"Rock. Paper. Scissors!"

"Rock. Paper. Scissors!"

"Rock beats scissors, you're climbing up Ace."

"Damn it!"

For a couch potato who had never climbed two stairs in one step, climbing a tree is something he never figured he would be doing willingly. This is probably the highest calorie burn he has had in a single day in the past year.

"Kiaaa!!!"

But he had a good motivation to push him through this. And the motivation being the disinterest in running forever from becoming a cold meal for a skinless gorilla, in a swamp filled with worms that liked to play angel.

"Climb up, and get a clear view of the surroundings."

In a damp dense swamp their vision was quite limited, and they couldn't see anything past a few metres. The fact that these twisted trees in this swamp grew wide enough to block out the entire sky did not help in understanding the surroundings. Someone had to climb to the top to have a better idea about the forsaken place they found themselves in. Fortunately, these twisted trees had deep groves to grab onto and climb.

"Do you see anything useful?"

Looking around cautiously, he asked in a voice just loud enough for Ace to hear.

"It's an unending swamp with a grey sky, but I see something weird in one direction. It's like a big ball of light suspended in air, but heavily covered by the weird fog and clouds."

"What? Damn it, I am coming up!"

In a swamp infested with worms and demons, with no food or water to survive on, they had to be sure on the decisions they took from here on out.

"Why make me climb if you were going to climb anyway?"

And as usual, Ace was just petty about the smallest things, who knows when this man is going to finally grow up.

"Don't be a baby, and scoot over a bit."

It was just as Ace described, it looked like a ball of yellow light suspended in mid air. But there was a subtle shadow below it that suggested that it didn't really float in thin air.

"Ace, doesn't that looks like a tower...with a ball of light on top of it."

"Kiakiakiakia!"

"Kekekekekeke!"

Just as Shree pointed his finger towards the light, screams came out from that direction.

"Do you hear that? Because that sounded like our death."

"You got a better idea?"

"Not really, let's go."

Shree and Ace made a mental note of the direction and started climbing down. They had no supplies, and that meant that they won't last long in this swamp once they depleted their energy. The swamp water was muddy with a rich population of worms, bugs and leeches to say the least. There was no way that these two could live after taking a gulp of the swamp water filled with protein.

"Ace, if those things are in that direction, then there's a good chance they have food nearby."

"And by food, you mean something similar to us?"

"Or just more of us."

They had to be alert, neither of them remember how they defeated those demons. If they ran into more of those things, they had no idea how to defeat them again. They nodded at each other and started walking at a good pace as to not tire themselves out.

"What are the chances that it's not just us that got dragged here into this swamp?"

Ace kept his voce as low as possible as he asked, it would have been ideal if they just didn't make any sound. But whether either of them showed it or not, they knew they were understandably nervous to an extent. They had to calm themselves down somehow, and usually talking to someone does the trick.

"Where were you right before you got pulled into this place?"

"New Jersey."

"I was in India."

Ace's eyes widened a bit before they sharpened more than before. The implications of what this meant was just that terrifying.

"That means this mess isn't necessarily limited to a small area."

"There might be more people stuck in this swamp like us, or maybe even places that we don't know."

Their steps stalled for a moment upon realising that the people they knew might be stuck somewhere in this swamp or even places much worse. They could have already become a cold night meal or got kissed by an angel made of worms.

The swamp was undoubtedly weird, but it only got weirder as they kept walking. The little light that peaked through the canopy never dimmed, and nor did it brighten after 10 hours of walking. Both of them were exhausted by the never ending swamp, and presently their chance of living was looking quite dim just like the swamp.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Come take a walk with me, I will show you the best night you ever had."

"Shree did that 2 foot frog just talked."

"Oh, so it's night right now Ace."

"Seriously that's your take away from that?"

"We have seen stranger things today."

"You think we can eat it?"

"Ace!?"

In the 10 hours they walked, they saw many different creatures which looked like normal animals from Earth, but that's just it, they only 'looked' like them. Thankfully they hadn't come across any demons that would have made them run a marathon in a swamp. But after walking for such a long time, they were starving and fully dehydrated.

"Arf!"

"Ace, that's a chihuahua right?"

"This must be the birthplace of those monster dogs. It isn't even talking like the other...things."

Shree laughed as he looked at the dog in front of them. It looked like a chihuahua that had been infested by the black water in the swamp. It was radiating a foul black aura around its body.

"I thought they were already in their final demon form on Earth. Hahaha!"

"Kiakiakiakia!"

The real horror for humans is not when something scary jumps at them when they least expect it. And it is not when they are facing an abomination, but right in the middle of these two scenarios. When they know it's nearby, and it depends on them if it just passes by, or decides to give them a warm hug. And so, there were a lot of moments in the past 24 hours that made their heart skip a beat. But this was the first time that they almost peed their pants today.

Both of them hid behind the trees closest to them, as a matter of fact, three of them including the chihuahua. They held their breath and bladder, just hoping this moment would pass without any problems. But unfortunately for them, there was a demon in their midst, and this wasn't the demon they were expecting to be bitten by.

"Kiaaa!"

