At dusk, the thing that leaped from the distant horizon of the sea, though it looked very much like one, wasn't a toad, nor was it any known species. It was something that had long surpassed all biological boundaries, becoming a living hill of flesh, rotting and evolving as it swam and bounced.
When the monstrous hill jumped closer, it became clear that this was a bipedal creature with limbs similar to an amphibian. Its head, if it could be called a head, was disproportionately large, crowned with a massive cluster of tentacles, convulsing and swaying like noodles rolling in boiling water, akin to sea anemones. Its entire body was covered in a sickly, phosphorescent gray-green skin, like the sediments of an ancient swamp mixed with the texture of decaying aquatic plants.
