Bro Druid: Frog Game

 Bodhi rushed over to the arcade cabinet that had swallowed up Nix. It was that game about a frog trying to cross a road whose name escaped the sea otter, but that wasn’t important. A new sprite appeared in the game, looking like the missing pink-haired silver-striped hyena. Cars and trucks whizzed by Nix as she anxiously stumbled around the road, narrowly avoiding getting hit. Unsure what to do,  Bodhi puts a coin in the machine and hits the play button. A rainbow of pixels flashed in front of the lifeguard as the game sucked him in.

Bodhi appeared on strange purple grass next to a green and yellow frog. Both had an odd, unnatural, straight squareness to their bodies. Everything in this world has a weird one-dimensional property. This situation was more confusing than when he accidentally ate the wrong type of mushroom while teaching wilderness survival. At least that time, no one got hurt, and he got to see all those fun colors and shapes.

“Nix gal! Stay by the river and out of the road,” Bodhi tried to shout over the oddly repetitive music. He watched to make sure his pink-haired hyena friend made it to safety. As Bodhi was about to start carefully trying to cross the road, the frog began to jump out into traffic. The blue-striped otter attempted to stop the amphibian but wasn’t fast enough, and the truck plowed into the frog. It blinked, then reappeared back on the purple grass next to Bodhi. “That looked like it hurt, bro. Thanks for the heads up.”

With a crack of his knuckles, the lifeguard started into traffic. Carefully, he dodged forward and backward around oncoming vehicles. Each traffic lane seemed to alternate directions and speed almost haphazardly for no logical reason. Whoever designed the traffic flow like this needed to be fired and jailed.

“Bodhi,” Nix exclaimed, running over to her friend as he made it to the stretch of purple grass along the riverside. “I’m sorry I kissed you and got us stuck here.”

“Don’t worry about that Nix gal, but if you wanted to be Nix love this whole time, you could’ve told me,” the sea otter smiled, watching the frog trying cross traffic.

“Sorry. It’s just that I was afraid you’d reject me because, well, I’m taller than you, a bit chubby, afraid of the water, don’t have any magic or... “Bodhi cut off the pink-haired hyena by grabbing her hands.

“Shh. Nix love, none of that is important to me,” Bodhi reassures his anxious companion, pulling her to his eye level. “You are a good person with a positive vibe. I would be honored to take you out on a real date if we ever get out of here.”

They shared a kiss as one of those strange yellow and green frogs hopped by and onto a log. Bodhi and Nix watched as it transversed the river via the floating wood. Once on the other side of the river, the frog leaped into the last empty cove. The music changed as the world turned black around them, and then the blue-striped sea otter and the pink-haired silver-striped hyena reappeared in the arcade.

“Thank you Bodhi for everything,” Nix smiled behind happy, anxious tears. “You’re wonderful.”

“Nah, Nix love. I’m just an ordinary bro trying my best,” the lifeguard laughed, waving off the compliment. “Let’s go get some cheese fries and discuss how we want to pursue this relationship.”