I wake up to the rustling of silk and a clinging of bells. An aroma of jasmine and germanium sweeps into the base of my nostrils. I hear clattering laughter from behind me. Sitting up, I notice my hands are painted with red. Is it blood? I sniff the palm of my hand only to smell an acrid odor. It really is just paint. So was everything I saw…an illusion? No, it can't be there's his face mask seated on the foot of the futon, but wasn't there blood on it? Confused, I clench a handful of hair from the back of my head.

An onslaught of chattering rouses me out of my muddled thoughts. "Is she still here?" "Yeah, what is it a problem?" A brawny man with pink lips is leaning over the shop counter decked with pieces of red, purple, and green silk. In his left hand were three receipts, and in his right a very long pipe. Across from him, leaning against the pillar of a tall hanger with a motley array of kimonos were hanging, is the same man I encountered the other day with the white hair. "Eh…if my customers figure out it won't be good for business ya'know?" "Don't worry, she'll probably escape from here before you know it."

Taking his advice, I hastily look for my gun and find it behind a row of silk robes hanging in a dusty wardrobe. I take one last furtive glance at my surroundings then leap out from the only window in the entire shop that happened to be in this room. It overlooked a river of tar. The moment I opened the window latch I hear the silver haired man shout "There she goes!"

I dart across the bridge, and crash into him. Within a split second my gun is snatched away from me. "Hey, I thought you would let me go!" Mr. Fox Mask waves the gun tauntingly over my head "I changed my mind. You see, I thought it over, and I have a proposition to make." "A proposition?" "Why, yes..." I glue my eyes onto his mask and nod my head. Still swinging my gun over my head, he starts off in a low voice, "Too many of my kind have been killed, and now I'm next in line. I've done pretty well avoiding death, but…It would be to me advantage if I had a sharpshooter like you as a partner." I furiously shake my head, "I refuse to kill humans, and they are not my prey. Only animals such as…" "Myself?" He scoffs. I take a good look at him, everything appears human, but if what those men showed me are his accomplices then he must be like them too. "I'm sorry, but you might become my next prey…" He sighs, "This just strengthens my resolve to NOT hand you back your gun…" My eyes widen and blood rushes to my cheeks. I puff out, "But you can't…It's my grandfather's…" "Then will you promise to JOIN me? I'm willing to pay you handsomely if money is what you want…" "Alright…, but I will only cause diversions .I refuse to murder humans." And from that day forward I was more or less of a decoy to a hunted animal.