Little Dreams and Hollow Nightmares

Ph1 Ch8: The Hunter

The knight stood next to Mono in front of the old, wrecked house. It looked abandoned, but there was a light inside so someone had to have been living there. it didn't know what to expect, as far as it knew, Mono did not want to go in there, based on his frozen-still form, and shocked stare. The knight reached for Mono's hand, grabbing it. Mono looked over, and the knight gave a slow nod to try and say, "Everything will be okay". It was NOT going to let anything happen to him here. It had already lost one friend to the wrath of Queen's Gardens, it was not going to lose another.

Mono nodded back, and reluctantly lead the knight to an open window in the hunter's home. They climbed through, and the knight looked around. There was definitely someone here. There was a pot of stew, cooking on an active stove, and tea was brewing on the spot next to it on the stove. The knight looked to Mono, and he whispered to it to follow him. It followed him into a very unsettling room. 

There were people, sitting around a table, but they were stitched, stuffed with cotton. The knight looked for Mono, and saw him entering vent on the wall of the room. The knight followed Mono into a room, with a ladder hanging on the roof. It looked for Mono, to see him standing underneath the ladder. The knight walked over to him, and he pointed to the handle on the end of the ladder. The knight used its monarch wings to fly up to the handle, and pull the ladder down.

The two of them climbed up into the attic of the house, and Mono lead the knight to a large box. Mono tried to push it, but it were too heavy for him to move alone. The knight walked over, and helped its friend push the bow towards the wall, and once it was at the end, they got on top of it, and moved to what was on the other side of the boxes. The knight looked around, and saw a key, hanging on a hook. It made an attempt to get the key, but it was out of reach, even with the monarch wings. It looked for a way to get the key down, and then saw that Mono had gone missing.

The knight looked around for its friend, and found him trying to pull a handle from a dead woman's hand. The knight struck the arm of the woman, and to its surprise, the arm fell off, revealing cotton and stitches holding the arm in place. Mono picked up the handle from the stuffed woman's hand, and walked back to the room with the key. He put the handle into the slot of a pulley machine, and then motioned for the knight to get on the sack that was tied to a rope. The knight got on the sack, and Mono pulled the handle, lifting the knight upwards, towards the key. The knight jumped off of the sack, and struck the hook with its nail, causing the key to fall off.

Mono picked up the key, and started to walk back to the ladder. The two of them climbed down from the attic, and Mono slipped the key into a locked door. The door opened up, and the two were outside. Mono guided the knight to a shed, and inside were piles of crates. The knight helped Mono push a large crate to a wall, and they both climbed up, and went through an open latch in the wall.

The knight realized how quite Mono was during all of this. Normally he was talkative, and asking questions, but during this entire time, he remained silent. The knight didn't know why its friend was this quite, but judging on the petrified stance he had when they came to the house, it figured that being in this place scared him.

Mono crouched down, and signaled for the knight to do the same. It did exactly that, and the two slowly walked into another room. The knight looked and saw a large person, covered in orange infection bubble, sowing something with thread, and then stuffing it with cotton. It inched a little bit closer, and saw that this person was wearing a sack over its head. This was no doubt the hunter that Mono was talking about earlier.

"Not him again!" Mono whispered. 

The knight took Mono's hand again, reassuring its friend, that everything was going to be okay. Mono looked back at the knight, and then they both slowly moved past the hunters desk as it worked on its taxidermy. They came to a dog hatch, and started to push. Unfortunately, that made noise, and the Hunter turned its head towards both of them. They pushed through the door, and landed in a pile of junk. The hunter quickly walked through the door, with a large gun in his hand. 

"RUN!!" Mono yelled, and the two made a break for it.

Mono quickly hid behind a wooden crate, and the knight dashed over to them. The hunter shot the box, shattering it, but protecting them from the bullet. Mono and the knight ran towards another crate, and managed to avoid the hunters shot yet again. They ran to another one, but this time the hunter threw a bear trap at Mono. The trap landed right in front of him, and his foot got caught in the trap. Mono screamed out in pain as the hunter readied his gun. But once it shot, the knight swung its nail, hitting the bullet away from its injured friend.

The hunter turned his attention towards the knight, and aimed his gun at it. The knight dashed away once it fired, and then struck the hunter with its nail several times. The hunter screamed out, and the orange bubbles on him spread further, covering his sack, jacket, and gun. The hunter aimed, and this time fired three shots at once, due to the effects of the infection. 

The knight dashed away, and fired a shade soul at the hunter to counterattack. The hunter stomped the ground, and several bear traps came up from the earth. The knight used its descending darkness to get rid of the traps, and then dashed away from the hunters bullets. Getting annoyed, the hunter threw a large bag, full of cotton, and infection bubbles at the knight. Once it landed, it exploded into a burst of orange energy. The knight got caught in the explosion, and lost two of its six masks of health. The knight shook off the blow, and then moved towards the hunter, striking it multiple times with its nail.

It dashed to the back of the hunter, and then started to burst the bubbles of infection of his back. The hunter turned to face the knight, but that was a mistake on his part. Once he turned towards the knight, it lead out an abyss shriek, bursting all the bubbles of infection on his head. The hunter screamed as a big burst of infection erupted from his body, and fell to the ground in defeat. The knight had won.

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I'm enjoying writing these chapters if you can't tell by how frequently I've been posting them. Also, yes the Six masks of health the knight has is a reference to Six if you didn't realize. See you in the next chapter!