Medicated
Author:© WebNovel
Chapter 1: 1. Chapter 1
Anne knew she was adopted. It was the only logical explanation, really. Sure, she was a frog like the rest of the Plantars, but her skin was a bright blue colour instead of the warm oranges and pinks of the Plantars. Her hair was also a curly brown bush compared to their straight blonde hair that seemed to grow just a little slower than hers. Everybody in Wartwood knew just by looking at them, although nobody ever brought it up because her family was still her family! Hop Pop was still her grandpa, Sprig was still her little brother, and Polly was still her little sister. Nothing would change that!
She had even asked Hop Pop, stating that she wasn’t bothered by it, but she just wanted to know the truth. He had told her that nobody knew what happened to her birth parents, so she just assumed that they had been eaten by some monster or something. That kind of thing was relatively normal in Frog Valley after all. She was just glad that she’d gotten taken in before the same thing had happened to her.
What did bother her though, was how unfair it was that she had to take this nasty medicine every single day when nobody else had to. She tried to ask Hop Pop why, but he always answered with the same thing,
“Yer just a little special, Anne. You got a birth defect that that medicine fixes. Hmm? What’s the defect? Well… Yer not very good at making a slime coat without it! Without that stuff, you’d dry up ‘cause of your lack of slime. Why, when you were just a little tadpole, you had to stay in water way more often than Sprig or Polly ever did. Either that or someone had to hold you closer and cover you in their own slime! Then we found that medicine for you to take and it’s worked perfectly ever since!”
Oddly enough, she didn’t buy it. Maybe because she’d always taken the medicine without fail and so she never knew a life without it. But in the same breath, even Sprig admitted that her slime coat didn’t feel any different from any other frog and she was pretty sure she had a good handle on her own personal slime creation. Maybe when she was a tadpole it was true, but what if the consistent use of the medicine meant that things were fixed now and it really wasn’t doing anything at this point? If anything, Hop Pop was probably just overreacting.
So one day, call it teenage rebellion or whatever, Anne decided to prove her point by just not taking it. She would usually take it before breakfast, so she snuck an extra, empty bowl underneath the table to spit the medicine out into. Nobody paid enough attention her taking it, so it wasn’t hard to do. Breakfast went without a problem and since it was her turn to do the dishes for the day, it was pathetically easy to just sneak the bowl of medicine in with everything else and just empty it out into the sink, washing it like any other dish.
A few hours passed and Anne felt great! Her slime coat was still in perfect condition and she even admitted what she did to Sprig and Polly, asking them to not tell Hop Pop until the next day. Her confidence in her decision came crashing down only a couple of hours later though, when she started to feel a bit of muscle pain. Maybe she was going through a withdrawal? She fidgeted, not being able to sit still. That had to be it! She just needed to power through it and prove that she didn’t need to rely on any stupid medicine!
That was until she started to feel dizzy. Not necessarily sick, just kind of… out-of-it. Sprig and Polly offered their support, but the only thing they could think of was to get her the medicine she missed. Anne insisted, though, that she would be fine. She just needed to power through the withdrawal symptoms! Although the two younger frogs were skeptical, they decided to go along with their big sister’s decision and just watch over her.
Then things started to hurt. It was one of the worst pains that Anne had ever gone through! Like growing pains, but maximized to such a huge extent that it took everything in her to not scream! Sprig decided right then and there to go and get Hop Pop because even if he’d be mad about her not taking the medicine, his rage would still be better than whatever she was going through.
Anne’s head was swirling, her muscles aching, making her feel like she was being torn limb from limb but with said muscles just refusing to rip. Never quite giving the pain a crescendo from which to crash and holding them in a limbo of constant ache as she started writhing on the floor! She started to feel like she was on fire, melting from within as sweltering heat started to course through her veins. She was shaking with Polly was trying to stabilize her when Sprig ran back into the room with Hop Pop, the latter carrying a vial of Anne’s medicine with him and a stern but concerned expression on his face.
“Anne, what did I tell you about takin’ your medicine?! You NEED this stuff! Now drink up!” Hop Pop commanded, holding the vial out for Anne to take. It only took a couple of seconds for him to realize that his scolding had fallen on deaf ears and she wouldn’t be able to grab it even if she wanted to, so he grabbed her and held her up, trying to force the top of the vial into her mouth. Out of pure reflex, she shoved Hop Pop away, sending him flying to the other side of the room!
Everything was silent for a moment as Anne’s mind raced. She was still in agony, but she had just pushed her grandpa so hard that he collided with the other side of the room! She’d never had that kind of strength before! But the most shocking part was her arm. It was changing colour in certain spots, a semi-dark shade of brown poking through. It was longer than it should be and as she looked at her hand, there were these weird crescent-shaped claws starting to break through her skin!
