Mono opened his eyes to find he was not curled up around a sleeping Six in a dusty old library. He slowly blinked a few times to moisten his eyes. Clearing his vision, he looked of his surroundings. It was dark the only things he could see were the few feet in front of him. Rising to his feet he dusted himself off only to find that when he patted his pockets, the book was gone.

Suddenly a noise grabbed his attention to the left.

A Heartbeat.

Squinting in the dark concrete room he tried to see anything move. To his right he heard something different.

Static.

He started backing away from both sounds clutching his head as an electronic squeal pierced his eardrums. Falling to his knees when the screech stopped, and he heard two more sounds.

Six screaming and the slow stepping of heavy stiff footsteps.

He remembered that rhythmic pattern of walking and began following the sound of Six's screaming. The footsteps drew closer and closer. The static beginning to influence the world around him. The hallway he now stood in grew more and more spacious. The walls beginning to crack and crumble as shifted in and out of itself. Then Mono saw an exit leading into a cluster of trees.

Six's voice echoed from them only causing Mono to run even faster.

The sound of a heart beating and those footsteps quickening their pace.

Mono ran out into the woods as he spotted Six. She lay on the forest floor beaten and bloodied. Her body lay cornered by shut off TVs. Mono then noticed the static that surrounded the forest. He saw how the Static began to warp the forest. Trees bending in all manner of direction, animals falling to the ground, but they did not die. They transformed into such horrible beasts with disfigurements of all kinds. Changes like elongated jaws, herbivores growing fangs, extra limbs sprouted from their bodies, predators becoming cannibalistic as they tore each other apart, and their limbs bent out of proportion. Mono ignored them for the time being as he kept running to get Six. As he entered the circle of devices a massive bloody claw snatched her up.

Mono could only see the silhouette as it dangled Six high above it and opened its maw. Within a second the creature let her go and she fell into this canyon of teeth. Mono fell to his knees at the loss of Six.

The footsteps finally caught up to him and he turned around. He couldn't believe his eyes as he saw the Thin Man as he was before all the changes. The Thin Man slowly glitching his hand and Mono braced for the pain. Finding none he looked up to see the Thin Man reaching behind him. The TVs flickered on and Mono saw the eyes peering at him from behind the screen. But they were not the eyes of the Tower. These screens depicted two different types of eyes: some of them a stormy blue and others a violent silver.

They were his own eyes and upon having that realization the North Wind descended upon him.

Six sat at a large dinner table adorned with the finest of delicacies. She and Mono had made it to the MAW. They took down the Lady and set out to what they planned to do by making this place a haven. Six was sitting right next to Mono who was giving some sushi a taste. Six could only giggle at the slightly weird reaction Mono had popping a roll into his mouth. Oh Mono, they had been through so much together. Through thick and thin always saving each other always being there for each other.

They were never alone.

Mono excused himself from the table as he walked away towards the kitchens to have a small word with the cooks. The cooks, Six and Mono would need to replace them soon with someone normal who could cook. Just so they wouldn't have to live the paranoia of having to make sure they don't become the next meal.

She put away that thought for now she was wondering what was taking Mono so long to get back. She looked out over the balcony of where she sat to see the hundreds of guests who were still suckling and stuffing meat into their mouths. Six shuddered in disgust but remembered that by them doing that…

They were slowly killing themselves out.

So, Six paid them no mind and went to help herself to some of the caviar. Before she put the spoonful of fish eggs in her mouth one of the chefs wheeled out the door. Pushing a cart and a silver platter with a cover on top of it. The saggy faced chef refilled Six's drink and placed the platter on the table. Offering her a small bow gestured to the platter before grabbing the handle and pulling the lid off.

Six reeled back in shock covering her mouth. It was Mono, all cooked up and served on a silver platter. His skin turned brown and leathery, his head completely scalped, his eyeballs were gouged out, and his tongue cut and set to the side. The chef looked at her questioningly before realizing something and grabbed a pepper grinder from the cart. The chef sprinkled Mono's cooked body with an assortment of spices.

Six launched back from her chair in disgust as she dashed over to the balcony. Almost not making it in time as bile reached the back of her throat. Releasing what remained of her guts she turned to look back at the chef with tears of angers in her eyes. The chef merely shrugged and with labored breathing grabbed the baked boy and flung him over the side.

The Guests didn't even hesitate as this new source of food dropped down to them. Six watched in horror as her love's dead body was pulled apart. Bones snapping and muscles tearing as the Guests grabbed his limbs and tugged. The guests viciously pulling meat from bone cramming their faces full of flesh. They then turned their gaze to Six who slowly took a step back in fear. She then saw something she hadn't before.

