3 The Huntsman

"What do you want me to do?", Mono asked her.

"The door to the outside is locked. I think that the hunter has it somewhere in the attic up here. I'm also sure that my lighter is in there, too. But I can't open the hatch. I tried, but I'm not heavy enough to pull it down. But I think you might just be heavy enough to do it," Six told him. "Not in a mean way or anything like that, Mono. I'm just saying that I need your help to open this hatch, okay?"

"Are you sure about that?" Mono took a look at the pulley hanging from the ceiling. "I think that's a little too high up for me to jump," he told her.

"Don't worry about it. I'll give you a boost to jump. Don't worry, I'm stronger than I look." Six then knelt down into a boost position. "Come on, you can do it."

I mean, I guess I can definitely try to help her out, Mono thought. I don't see why we can't just get out the way that I can in from, but I'll be happy to help her if it means that I don't have to go it alone. That was another one of Mono's biggest fears. Ironically, he was afraid of being entirely alone in the world, without someone to stick by his side. Finding a companion, even Six, would at least make him feel better about himself.

"Alright, I'll do it," he told her. Mono then walked over to her. Six gave him a boost up, and he jumped and pulled down hard on the pulley handle, but he still wasn't heavy enough to trigger the attic door. Six, noticing this, decided to quickly jump on and hang from Mono's legs to add some more weight. This definitely worked, as the attic door from the ceiling swung wide open, and the ladder to it fell down. Mono and Six both fell onto the ground, but quickly got back up again.

"Looks like it worked," Six said. But then, after the ladder hit the floor with a loud bang, a strange, muffled yelling could be heard coming from another side of the house. Six looked pale with fear. "Oh no...he definitely heard that," she frantically said. "Mono, hurry! We have to hide inside the attic! There's no way he didn't hear that!"

She didn't have to tell Mono twice, as he frantically climbed up the steps of the ladder. Six followed him shortly after, as they both climbed it and hid inside of the large hunter's attic room. A few moments later, they could hear the sound of a door open from downstairs, and a voice Mono wasn't familiar with, too.

"What the bloody hell was that?! Oh. The attic door just opened up. Huh. That gave me a good scare for a sec. Doesn't look like a threat. I guess I'll fix this once I'm back from my workshop."

The man had a very raspy, slightly British accent, and a lot of heavy distorted breathing, too. Mono and Six could hear the man's footsteps walk out of the room below them. The man closed the door to the room and locked the door behind him. Six gave out a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness. He didn't notice us. Now let's find that key and get out of here as quick as possible." The hunter's attic seemed to be filled with just about as many unusual things as the rest of his house. There were a variety of items, like bird boxes, old parts of mannequins, a series of fine hats, a large wardrobe, and some more. Six and Mono pushed a heavy suitcase in order to get to the other side of the room, since it was blocked off by a large dresser and wardrobe. Once they climbed over it, they found some of the more horrifying items hidden in the attic.

There were a series of body bags hidden in the attic. Mono could tell these were body bags because one of them had a pair of rotting feet hanging out of the bottom of one of them. It had that same, horrible stench that he smelt in the woods, and it made him incredibly uneasy. Six didn't seem to be too affected by it, though. "I guess that's where he keeps some of his 'trophies' to stuff for later'", Six told him.

"Trophies? What kind of hunter has stuffed dead bodies as trophies? Animals, sure, but humans? How have you survived so long with him?", Mono asked.

"I was thinking about that, too. At first, I thought he kept me because he was lonely. I noticed that he didn't seem to have a lot of company, excluding the people he kidnapped, so I thought he was keeping me here to have someone with him," Six said. "But I don't think that's the case anymore. I think he might've just wanted me as another one of his stuffed-up trophies."

"You mean like taxidermy?", Mono asked.

"Precisely. It means preserving an animal, or a living things', body by stuffing it with fluff and taking out the internal organs. Which would make sense why he didn't just shoot me when he caught me. If he had, my body would've been far too damaged for him to keep as a 'perfect' prize. He might've just kept me around so that he could eventually turn me into another one of his prizes. But that's just what my gut is telling me," Six said.

"That is so wrong on so many levels," Mono replied. "For now, though, let's try to focus on finding that key. The sooner we get away to safety from this insane man, the better."