An ear scraping scream came from right behind them. The chihuahua hiding behind a nearby tree all of a sudden started barking and rolling around as if it was getting angrier. From these two's understanding of a chihuahua, they were already mad at everything in the world from birth. But it was affected somehow by the demon's scream, making it more irrational than they normally were. It raced out of the shadow it was hiding in, trying to bite Shree's right leg.

He managed to grab the chihuahua by its mouth to make it stop barking and its attempts to bite. And then turned to look at Ace, who was staring behind him with an empty pair of eyes. Shree didn't need to look back to know what was behind him.

"Here catch a fellow demon!"

A demon in front, trying to bite his leg, and another one behind him that would probably take a bite of more than just his leg. He grabbed onto whatever he could of on the chihuahua, something that felt like a collar around his neck. And then threw it behind him unhesitatingly.

"Shree run!"

The collar came off when he threw the chihuahua, but he didn't have the time to look at it. He stuffed it in his pocket, and started running behind Ace who was heading deeper into the swamp in the general direction of the light.

"Kiaaaak!"

They looked back for a second and saw a chihuahua biting the eyes of a screaming demonic cow with white eyes. It had the same characteristics as the other demons that these two saw, no skin, and dangling organs with black blood dripping out of them. And for some reason, a chihuahua fighting a demon cow didn't seem too unnatural. As the chihuahua gnawed at its eyes, the other two ran for their lives.

"If we milk it, do you think it would still give milk?"

"Seriously Ace!?"

"I am dehydrated okay! I see light in front of us, just run!"

There was a bright yellow light peeking out of the trees in front of them, the same light they had followed for hours. The swamp was getting brighter as they ran towards the light, and the water seemed to get purer as they headed towards the light. And by the grace and courage of the demonic chihuahua race, it seemed the cow did not follow them.

The trees cleared, and the dark grey sky was finally in full view. They were running up a mound made of dark mud. And In a distance from them was a tower with a yellow torch on top of it. One that burned with a brilliant golden colour that radiated out for tens of kilometres. They thought, perhaps the gods were tired of playing with these two, and finally decided to show them a way out of their misery.

"Ace let's jump down the mound and head straight for the tower!"

Shree jumped down right after Ace, only to freeze up and stand by him as they stared on in front of them.

"Kiik?"

"Kuk?"

"Piii?"

The gods really did give them a way out, it was just not a way that these two would appreciate. A group of demons can perhaps be called a Herd. And so, there was a herd of demons in front of them starting right into their souls.

"Don't you think this is happening a bit too often to us than it normally is supposed to, Ace?"

They have encountered the same scene three times in the last 24 hours, or at least the last 24 hours when they were conscious.

"How often is normal?"

"Never is the normal amount."

"..."

"KIAAAK!!"

A cacophony of screams, one that would even wake up a dead man from his eternal sleep. Ace was ready to meet his grandpa in hell, and Shree remembered the last words he ever heard from his father.

"Son, I went though your search history. And we need to talk."

They weren't really helpful words for the scenario they were in, to say the least. And just as a two legged weird demon pounced on them, they saw a brilliant yellow ray of light blow its brains out. Silence descended for a moment as it fell down, but just for less than a second.

BAM!

The sound of a shot fired. Most guns shoot bullets that are faster than the speed of sound, and so the bullet arrives faster than the sound of it being fired.

"I will cover for you!Swim through the pool and touch the Lighthouse! You have to move fast if yo-"

A man's voice came from the top of a tree almost a kilometre away. The only way for him to save these two frozen chickens was to cover for them while they made a run for the tower. He wanted to stress the urgency of the matter, that time was of the essence. But he stopped mid-sentence after he saw the two men in front of the herd of demons were missing.

Ace and Shree started running the moment they head 'I will cover for you'. He was speechless, but at least they made a good call. There was a dark pool of water surrounding the small patch of land the lighthouse stood on. They knew that the so called 'Lighthouse' wasn't normal, it was barely 50 metres tall, but they could see its light from tens of kilometres through that thick fog and clouds.

BAM!

BAMMM!

Shots were being fired continuously as they ran without looking back or sideways, all they looked at while running was the lighthouse. It wasn't even a kilometre away from them, they were exhausted but they finally felt hope that they might live through this nightmare. Rays of yellow light constantly burned through the demons in their path, and the ones trying to attack them.

"Ace jump!"

"You think the water's cold!?"

"Really Ace!?"

The water was as cold as ice, but they had no choice. They dove right into the pool of water to make their final push towards the lighthouse. But the pool of water was quite weird, it felt heavy as if someone was pulling them down to hell, where they rightfully belonged.

Thankfully there were no surprises that popped up from the pool of water as they swam towards the lighthouse. And by the time they reached the swath of land the lighthouse stood on, they didn't have the slightest energy to even crawl to the lighthouse.

"Get up you two, come on you are almost there! Damn it, give me your hands."

They slowly turned their head to see a woman running towards them. She was like a ray of sunshine that came to save them, beautiful brown eyes and a short black hair that reached her shoulders. They stretched their hands out to finally wake up from this nightmare.

BAM!

And then a yellow ray of bullet went through her, exploding her into a puddle of worms. Focus returned fully into their eyes, and so did rage.

"Oh for Fuck's sake!"

"Oh for Fuck's sake!"

I am sure that these two are more alike than they ever imagined.