3 Three

The girls made their way to the deteriorated city, leaving only the crunch of the leaves under their shoes behind them.

"Let's play a game," Ana suggests while walking.

"What kind of game?"

"Maybe like a question game, like to get to know each other!" Ana spoke with such enthusiasm, Chase couldn't even think of refusing. After learning each other's favorite colors, foods, and countless other facts, they finally arrive at the outskirts of the town. "Hey, why don't we stay here, in the city? Or even the suburb areas, I mean you said there were houses, so-" Chase grabbed Ana's arm suddenly and pulled her to the side, effectively cutting her off, pushing them both into a kneel behind a broken-down, old metro bus.

"Wha-" before Ana got anything else out, Chase's hand was over her mouth. Slowly, she removed her hand and brought her finger to her own lips. Ana raised a brow at her, and Chase responded by pointing out, sweeping her finger from an old skyscraper with dark green vines hanging down its sides, into the middle of the cracked, cement-paved road and back. Ana sees a hand wrap around the edge of the building. At first, she thought it was human. But on further inspection, she saw the grey, almost rotted flesh and black gel that seemed to be keeping it from falling off the bone.

Along with that, Its fingers were long and slender, pointed at the tip, like daggers. Then, The figure quietly moves out into the open, and it takes all Ana has, eyes going wide, along with Chase's hand over her mouth once again, to keep her from screaming. It was a devilishly horrid looking creature. It had the primary form of a human but most certainly was not one, due to its anorexic, slender stature that left its ribcage visible, its hollowed-out eyes and sharp teeth. The worst things about it were the length of its limbs and its height. Much taller than an average human, standing at about 6'10 if Ana had to guess, its hunched over back with limbs nearly double the length they should be not even revealing what its true height could be with better posture, and feet with nails just like its fingers. And the part that almost made Ana throw up right then and there, was the large flap of skin that was hanging off its stomach, oozing black liquid.

"I slashed the bastard earlier when I came out here. Though it ran off, maybe died somewhere. Damn it." Chase hissed.

"What is it?" Ana whispered frantically.

"It's a Dower. That's what I and the others before named them. Come with me." Chase interlinked her fingers with Anas and pulled her along. They followed the bus to where it stopped and quickly ran past the small gap and behind an old convenience store, out of view of the Dower. "Okay, stay here."

"No! No, where are you going?!" Ana splutters, eyes clouded with fear.

"I have to go out there and kill that son of a bitch, okay?" Chase responds, her hands on Ana's shoulders, leaning down slightly to be eye level.

"No, no, no, you can't leave me here, you can't leave me here, no, please don't leave me here." Anas pleas break Chase's heart.

"Hey, hey, look at me," Chase says, moving Ana to have her back against the wall. She cups Anas face with her hands,

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you, okay? I've taken thousands of these things out before. I want you to sit with your back pressed against the wall, okay? Close your eyes and cover your ears like this," Chase says, maneuvering Anas hands flat over her ears. "Start counting, and I promise I'll be back before you get to 100, Ana, I swear, okay? but I need to go, and I need to do it now." Ana spastically nodded her head and shut her eyes before the threatening tears escaped, pulling her knees up and curling in on herself. Chase stood staring at her for a moment, then loaded an arrow into her bow and stepped into the open where the Dower could see her. She took a few steps into the town and stopped.

"Hey, asshole!" She shouted. The Dower turned to face her and let out a low, ferocious growling sound, black liquid pouring from its mouth. "Yeah! Remember me?" Chase yells, firing off an arrow, missing it narrowly at this distance. "Shit." She curses. She was never great with a bow. It let out a vicious screech and took off towards her. She rotated her bow back over her shoulder and pulled the black machete from its sheath on her hip. She swung at the creature, slicing its right arm clean off from the center of the forearm. It screamed and flailed a clawed hand towards her. Skillfully, Chase dropped to the ground, leaping up under its claw, shoving her machete through the underside of its jaw, straight through the top of its head. The creature didn't even have a chance as she pulled the blade from its skull, and it hit the ground with a sickening thud.