The two of them looked around for where the hunter may have put the key to the backdoor. After searching around for a few minutes, they saw that a shiny golden key was dangling from a hook. The only problem was that the hook was placed on a pulley system, and right now, it was much too high up for either Six or Mono to reach. Why would anyone even need to put their key on a hook so high up, Mono wondered. It seems just so unnecessary.

Just then, they heard the sound of some very odd squeaking. It sounded like some kind of creature, not a rat, or another type of vermin, no. This sound was unrecognizable to Mono. He had never heard anything make these sounds before. Despite that, though, Six herself didn't seem to be bothered at all by the squeaking. She noticed it, yes, but she wasn't as frantic about it as Mono. Almost like she recognized those sounds. Then, the two of them found what was making the weird sounds, as the strange creature crawled out from under a large drawer in front of them.

The creature didn't appear to be terrifying. In fact, Mono thought it looked kind of weird, and kind of adorable at the same time. It was a relatively small, humanoid looking creature with papery white skin. Its head was conical shaped, in a way that reminded him of a pointy mushroom cap, like the ones dwarves or gnomes from folklore would have. It had large, stubby feet and tiny hands. Looked like a very weird kind of alien dwarf, to be honest. It didn't look like the creature was much of a threat at all to them.

Six tried to approach the strange creature, but it instantly shrieked in fear, and started making a run for it. The creature crawled back under the dresser and tried to hide in the deepest parts of the attic, in fear of that child getting any closer to it. Mono was very confused by this. The creature didn't seem to mind him when he was close to it, but when Six decided to go closer, the creature ran for the hills. Very odd, indeed. "What the hell even is that thing? It doesn't look like a monster to me. Looks kind of...adorable, actually," Mono asked her.

"Those things are called Nomes. They may not look like it, but they're really fast and good at hiding," Six answered.

"Wait, you've seen these things before?", he asked.

"Of course I have, silly. Trust me, these things were everywhere aboard the Maw. Whenever I usually tried to go near them, they always seem to run away from me. I tried to hug a few of them, of course, but then there was this one Nome that-". Six then hesitantly stopped, as a very unpleasant memory popped up in her mind, a memory she didn't feel comfortable sharing with Mono. "Never mind. Don't go after it. That little guy's not going to hurt you. It's just trying to survive. Like us."

"What kind of thing is it anyway? I know it's name, but what exactly is it? Is it some kind of mushroom person or something?", Mono asked. Six hesitated before answering. "Not really sure what they are."

"Maybe the hunter keeps his key this high up so that the Nome doesn't try to steal it. I mean, if it's living in the attic, then I guess it could make sense," Mono said. "Right now, we've got to find some way to activate that pulley, though. Maybe there's some kind of handle lying around here somewhere we can use."

The two of them searched the rest of the attic to look for any kind of handle that could help turn the pulley system around. Eventually, Mono came across another one of the hunter's "trophies". There was an old lady, sitting down in a rocking chair, as void and lifeless as the human family he saw downstairs. Only this stuffed lady seemed to be done much more expertly than the messy abominations downstairs. A faint, shimmering light was above her, and some of her limbs seemed to look oddly mechanical, like those mannequin parts that were scattered in the attic.

There was a handle lying in her hand, enclosed in a tight fist. You seriously expect me to take it out of her hands? Why would that stupid hunter even put it here of all places? Oh forget it. Let's just get this shit over with, Mono thought. Mono grabbed onto the handle and pulled back with his might, and as he did this, he could hear a loud tearing sound from the stuffed lady. Desperate to get the handle back quickly, he violently tried to yank it out of her hand, but in return, he accidentally tore the stuffed lady's arm right off her body.

It landed right on top of Mono. He screamed a bit, terrified of it, before quickly trying to get it off of him. Six only looked at him with surprise. Mono quickly got to his senses and then picked up the handle, now free from the lady's grasp. Thank God. Now let's get this done already. He and Six went back to the pulley, where there was a gap at the bottom of the pulley system to place the handle. All we need to do is put it in, twist it around enough, and the handle will come back down. At first, though, it was a bit too heavy for Mono alone to push, but with the help from Six, they were able to activate the pulley, and the hook with the key lowered just enough for them to reach it.

Six jumped up and grabbed the key from the hook. Mono was impressed by how high she could jump. What she lacked in strength, she made up for in agility. "Okay, we've got it now. Let's go downstairs now and get into the backhouse," Six told him. Mono quickly followed her along, and they both carefully climbed down from the attic back into the room they were in once more. Mono took the key from Six, placed it in the lock of the backdoor, and twisted it. The door opened wide on its own, and the smell of the forest hit him like a bus. They could now leave this insane man's house.