Suddenly she felt something being shoved into her mouth, a liquid pouring down her throat. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that it was her medicine, the vial being held in Polly’s little hand! Only moments after she finished drinking the whole thing, the pain stopped. A vice grip loosening from her chest, allowing her to breathe and leaving her aching in the most satisfying way, which only left her mind to process what had just happened. She started to cry.
“Wh-what w-was that?!... Wh-what h-happened?!” she cried out. Hop Pop approached, rubbing his back where he had collided with the wall. He sighed and explained,
“That… was the real reason why you need to take your medicine, Anne. I’m sorry I lied to you all these years, but I just didn’t know if you could handle it. I guess, though… Yer 13 now, so maybe yer old enough to hear this story.” This peaked Anne’s interest. She stood up from where she was sitting on the floor, looking Hop Pop right in the face. He walked over to the couch and motioned for her, Sprig, and Polly to all sit beside him before he continued.
“It was about 13 years ago. Yer parents tried havin’ their first egg, but it just… Didn’t make it. So yer mother went for a walk in the woods to clear her mind. I know the woods are dangerous, but I don’t think she was thinkin’ straight because of her grief. She told me that during her walk, she’d heard a baby crying. When she went to investigate, she found this weird creature that, despite it being the size of a 10 year old frog, was still definitely a baby. So she took it home to take care of.
“When I saw it, I was terrified. She had taken a baby of some gigantic monster and I was sure that the parents would come looking for it, tearin’ up the town in the process. A month passed and that never happened, though. What did happen that started to freak us all out was that the creature started gnawin’ on things, pretty much anything, including our hands. At one point, yer father said that he felt a sharp tooth bite into his hand. It didn’t pierce his skin, but he was still scared that this creature was taste testing and would try to eat a frog when it grew older.
“The thing is that we were all really attached to this young creature now ‘cause despite it being a hideous abomination, it was still a baby that needed a parent and apparently its real parents weren’t coming after it. So I looked into a few of my connections and ended up finding a curse user. She told me that she had a potion that would turn any creature into a frog for about 32 hours and I immediately bought a few vials of that potion.
“I took it home and used it on the creature… And it turned into the cutest little blue tadpole I’d ever seen… So I set up a payment plan that got a month’s worth of potions delivered every month and it’s been going on like that ever since.” Hop Pop finished, looking directly at Anne, who had the most horrified expression on her face. He immediately regretted talking about her baby self as harshly as he had while he pulled his adopted granddaughter into a hug.
“Anne, listen. You’ll always be my granddaughter, no matter what! It’ll be okay! We’re here for you and we always will be!” He couldn’t say much more to ease her mind than that. It was a good thing that Sprig and Polly joined in too.
“You’ll always be our big sister, Anne!”
“We love you! Even if the potion runs out some day, we’ll still love you regardless!”
Anne just cried harder, knowing that she really was loved despite the obvious… The obvious… She was a (potentially frog-eating) monster from who knows where that got presumably abandoned by her birth parents! The only reason why she was taken in in the first place was because she was found by a grieving mother who wasn’t even thinking straight and since then she’s been living a lie and walking a fine line that’s only held together by a daily vial of ‘medicine’! But regardless of all that, she knew that she couldn’t lose what she had now thanks to it!
Hop Pop rubbed circles on her back, Sprig patted her shoulder, and Polly nuzzled into her chest as she sobbed, processing everything. She was so scared of what she could become if she skipped a day of medicine again.
“I- I pr-promise to ne-never skip a dose ag-again!... I don’t w-wanna lose m-my family!” she managed to choke out in between sobs.
“I know… I know. And we’ll do everything to make sure that nothin’ like that ever happens, no matter what!” Hop Pop promised. This continued on for another hour before Anne had finally calmed down enough to breathe evenly again.
“Yer gonna be okay, Anne.” Hop Pop reassured her.
“Thanks guys. I… Frog, where would I be without you guys?” She hugged her family closer, everyone sharing in that moment of understanding. She knew that she’s always been a Plantar regardless of blood and even if she isn’t even supposed to be a frog, she’s still a beloved member of the family! She knew she was adopted, but at least now she knew the circumstances of said adoption and even despite how much it weighed on her mind, the feeling of her family surrounding her put her mind at ease somewhat. She knew that even if she did end up being some horrible beast, at least her family would still love her through and through.
As they sat together, everyone was so caught up in everything that no one seemed to notice the one glaring problem. Because of the wasted vial of medicine from early in the morning, they had used an extra dose. There weren’t any backup doses stockpiled in the cupboard like there should be either. Even Hop Pop was unaware of the issue.
Nobody realized that they were now one dose short for the month…
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone