The Monstrous crocodile lingered in the water, ignoring the rapids within the river. No one moved, not Zain, not Brayden, not even the cat they had been chasing.

  Finally, after what felt like eternity, the cat dropped into a sneaking stance then tried to slink away.

  Bad move.

  The beast immediately moved its gaze over to it, dipping its head for a moment before it lunged out of the water. At full force, it shot through the air, snapping its maw as it slammed into the wall.

  Narrowly, the cat had dodged, running towards the two boys, the eyes of the croc following its prey.

  Not good!!

  Without even waiting to see if it would follow, the two boys started running in opposite directions. Brayden fled for the exit, narrowly making it through the entryway before the monstrous crocodile lunged at him again, its snout flapping open and close as it narrowly missed its mark.

  It growled in frustration before glancing over at Zain, who had stupidly gone the other way. It seemed as if the cat shared the same stupid idea because they stood right by one another, collectively shitting themselves because there was nowhere else to run.

  The crocodile withdrew slightly back, slowly realizing that it was futile to continue going after Brayden. It let out a disgruntled snarl before it turned to the other two standing on the sidelines. With its claws scratching the concrete, its tail whipping with the momentum of its sudden turn, the behemoth came for them at full force.

  In one fluid motion, Zain scooped up the cat then ran for the river; adrenaline fueled his steps, desperation clouded his judgement as he tried to jump across. The cat gripped his side, knowing the death sentence and the impending plunge in the water, but Zain felt nothing in that moment except fear.

  He crested over, his zenith short lived as he registered that they would not make it to the other side. Before gravity could take hold of him, he tossed the cat onto the other side, accepting that at least it could get away. He closed his eyes and held his breath, bracing for the water below.

  However, instead of the freezing rapids, something cold and solid was below his footfall; ice had frozen the river in full, with a gripping chill filling the room.

  The air fogged as Zain tried to get his breath under control. Who had frozen the river was the pertinent question; even though Zain hoped he had somehow done it, he knew that it had to be through someone else’s interference.

  A loud cackling came from the tunnel, a loud pattering of footsteps echoed as someone emerged atop the frozen river.

  “Found ya, ya bastard! I’m sorry your owners abandoned you, but ya ate someone and ya must atone for that.” The strange man shouted from the shadows.

  The man slid down, his steel toed shoes scraping the ice as he came downward; behind him, on his back was a giant cleaver which he balanced with one arm.

  With minimal effort, he lifted his weapon toward the beast, the frigid air fogging around him as he made a declaration, “I’ve got a job to do, and you’ve got nowhere else to go bitch!”

  The beast had completely abandoned its previous goal of chasing after Zain as it stared at the strange man, its eyes narrowed in alert and it stepped back slightly in alarm. There was no outlet big enough for it to escape to, because they were now obscured by ice so it was now cornered.

  It must have realized this as it let out a low grunt and growl, and it bared its jagged teeth at the man, clamping forcefully as if warning him to step away.

  The man did not relent, as he took one step forward, unintimidated by the raging beast. One step is all it took for the beast to switch into offensive mode, as the scutes of its back immediately lifted and the scales along its midline darkened in color.

  Its teeth appeared to gnarl and contort, its claws strengthened as they dug into the ground, and its pupils widened into completely black state.

  Such a monstrous display sent a chill down Zain’s spine, he was unsure what the giant was going to do next. However, in spite of all that, the man remained calm. In fact, a smile crept on his face as he cockily remained unimpressed.

  “Oh? Ya wanna play with me now?” He lowered himself slightly, readying his cleaver. “OKAY! LET’S FUCKING GO!”

  Without wasting a second, a blade of ice shot towards the crocodile, narrowly missing as the beast hopped out of the way. In the same motion, it countered by grabbing the ice in its mouth, then twisting its body in a devastating roll.

  The floor and ceiling cracked, with the tumble disturbing everything in the vicinity. Zain ran towards the walls, holding his head hoping nothing dropped on him. Giant pieces of ice slung everywhere, causing the man to move back in order to evade the chaotic mess.

  “Hey! Stop that!” The man whined, not amused that the crocodile had used his own ice against him. After he was a fair distance away, he took a deep breath to focus himself.

  A giant piece of ice hurled his way, but he remained unmoved as he tensed the muscles in his forearms. Using the cleaver, he lifted it in order to cleanly split the ice in two, a blade of water rippling across the room.

