Silence was survival.

That was the unspoken rule among any sane person still alive in the shambles of this world.

Noise was bad. Noise brought danger , and along with the danger most likely death. Any sane creature who hadn't given in to the horrid corruption knew sound was bad. All conversations had between people were mostly quick whispers. In a world full of abominations roaming the land, most knew that talking was unwise.

Mono knew this as well as anyone else. Living mostly by himself, he had adjusted to keeping quiet whenever danger was close. And if the noise wasn't coming from you, you should probably start running from whatever was making the noise.

Now he was going against every rule he had learnt about staying safe. When he had originally snuck inside this house for looting purposes, he had heard what sounded like music. But that was impossible.

He had snuck inside, following the song downstairs, and he discovered that there was another person behind the door. Not some monster or mutated human, a real person . A girl, to be specific. In her grasp was a music box singing a soothing melody, courtesy of the girl cranking the handle. With how close she held it to her, she seemed to be quite infatuated with it.

Mono hummed as he spied on the unsuspecting stranger from the other side of the door. This day was not turning out as he originally foreseen it. He hadn't even planned on this rescue mission, it wasn't his fault that a tv spat him out back into the muddy forest! He had just wanted whatever was at the end of the hallway…

But as he had wandered the filthy forest, he just happened to follow a trail of multiple traps to a rather uninviting looking house. Curiosity was dangerous…

But that never stopped me, did it?

Once he had broken in, he had taken the stairs down, and heard the music box, leading him to discover the stranger behind the door. Mono's instincts had screamed at him to just leave , run as far from here as possible before he was caught. Another mouth to feed would not increase his chances of survival…

But an extra pair of hands would definitely help… And if I just left it would probably be kinda awkward, considering I came all the way here. And I wouldn't be able to shake the guilt… And she would be here until she starved. Well whoever she is, she was about to meet someone new, whether she liked it or not. I've made up my mind, Operation Prison Breakout is a go!

Mono let out a silent grunt as he brought down the axe, splintering the aged wood, causing the girl in the room to scramble back, no doubt terrified at the sight of some masked stranger chopping his way into her room. He finished breaking his way in, noticing the girl had ducked under a table in fear, looking at him with frightened eyes. Taking the silence as an invitation, he dropped the axe and walked right into the room.

She did not say a word.

Mono simply slowly approached the terrified girl, and crouched down whilst holding out his hand in a friendly gesture. "Psst, hey," He whispered. "I came to help you get out of here, I won't hurt you..." He used a voice as soft as possible, the last thing he wanted was to scare her. He watched as the girl stared at his hand, as if touching it would possibly burn her.

"We don't have much time," continued Mono, glancing over his shoulder as if something would appear behind him. "Whoever lives here could decide to come down at any second, and it'll be bad news for both of us."

He watched as the girl seemed to ponder his words and offer, and after several seconds of silence, slowly crawled forward, and seemed to be reaching to accept his help. Mono inwardly sighed in relief, grateful that he didn't have to say too much to get her cooperation, he really didn't want to take five or ten minutes explaining himself.

Mono had learned in his short life that it was probably in his best interest to keep his mouth shut at all times, or at least talk very, very quietly, as communication was still a very vital part of survival. He tried to stop himself from talking too much whenever he could. But he knew approaching her not saying a word wasn't the best course of action, the girl needed to know that he was friendly, and that there was no reason to be afraid o-

His thoughts were interrupted when Mono suddenly felt himself being pushed to the side as the girl shoved past him and proceeded to sprint out of the door, the pitter patter of her feet quickly getting fainter and fainter. Well, that just happened. Unfortunate.

Letting out a displeased grunt, he shot an irritated look at the door she just ran out of. "Or you could push me and run out," he blurted out loud, not bothering to lower his voice, "That works too."

That was something he still struggled with. Even with knowledge of one of the most important rules of survival, Mono still could not help himself. Talking was something he always strived to control. It didn't matter if he was with a group or by himself, he couldn't help but speak his mind out loud in most situations, even if danger was close.

He loathed keeping quiet, because the ache would start. Mono tried to keep his trap shut, but no matter what he did to control himself, he would just ache and ache until he finally caved and started prattling on.

Another thing he caught on to was how people found it annoying how he talked about the most random things. He would look at a dog, and ask the nearest person what dog they would be if they had to be one. God, he wishes he could control it at all times. The looks he gets from people when he starts babbling…

It had all started back when he learned to read. Mono had been fascinated with the english language, spending hours upon hours reading dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias. He loved learning new words to speak and use, it was endlessly entertaining to him. It was one of the few things available for enjoyment anyways. After he had stuffed his brain full of useless knowledge of the english language, he now used it as much as he could, since communication was vital in building trust.

Although communicating clearly did not work with her, considering she shoved me and ran out.

"Well that's a fine 'how do you do'," Mono said, picking himself off the floor."And here I thought she would be grateful that a masked man just chopped down her door."

Saying it out loud made him realize that he probably had scared the hell out of the poor girl. The terrified look on her face as he forced his way in with an axe was probably a sign that he wasn't making a very good first impression.