A lone figure standing in the back of the crowd adorned in what looked like a green cloak. It reached a bloody claw up and tore what was in actuality moss from its head. Six's breath quickened as she saw the horror in front of her. Standing 11 feet tall a slender figure stood in the back. Its head was that of deer with an elongated jaw with sharp gnarled teeth, long arms ended with razor sharp claws, and eyes containing only one thing.

HUNGER.

And then they both woke up.

Mono woke up with a start clutching his chest trying to get grasp on his breathing. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he gulped for air. Wiping his brow, he looked at his surroundings. He was in a small room but for some reason it was him sized. He could reach up on the bed standing up and reach the ceiling. Getting off the bed he went to go check a nearby vanity with a mirror. Staring deeply, he got a good look at his eyes. Bloodshot, there wasn't a spot of white in them. He then looked down to see that he'd once again been stripped of his coat. Looking in his reflection he saw a second bed behind him. Turning in her sleep was Six. Without her raincoat, only in the jumper she wore under it. She kept shaking her head wildly tossing and turning as she weakly mumbled.

"N-n-o not Mono." Tears streamed down her face, "S-s-stay away from me."

Mono immediately went to her side leaning over her. He began to gently shake her awake slowly humming the music box tune. Six's eyes shot open, and her head collided with Mono's. He collapsed to the floor clutching his head in pain while Six reached up to rub head in pain.

Blinking out white spots of pain Six looked down to the floor to see Mono rolling on the floor.

"M-mono are you okay?" Six finally getting up from the bed.

"Yeah, Six I honestly should have seen that coming but I was concerned about you. You were thrashing in the bed like you had a serious nightmare."

"I did can we please talk about it?" Six just needed to talk it out of her head.

Mono nodded, "If it's any consolation I had a pretty rough one too."

Six climbed back into bed with Mono following. They both laid down with Mono slowly combing her hair out with his fingers. Mono began detailing his frightful vision of being chased by the echoes of the Thin Man only to find Six being eaten by something in the woods under cover of darkness. Six attempted to bring herself closer to Mono in reassurance she wasn't going anywhere. He looked down a small tear leaving his eye.

"Now what about yours Six, how bad was it?"

Six began detailing what at first seemed like a pleasant dream where they had done what they set out to do. Only for it to take a dark turn with Mono being baked like a turkey and being served to Six. Six told Mono she refused rather violently, and the Cook tossed his cooked body to the hungry mass. Lastly Six told Mono about the creature she saw. Some kind of deer, headed creature with bloodthirsty eyes and never-ending hunger.

Mono's eyes looked up in realization as he remembered. "Okay so I actually may have seen something about that."

Mono subconsciously reached down to his pocket only to remember he didn't have the coat. He looked around the room to see the small book that had been placed on the bedside table next to his. He walked over to the book and started flipping the pages. Finding the right pages, he walked back over to Six handing her the book.

"I found that yesterday when I was checking the library for threats. I believed that in this cruel world any information I could gather on monsters will be useful." Six began reading the entries on the Monster as it was labelled.

"Incredibly fast, High strength, Extreme bloodthirst, Preferred habitat being woods and mountains, Prey: All but has been noted to target people at times." Six kept flipping through the pages, "Weaknesses: It can take all forms of damage with silver and fire working best, but it has a regenerative rate so this may be considered foolish." Six noticed scrawled in pen down low reading, "Perhaps poisoning the Monster could work." Six took a few minutes staring at the image of the creature a small amount of dread building up within her.

'In another life this was me.' Looking back on her previous life she remembered the few times she consumed human flesh to survive before she relied on eating monster souls. Both the Lady of the MAW and the Nome. Or rather the child she had consumed. It was one night in her quarters when she saw a Nome running past candlelight. She reached out to grab it when she saw the shadow on the wall did not match the Nome. It was that of a child and Six had the horrifying realization of that day.

When her Hunger called out for the Nome instead of the sausage.

She was taken out of her thoughts when Mono placed a comforting hand on her back. Six was about to say something when Mono quickly put a finger to his lips. Shaking his head, he nodded in the direction of the window. Both walked towards the window and saw their captor. An average sized old man was bent over a table working on something. He was wearing a cobbler, pockets filled with tools, his arms short for his figure, and his legs were still and stiff.

He lifted his arm to reveal he was working on a similar version of Mono's coat. They weren't exactly sure what the old man was doing with it. The old man then put the coat on an old wind-up toy. Winding the key up the old man gestured towards the two of them unaware that they were awake. The small toy nodded and began making its way over to the two of them. Mono and Six hid behind the door as the toy walked in. It was a small toy soldier with the coat still in its wooden arms. It turned around to see Six and Mono. The wooden toy dropped the coat and then began shaking. A small bell could be heard from within, and the Toy Maker put down his tools.