  The blade of water appeared to bisect the room in half, undeviating from its path as it slammed its force into the spinning crocodile.

  It yowled in pain and irritation, its tail whipping chaotically behind it as it planned to retaliate. Mud appeared around the underside of the raging animal, a sludge which darkened as it fanned outward, melding with the blood the man had drawn.

  It flicked its tail towards the man, drawing up some of its conjured mud towards him; midway to its target, the sludge splintered and hardened into earthy spikes. Its tail whipped many times as it relentlessly attacked him.

  These attacks were made in more desperation as they were not easily aimed; consequently, some fractured and almost hit Zain. The onslaught was too much for him to skillfully dodge, so he covered hit vitals, hoping that it would not hurt too much.

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  Instead, when he closed his eyes, he heard the sound of metal clanging and rocks breaking apart. Zain slowly opened his eyes, witnessing the man standing in front of him, waving his cleaver in order to ward off the attacks.

  “Okay! That's enough! Wall!” And with a quick thrust upward, a wall of ice conjured in front of him. The man looked behind him, flashing a small, sharp toothed smile. “Sorry you two, I’ll end this quickly so don’t be scared.”

  He gave a reassuring thumbs up and a wink before he ran out from the wall’s protection.

  Two?

  Zain glanced behind him, finally noticing that the cat had hidden behind him. It had been using him as cover apparently.

  He focused back on the man, watching as he swung his cleaver and dodged every so often; eventually, when he was in an ideal position, he crouched low to the ground, holding his free hand in front of him, whilst readying his weapon behind his back. All of the muscles in his arms and legs tensed, his pupils widened, and he bared all of his sharpened teeth as he bellowed, “FILET!”

  A raging white wave rose as he propelled himself forward with it; the visage of a great white shark was somewhat visible as he moved seamlessly across the room. He raised his cleaver above his head, bringing it down as he faced the crocodile head on.

  A frosty wall of ice formed as he swung, cleaving the monster in two, down its spine to its tail. Its blood froze with the expanding piece of ice, preserving the beast like some display model.

  All around, everything halted; no one moved, and all that could be heard was the crunching of ice beneath the man’s feet.

  Some of the conjured magic disappeared: There were no more muddy shards; all that had been left behind was congealed blood of the monster in their place. Some of the ice began to melt as well, along with the water the man had summoned in his final move evaporating.

  “Well, that’s that. You can come out now! I killed it!” He called nonchalantly, as if he had not done something extraordinary just a second ago.

  Zain stood up after a few seconds, feeling a bit weightless and wobbly in the knees due to the amount of running he had been doing before. He picked up the cat, who was in a stupor as well, and walked cautiously towards the man who was next to the corpse of the giant crocodile. The cat sunk its claws into his flank due to its unease being next to the now dead creature.

  “Ummm….is it really dead?” It wasn’t gonna do one of those RPG revival things or something, like turn into a zombie crocodile or something worse?

  “What do you mean? Look at it. I chopped it in half. How dead do you want it?”

  “I think it’s dead, but who knows with this world! Nothing makes sense to me!”

  “Well trust me, its fucking dead. Don’t worry kid.” He gave a wide smile as he patted Zain on the back, encouraging him to touch it or something. But, hell no, he would not be doing that.

  “I-If you don’t mind me asking…What the hell was that?!” Brayden asked from behind the monster, finally being able to emerge from the doorway that had been blocked.

  The man almost jumped out of his skin, he whipped around, throwing fumbling karate chops as he looked at Brayden.

  “Fuck, you scared me! Where’d you come from, little guy?!” He lowered his hands, then tried to play it cool as he gave a brief explanation. “It was a swamp king crocodile. I bet it was someone’s pet that they illegally smuggled in, but it got too big or maybe they just didn’t want it anymore. Anyway, it ended up here and got fucking huge so I had to kill it.”

  Brayden seemed somewhat dissatisfied by the man’s lackadaisical response as he looked down, trying to formulate another question that he could ask.

  “Did someone send you to kill it then? Like are you an exterminator or something?”

  “Ah- Y’all are ethys, aren’t you? No. I’m not an exterminator or nothing, I just saw this poster at the job board and decided I needed to take care of it. Imma bout to claim my reward if you wanna come with?”

