The woods were red. Moon light scratched at the surface of the forest floor but it’s light barely made it through the thick ceiling of blood red leaves encompassing the forest air. The dark woods echoed with a deafening silence as creatures great and small stood still and alert, waiting.
*step*

The animals scurried, they knew what happened when new prey arrived.

“N-Nika?” A trembling voice accompanied by a large frame moved into the stray strands of light. “I-I don’t wanna be here!”

Gun was not happy. He didn’t want to be in the spooky woods and he didn’t want to have to fight a monster and he definitely didn’t want to be out at night in a place called “The Forest Of Deadly Deadly-ness” which he felt wasn’t even close to foreboding enough of a name for this place. Gun would rather be back at Death City where he could have something good to eat and watch TV but no, they had to be in this scary place!

“It’s alright buddy..” Came Nika’s voice in his ear. The lithe youth was riding piggy back as usual, too lazy to walk on his own, especially when his very muscular-easy-to-carry-me-around friend was happy to assist. He yawned as they walked deeper into the forest. “We just have to get the soul and then we’ll be on our way home.” He said with a sleepy smile before resting his head on his friends back.

“DON’T GO TO SLEEP!!” Gun demanded, his voice shaking the trees. “Crap!” He shut his mouth immediately after realizing what he’d just done. He knew he was looking for the thing but he didn’t want to alert it, or anything else, early. I mean, he wanted to help but he was also kind of hoping that this was all a huge misunderstanding and that there wasn’t actually a giant beast out here. He knew that wasn’t true though, he could tell by the prints that there was definitely a creature here.
It was strange, the tracks looked like they belonged to a bipedal animal but the shape of the footprints were clearly not human. He didn’t think exotic animals existed outside of the mountains.
Which is why I didn’t want to be here…

“Hey.” The pair of arms around his neck tightened lightly, lazily nudging his cheek.. “Don’t be afraid, it’s just like a hunt in the mountains, even easier without snow to slip on or mountains to fall off of.” He went back to resting. “We’ll be okay somehow, it’s just a wild animal, right?” The pink haired mystic waited for a response before realizing they had stopped moving.

He knew what that meant.