, and he asked his mother to read the sign for him. As he read in the present, he could hear his mother reading to him.

The text said: One hundred years ago, a woodsman looking for a place to set camp climbed this hill to get a better view of the valley. On the way up, the woodsman was hit by a storm. He managed to reach the top, but he became stranded because of the snow. Luckily, the Huntsman had brought shelter and provisions, so he was he was able to survive the subzero nights without freezing or starving to death.

When the snow stopped, the woodsman saw a tiny frog hop it's way through the snow. The huntsman saw it as a good omen, and decided to set up camp in the valley below. This is why Caster City has a frog on it's flag, to celebrate the woodsman's tale of survival.

"Amazing story, isn't it?"

Allan turned to the rock beside the sign and saw him, this time in flesh in blood: Mr. Bullfrog.

"You've been through a lot, haven't you?" Mr. Bullfrog asked with a smile.

"You can say that again."

Allan sat down on the snow in front of the rock. He studied the giant frog in amazement. Mr. Bullfrog was much bigger than he expected, and looked much wiser as well. Now that he was finally here, Allan was at a loss for words. 

This made Mr. Bullfrog laugh. "Still aren't believing your eyes?"

"I don't know. It's just, so much has happened that I thought I wouldn't make it. And...here you are. You're actually here."

"Indeed. Or am I? In your mind, there is a reason I am here, sitting in front of you right now. Can you tell me what that reason is?"

"My original plan was to get writing advice."

"Hm. And what exactly is the advice you seek about writing?"

"How to overcome writer's block. I haven't written in so long, I'm not even sure I know how to  anymore. There are so many possible combinations of words. So many possible combinations of sentences and paragraphs, so many different points and so many different kinds of stories to tell. It all seems so overwhelming."

"In my experience." Mr. Bullfrog started. "Writer's block is not the lack of something to say, but rather, the fear of it. The fear of being judged, of being laughed it. But the fear that you were feeling, are still feeling, is quite different. Do you know why that is?"

"I don't. That's why I came to you. I need you! I need you to answer the questions I don't know how to answer."

Mr. Bullfrog laughed and hopped off of his rock. He hopped his way to the edge of the mountain and looked out over the city below. It was getting dark, and one could already see Caster City turning it's lights on.

Allan joined Mr. Bullfrog at the edge and looked down. That feeling of just standing there, the feeling he had when he had just saved himself from the acid flood, overwhelmed him once more. He wanted to just stand there and never go down or see anything else ever again. 

Mr. Bullfrog, sensing Allan's feelings, looked at him and smiled once again.

"Ever since you were a boy." Mr. Bullfrog started. "You felt like you needed someone to look up to. When you were little, you looked up to your parents. When you were a teenager, you looked up to your friends. Now that you're all grown, you feel like you have nobody to look up to, and you feel lost because of that. So you created me, someone to look up to, someone to go to when when you felt lost."

"I used to know what to do when I got lost." Allan said. "I reminded myself that I still have a future ahead of me, that I could always start again the next day. Now, I feel like I'm running out of time."

"The age old conundrum of mortality." Mr. Bullfrog nodded. "You're not even past half your life span, and yet, you fear death. Why?"

"Becaue in today's world, you're supposed to be successful when you're young. Once you're past a certain age, you might as well give up."

"You don't believe that."

"I do!"

"You don't."

Mr. Bullfrog hopped his way to the wooden sign. He nudged his head at it. "Look at this sign." He said.

Allan looked.

"You looked at this sign as a boy." Mr. Bulfrog said. "And before your mom read a single word of it, you dreamed an entire world up, just by looking at the picture of the frog."

"This is how I created you."

"Yes. You created me, and you also created 'The Author'. 'The Writer.' 'The bookworm.' This picture is the basis of your entire being. You are a writer. You are full of ideas, and you didn't need me to tell you that. Your writer's block has been your sense of guilt the whole time. The guilt of telling the truth."

"What truth?"

Allan heard a booming sound coming from behind him. He turned around and saw the monster that he wasn't expecting to see again so soon:

It was Bruce Fisher Sr., and he was over 300 feet tall.

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