You had heard about the soda streams long before you ever saw one. Travelers spoke of rivers that bubbled endlessly, where the water was naturally fizzy and tasted faintly of cola and vanilla.

When you finally find it, the river looks exactly as described.

Dark, sparkling soda flows gently between banks of licorice reeds. Bubbles rise constantly to the surface and burst with soft popping sounds. Round jawbreaker stones sit beneath the fizzing water like colorful pebbles.

Curious, you step into the stream.

The soda fizzes around your boots.

Cold. Sweet. Tingly.

You take another step.

Then the river explodes beneath you.

With a violent POP of fizz and foam, something enormous erupts from the water directly under your feet.

The surface of the river lifts you into the air.

You land with a splash onto something smooth and hollow.

The ground beneath you moves.

Through a transparent panel beneath your hands you see bubbles racing upward inside clear soda.

The “riverbed” begins drifting forward.

Slowly, the massive shape beneath you rises higher out of the soda stream.

Its body is made of colorful soda bottles fused together: cola brown, lime green, bright orange, and pink strawberry fizz swirling inside each chamber.

Bottle caps twitch where its ears should be.

You are sitting on the back of a Sodapotamus.

With a loud sloshing fizz, the creature begins waddling deeper into the sparkling soda river, carrying you along as bubbles erupt all around you.