Mono followed Six out of the house, mainly because she was a bit more familiar with the area than he was. Outside of the house was an outdoor restroom outhouse, along with a clothing line where the hunter's clothes were drying off. (Insert Shrek reference joke here) "Okay, we are out now. We should probably try to get as far away from here as possible, Six. Maybe we should look for one of those safe zones or some-". Before Mono could continue, Six pointed him in the direction of what appeared to be some kind of barn-looking structure.

"There's something in there that I want back," Six told him, with a very grim and angry expression. "My lighter. I bet he must've taken it away from me when he brought me here. I want it back."

"Who cares about some lighter?! We have to get out of here before that hunter notices that we are gone!", Mono told her.

"Don't worry about it, Mono. This will only take a minute," Six affirmed him.

Mono decided to go along with it, and he and Six slowly entered the brown barn looking building. Inside were things that seemed to fit the hunter's profession: more traps, a lot of cages for trapped animals, bird boxes, crates, and more. There didn't seem to be any sign of what Six was looking for at the moment. They made sure to carefully keep on walking, as they could hear a faint tearing sound in the distance.

Then, the two children found themselves in a room filled with animal skins. Ranging from several different groups of small mammals: foxes, raccoons, martins, squirrels, badgers, moles, beavers, chipmunks, you name it. Mono was speechless by the sheer huge amount of animal pelts in the room. Whoever this hunter is, he certainly knows how to do his job well. And something was telling him that this wasn't even the worst of the hunter's actions. Six didn't seem to care at all about the pelts, though. In fact, she didn't seem affected by it in the slightest. She was still looking for that lighter.

But then they heard the sound of something loud and tearing coming from the room next to them. Mono and Six were dead silent once they started hearing it. The noise just kept continuing, feeling like some kind of rapid carnivore was tearing its prey apart, piece by piece. Six whispered, "Don't make any sudden noises." Something told Mono that he should've just gotten out of that building the moment he had the chance, but Six was confident enough, and started moving closer to whatever that horrible tearing noise was. Is this girl mentally insane?

No, no way, I'm not dying today. He wanted to turn around and get out of this godforsaken slaughterhouse immediately, but he knew he couldn't just leave Six behind. Damn it, why does this have to be so complicated? Before he knew it, he ended up following Six, only in hopes of talking her out of going in there and getting out while they still had a chance. By the time she and Mono entered the new room, they could see exactly what was going on.

The room had several crates of supplies ranging from knives to stuffing equipment, and several animal pelts were hanging from the ceiling. And at the center of it all was the man that Six had told him all about. The Hunter. Of course, he didn't notice the children, because he was busy dissecting the organs of a mammal he had recently shot and killed out in the wild. Mono and Six could hear the horrible ripping apart, as the hunter removed the carcass's skin from its body and slowly stuffed it with the same fluff he used for his other trophies.

He was certainly a gigantic man, towering over both Mono and Six. Although Mono couldn't get a very good look at his face, or his jacket either, since the room they were in was very dark. But frankly, he could care less about his appearance. "Six," he whispered as quietly as he could, "this is stupid! Any moment now he's going to turn around and kill us both! Just get your lighter and let's get out of here!"

"Way ahead of you, buddy," Six whispered back, showing off the lighter she had in her hand. "Now then, let's get out of here."

Right at the end of the room, there seemed to be a door with a mini doggie-door underneath it. "If we carefully go through there without alerting the big guy, we can get out of here just fine. It's a risk, but I'll take it," Mono told her. Six seemed to be a bit cautious about this plan at first, before agreeing with the boy. The two of them tried to slowly and silently push against the doggie door, hoping the hunter wouldn't notice, when, at the last moment, they fell right through the door and outside the barn.

"That was close," Mono said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I thought we would've died in there-"

"Just shut up and run! NOW!! He'll be out here any moment now!", Six yelled. Mono didn't question her at all, and started running with her as fast as his legs could carry him.

Right then, the two children could hear the sound of the door behind them getting kicked down, and the hunter exchanged a glance at the two children, breathing coarsely through the mask covering his face. He started loading his long steel hunting rifle, preparing to shoot that lunch bag looking kid. Maybe he would bring back the girl alive. Maybe...

To Be Continued In Chapter 4...

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