  Was it that obvious that they were ethereals? And the poster….Zain recalled seeing something similar…

  The man reached into his slightly sagging pants, then pulled out the poster in question. It was the same one Zain recalled seeing before, the one that seemed sketchy at best.

  Um…I’m not sure I wanna go to this craiglist shady location….

  He shot Brayden a few communicative looks, and Brayden nodded a bit in return.

  “We don’t want to bother you. Thank you for saving us but-”

  “Ah! It was no problem! To be honest it was my bad for chasing it down the tunnel, but I didn’t think some kiddos would be playing there. I’ll make it up to you! You can come with me to get the reward money and I’ll treat you to a meal! How bout that!” Before any more protest could come from the two, he wrapped his muscular arms around them, entrapping them into his spontaneous plans.

  “Wait, we-” Zain tried to interject, but the man continued to jabber on.

  “The ruins aren’t far from here. Y’know. I just got back from a trip and I was killing time when I saw this job listing. No one wanted to take it! I just thought, ‘Well, if no one's gonna take it, I guess I gotta!’ I know a few people who live in the ruins. They’s good people! They musta scrounged up as many credits as they could so they could post it, yet no one took it!”

  “I mean, I can guess why…The job was a bit-”

  “Yeah, I know! But its not like the city is gonna do jack about it! Someone’s gotta do it! Besides, I didn’t really wanna go back home anyway….”

  Zain just accepted that he was gonna have to go with this loud man as he just continued the conversation. “Why didn’t you want to go home?”

  “Ah- it’s nothing really. I just got into a big fight with my wife. I think I still need to be alone before I can go back…Oh look we’re here.” He pointed forward towards the ruins.

  Up ahead was a cluster of ruined buildings that had been at the mercy of water and time. Some were boarded up with makeshift windows and doors made from trash and other items. A few people wore mismatched outfits, hauling items around with them as they scavenged the waterways that ran through the city. It was like a homeless camp/city, with little children running around with broken toys and oversized clothes.

  The cat struggled in Zain’s arms before it wrangled itself free, running off in some random direction before it disappeared. Zain just let out a small huff, because that was all the effort he could put into a tantrum right now.

  As the group passed by, some of the residents hid themselves away, while others eyed the visitors. Zain felt a bit unsettled as he could feel eyes on him, subconsciously he stayed near the strange man.

  “I almost forgot! My name is Devante. Probably shoulda led with that, but oh well!”

  “Oh. Um, my name is Zain and this is Brayden. Nice to meet you. And thank you again for saving us. Can I ask where we’re going exactly?”

  “Oh yeah! Don’t worry, the people look scary, but they won’t mug you or anything. Especially not with me around. I’m going to a specific place in the center of the ruins where the leader of the ruins is. He’s the one who put up this reward. Once I talk with him, get some information too, then we can go to a nice restaurant that I like to go to in order to unwind.” He inhaled a bit, and drooped his head, “I’ve been kinda down in the dumps so I kinda need a breather. Plus food is better with company.”

  It's not like they had a say anymore, so Brayden and Zain nodded to the plans the Devante had made by himself. As they approached the center of the camp, a few of the buildings looked a bit better kept, as if the occupants had been there for longer and had a few more resources to build their homes. An old man with pale, pasty skin stepped out of a small shack; He looked like a shaman adorned in trash and strange stones. He turned his clouded eyes towards them, flashing a toothless grin as Devante came up to him.

  “You have taken care of the beast I presume?”

  “Yes I have, Cian.”

  The old man nodded to himself, before he took out his wrinkled hand. Outstretched was a singular coin with a 50 inscribed on it.

  Devante took it with care, bowing his head with respect to the trash man. The spectacle was so strange, Zain really did not know what to make of it.

  After the short exchange, the man opened his arms, smiling as he welcomed a long time friend. “It has been so long! Tell me, how was your travels!”

  Devante gave a slight smile, “It’s been alright.”

  The shaman gave a slight frown in return, shaking his head and throwing his hands up. “No good! Come, we must talk! Tell me what troubles you!”

  Devante ran his fingers through his hair, letting a slight sigh of defeat escape him as he turned to the two boys. “Sorry, I have to talk with him a bit. Could you two wait out here? I promise it won’t be too long. “

  And without a second thought, he followed the old man into his small shack, leaving the two boys alone outside.

  They both looked at one another, giving each other a look that spoke volumes to one another after being caught up in this whirlwind of a day.

  What now?