Smurfskip (Or: How Jokey Smurf Invented Parkour)

Chapter 3: [03:21]

Loop 3

Jokey inhales harshly, his eyes snapping open. He's back on the branch, bucket balanced precariously nearby. Before his memories can entirely catch up, before he even knows why he feels such panic, he snatches the bucket and holds it close to his chest. What if it fell? What if it hit the fox? What if...

What if he died again?

But that doesn't make any sense, Smurfs don't just die and come back to life!

(Well, except for Boo Smurf... But that's different)

Tremors shake through Jokey's body as memories of flashing teeth and ripping claws shake through his mind. He's died, been eaten, twice now. It isn't possible. He can remember it. It can't have happened. It has to have been a really weird dream-within-a-dream. Yeah, that's it!

In fact, maybe he never went out to prank the fox at all! Maybe he's still safe in his Mushroom, about to wake up in his own bed. He isn't standing on a tree branch, clutching a bucket of stolen potion like a lifeline, too scared to move for fear of tripping and spilling the bucket again.

He'll just stay right here, unmoving, until he wakes up. This plan, unfortunately, doesn't last very long. A beam of sunlight pierces through the canopy above him, shining right in his eye. Jokey sneezes. The bucket goes flying.

This time, Jokey runs the opposite direction, towards Gargamel's hut. It's dangerous, sure, but way less dangerous than dying again. After an hour, much longer than it should take, he finds the path up the hill that leads to the wizard's house. He dashes up it, hoping the old man's short on fox fur for his potions, smacking straight into–

The cliff, in the woods, far away from the hill.

He actually manages to get a few inches up it before the yellow fox catches up.