Romance is Dead

Chapter 11 - Reaper

After a long silence of walking to our home and being relived to finally see the trail coming to an end but what we saw wasn't something we expected to see

long scratch marks along the truck of our tree in our oak tree going up to our tree house and these claw marks don't look like bear's claws

they are going way more deeper inside the trunk they look like the claws of a Reaper

"is that a Reaper's claw marks?" Zira whispers it

I stay silent because she knows it is

"What are we gonna do? Are we going up there or"
Zira stops to think on what to say next
"We can't leave like that?! Where do we go?"

I can't decide whether to climb up or leave without making sound

and I think I'm gonna regret making this decision

"You stay here, I'll go check it out" as I start to walk towards the tree

"No way, I'm coming with you"

"Look we both can't go up there because it could kill us both if I don't say come up don't come up"

"And do what? Leave you if you get eaten? And what am I gonna do? I'd die as well after a few days, you die, I die simple so let's just go up there and check"

"Okay fine but you have to promise me if something happens to me you have to leave"

"nope I'm coming back to save your ass, now move"

and she starts climbing the rope ladder before I can even say another word

"Why can't you listen to me for just once?" I say with a sigh and start climbing behind her

and once she reaches the entrance she opens it and pushes it out of the way and pulls herself up and disappears for a second before coming back and giving me a hand

"Come on quick!" she says in a hurried whisper

I grab her arm and she pulls me into our sweet home and once we're inside I quickly look around pulling my hatchet out and Zira pulling her bat of her bag and unwraps the piece of cloth that covers the nails of that bat

We both start to lookaround quietly walking trying not to make a sound in this wooden floor, Isuddenly hate that this place is big for a tree house and how there is 2individual rooms and a freaking hall to this place I mean why does a tree houseneed 2 bedrooms?

but I bring myself back to focusing on every sound and noise without panickingand worrying now

we slowly start to come to the darkest part of the house it isn't necessarilypitch black but since this part is covered by tree's branch and leaves it isquite dark and cool

and suddenly we hear a sound something like breathing or a hitch in breathing,I look to Zira and she looks at me shocked and we realize what ever came inhere didn't leave

we both step back and think of what we're gonna do we can't go in and justattack it and neither can we leave it in here but the main question is why isit in here like why hasn't it left yet, the scratches seemed to be made like inthe morning or maybe even before morning but it still hasn't left this place

but before I start thinking for the answers we get the idea on what to do

I pull Zira in the room and slowly whisper to her

"I'll lure it out and you stay behind this wall and I'll stay in the other roomand when you hear me yell come out and hit it and please don't hit me"

she nods, she nervous and seems to be panicking but this is probably the onlyway

I look out to the dark room and nothing seems to be coming out so I quickly gointo the other room and I grab a tin can that was on the floor and I throw itto the side opposite to the dark room

and once it hit the ground and made the rattling noise I gripped on to myhatchet and machete really hard and wait for a sound

and wait

and I hear slow and subtle footsteps and a low growling noise coming from theother side of the wall and I can smell the rotten meat and stink just a footaway from me and I can hear the growl clear as day it's almost like if it wasactually in front of me

and once I notice it near my doorway I gripped on to my hatchet as hard as Iever can and close my eyes for a second and pray to god and before fear takesover me

I go out of the doorway and I yell

"NOW!!"

and as soon as I said that it turned quickly to me and I had to look at itshideous half rotten face and red dust covering its full face and it showing itsteeth like a dog being threatened

but it was too late I hit it in the head with my hatchet a little bloodspraying out and it crashed on the ground

and Zira comes out and hit directly at the head of my hatchet and it drives myhatchet even deeper inside its head I can feel the hatchet breaking andentering its skull, a really smart move to be honest, that has to be oursignature move from now on

I am relived at the thought that it was dead and I suddenly felt something grabmy ankle and pull me and before I even had a second to process this

my back hits the wooden floor and before I can even open my eyes I feelsomething pull my body and I can smell the rotten meat again and when I openedmy eyes and see that its right on top of me looking at me with my hatchetstruck in it head and as I just froze in the fear that I was about to die

Zira grabs the handle of my hatchet and pulls it, it was so deeply in its headthat the Reaper was pulled off of my body and went across the hallway and Zirahits it again in the other side of its head

and it knocks against the wall and it is on the ground too weak to move Ziralooks around and finds my machete on the floor

and as the Reaper start to get up again looks at me again with its black eyeshungry to devour my flesh

Zira grabs my machete and chops the head of the Reaper with a grunt and thehead drops to the floor and so as thebody which got up



She turns around with worry in her face and comes towards me quickly droppingthe bat and the machete at either side of me

"Are you okay?"

She looking all over my face and armstrying to see if I got scratched or bitten

"I'm okay but that was scary" I look at the body on the floor and I'm stillscared it might get up

"I thought it bit you, God Reece you scared me so bad, be careful dumbass, youalmost got killed"

"Hey look I'm good, you saved me from that thing, you were soooo cool when youtook that thing down"

"Oh god stop I was sooooo scared honestly I didn't even think about what I wasdoing"

"But still it was cool and we seriously need to do that move more often"

"I know right! The one where I hit your hatchet with my bat driving it insideit's skull, that was honestly sooooo cool, okay what are we gonna do about thebody?"

"we're gonna have to leave it there, Zira"

"What? Why? It's gonna start to stink in here"

"We're gonna have to leave this whole place, Zira" and with that her face growssad

"You know we have to leave to this is not just one Reaper, we heard another onelast night as well and that was on the other side of this town that means therewere 2 and maybe even more out there and this one was able to find where welive which means it smelled our scent in here, we have to leave to this town"

"Where are we gonna go and how are we going to leave? I mean there isn't asingle town nearby and besides we can't leave today itself"

"Let's get everything we need and pack up and go to a house a little far awayfrom here and stay there for the night and tomorrow morning we'll leave"

"And go where?"

"For now let's just think about getting out of this town"

And with that she slowly gets up and pulls me onto my feet, she knows this isthe best thing to do if we have to survive it's the only way and its gonna behard but if we're lucky this will soon get better

"Oh wait maybe you go and clean all of our weapons in the river and freshen upand I'll pack everything I can and then once you're done while I clean myselfyou get all the vegetables that are ready for harvest, we don't want the odorof rotten meat they'll smell us out"

"Okay" is all I get
she's not liking this one bit, she doesn't wanna leave and I understand thatbut we have to leave if we want to survive