The Toy Maker then walked to the kid's little room and lifted the roof. Seeing the cowered forms of the two children he put his hand up to his chin. Or at least to where his chin would have been if hadn't lost his jaw and chin a long time ago. Ever so carefully he picked up the two children and placed them in his pocket. Walking back over to his worktable the Toy Maker prepared a small little cushioned sofa and placed the two kids upon it.

Mono and Six were incredibly confused that this monster was being incredibly kind to them. Most monsters don't do that, this had to be a trick. The Toy Maker reached down and rang a small bell. Through a set of doors leading back to the outside of town a wooden duck waddled over to the Toy Maker. The Toy Maker reached his hand out and his fingers split. The flesh of his fingers splitting more and more into smaller tendrils as they wrapped around the duck lifting it up to the table. In the toy duck's mouth was Six's raincoat. Ever so carefully the Toy Maker plucked it out of the toy's mouth and then began to examine the coat. The Toy Maker began pulling thread from the seams of the coat noticing small imperfections and wear and tear.

The Toy Maker then grabbed some spools of thread and a couple of needles. Using his many fingers, he set to work on repairing the yellow raincoat.

Six and Mono watching in awe of the Toy Maker's kindness looked around the room they were sitting in. It was an old storeroom in the back of a toy shop. Dust and dirt lining dolls, stuffed animals, toy vehicles, and metal music boxes. It had a sad atmosphere to it. Toys to never be played with, to never create small memories with children, and to never loved and appreciated. Mono and Six understood why the Toy Maker took them like he had. They were children unaffected by the Tower's Broadcast. Perhaps the Toy Maker's last chance to do what he loved to. Bringing joy to a child's face from one of his many creations.

A small groan of joy came from the Toy Maker as he completed his work. Picking up the small cloth he presented it to Six who gingerly took it from his paper dry hands.

She stared at it for a couple of seconds. Remembering who wore this before and how she felt when put it on for the first time. When she slipped it on it felt completely different. It now felt a little more comfortable. Giving her a little extra wiggle room and a few extra pockets for carrying things. She looked up to see the Toy Maker awaiting a response. She smiled and nodded her head in approval.

The Toy Maker clapped his hands and glee when he felt a small object poke him in the leg. The Toy Maker looked down to see that Toy Soldier still holding the coat. Once again extending his fingers he plucked the coat from the soldier and presented it to Mono. Mono noticed that instead of fixing the coat, like it did for Six, the Toy Maker completely replicated.

What was once olive green was now a dark gray. The key ring had also been taken off given extra pockets. Mono held it in his hands before slipping it over his shoulders. Just like his old coat it felt like a wonderful comfort to him. He too, nodded his thanks to the Toy Maker who clapped once again. He then picked up Six and Mono and began walking towards the door to his toy shop.

Before leaving though the Toy Maker heard a small, "Oi!" Looking down he saw the boy waving his arms to get his attention. The Toy Maker then placed them on his counter to see what the boy wanted. When the boy pointed over to one of the shelves the Toy Maker saw what he wanted.

Mono wasn't ready to leave the shop quite yet when a thought struck his mind. Out of concern for Six he wanted to get her something that would help her sleep. Getting an idea, he got the Toy Maker's attention. When he was set down, he pointed to one of the shelves that contained many different music boxes. Six looked at Mono in confusion.

"Why do you want a music box Mono?"

"It's not for me Six it's for you to calm you down during sleep."

The Toymaker grabbed what looked to be a sheet of paper and pencil awaiting something from the two. Cluing in Mono began humming the music box's tune. He got so into it he hadn't noticed for a few seconds as a second voice joined him. Opening his eyes, he saw Six holding out a hand for him. He took it still humming it as he joined Six in a small waltz. Dancing across the countertop as they let tune carry them in slow embrace. Step by step Six looked in the vast ocean and stormy sky that were Mono's eyes and Mono looked back into the beautiful stars that were Six's. Twirling one last time Mono dipped Six down about to give her a kiss when they were interrupted by clapping. They both looked up to see that the Toy Maker was finished and merely watched them dance together for those last moments.

Collecting themselves Mono and Six walked up to the Toy Maker who presented them the Music Box. It was covered in a myriad of vibrant colors. It was engraved, not with eyes, but with a couple dancing the night away. Both smiling to each other they gladly accepted the music box and began walking them to the door. The Toy Maker held the door open for them and waved them off. Closing the door, the Toy Maker wiped his eyes of small tears of joy. He knew he wasn't going to live for much longer, so he was glad that he got his last request fulfilled.

"So, what now Mono?"

"I'm not too sure Six. I think we should start looking for supplies we can gather."

"Do you think we'll meet other monsters like that Toy Maker?"

"I'm not too sure but one can certa-"

Mono was interrupted as the sounds of gunfire rang nearby.