When the Gingerbread Man Ran Away

Previously

…And then, with a sudden, sharp movement, the fox threw his head back. The Gingerbread Man felt himself fly through the air, a moment of pure surprise, and then… he landed with a soft plop on the fox’s tongue. The fox’s jaws snapped shut with a sickening crunch. The Gingerbread Man, in his final moments, felt a strange mixture of shock and a dawning understanding. The river’s gentle flow had carried him not to safety, but to his end. The fox’s sly eyes had promised salvation, but delivered only a swift, greedy demise. And as the warm, wet darkness enveloped him, he knew, with a clarity he’d never possessed before, that the world, and its creatures, were not always as they seemed.