There was no sign of the girl, it was obvious she had gotten the hell out of dodge, and now Mono was by himself once more. "Well, it was fun while it lasted," he said to himself as he exited the room and proceeded to climb back up the stairs.

He knew he had to get out of here, before whoever lived here noticed their prisoner was MIA, and decided that Mono would make a good replacement. Ascending the stairs, he reached the top and turned to the corner and stopped in his tracks.

It was the girl, from earlier. She was peeking around the corner, her beady eyes glued to Mono.

Neither said a word. Neither moved.

Why hadn't she thrown herself out of the nearest window? If she was so desperate to escape that she'd shove past me, why wait? "Did you really just stand here waiting to see if I actually came u-"

She ran away.

"Oh, nice. I guess that's a yes, then. See ya."

Having nowhere else to go, he trailed after her once more, passing by the remains of an unfortunate family in a dining room. Climbing up a bookshelf to pass through a small opening in the wall, Mono saw the girl in the middle of the darkened room. She was jumping to pull a pulley connected to what seemed to be an attic door. However, she seemed to be too light, and didn't appear to be able to pull it completely down, letting go in defeat and falling down.

Mono decided to make an unceremonious entrance, and hopped down onto the floor. "You don't mind if I drop in, do ya?" Once more, the girl was startled by his second sudden entrance, and instinctively put her hands up, expecting an attack. Why was she surprised at me following her?

"No no, it's okay," Mono said, putting his hands up in a non hostile way. "I won't hurt you, I'm not like a masked maniac." He stopped to consider what he was currently wearing and what he had done, and put his hand to his chin. "Well, I know I'm not making a strong case for myself, considering I chopped down your door. But I assure you, I mean no ill… will? Harm? Look it's okay, I'm nice, alright?" Did I just say 'it's okay I'm nice'? That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever said.

She did absolutely nothing. Mono shuffled uncomfortably as the girl stared at him as if he just grew a second head. Although she did seem more relaxed, the defensive pose from earlier was considered it progress, but she still was completely silent.

"Giving me the silent treatment already? We've only known each other for about five minutes."

Still not speaking, the girl stared awkwardly at him, as if she was trying to absorb what Mono had said. After what seemed to be several painful minutes, she slowly looked back up at the lever, then back to Mono.

"Hey…" said the girl, her voice sounding scratchy and hoarse, likely from lack of use.

Under the bag, Mono raised his brows in surprise. So she could speak! "Oh good, here I was starting to assume you were mute, or had a bad case of strep throat. Or just, did not understand a single word I was saying, like you were never taught proper english or something or just from a different country." He gave a friendly wave in response to her greeting. "Hey yourself."

Shaking her head, the girl gestured for him to come over, pointing up to the pulley she was pulling on before. "Heeey!" she whispered harshly, this time a bit louder.

"You want me to try and pull it?" Mono tilted his head inquisitively. How would he have any more luck than she did? But he figured he might as well humor her, to show that he was actually here to help. "Alright, give me a boost."

Using the girl's hands as a stepping stool, Mono leapt upwards, and grabbed the lever. Unsurprisingly, his own weight was not enough. "I'm not heavy enough, we'll have to think of somethi-OOMF!"

He almost lost his grip as the wind was knocked out of him, courtesy of his legs suddenly having a few several pounds grappling onto instinctively clutched onto the pulley tighter, their combined weight causing the concealed staircase to fall out of the ceiling, crashing onto the floor rather loudly.

Mono blinked, inspecting their handiwork. "You were planning on that? Why didn't you just say so?"

She just huffed in response, and climbed up ahead of him.

Well, it's progress. Better than pushing me to the ground like a piece of paper. Once we get out of the house, I'm sure we'll be safe.

They were not safe.

Maybe they'd never be safe, Six realized.

She panted as she ran from the house, sprinting to catch up with the boy with the bag on his head. She had no idea who he was or where he came from, just that he somehow managed to find her. There was no first introduction, excluding his axe meeting her door. Not exactly her idea of a knight in shining armor from the stories she'd read.

BANG

Now they were currently running for their lives from the hunter, who saw fit to unload a bullet into the wooden box they hid behind. Chunks of wood flew everywhere. Six had thought they were in the clear, but with a noisy exit they had been discovered right as they had escaped the house.

"You can't shoot me, I'm unarmed!"

One of the things she quickly caught on to was her new ally's constant need to talk. Since they made the silent agreement to help one another, he would chatter on. Six would have been annoyed at his banter if they currently weren't running for their lives from a psycho wielding a rifle keen on blowing their heads off.

BANG

Another box was shredded to bits, sending the boy and Six scrambling away. Luck managed to hold, and they dropped down into a small ditch, and the hunter simply walked by. She breathed a sigh of relief as the hunter kept walking away from their general direction. If we just wait… he'll go back inside and we can-

Six's thoughts were halted as she saw the bag headed boy begin to creep forward towards the longer grass, which was right by the hunter. Without thinking, she reached forward to snag the boy's hand, pulling him backwards. Judging from his body language and the way his head snapped to look at her, he was displeased.

"Hands off girly, I plan on living through this." He attempted to pull his hand away to try again.

However, her grip was tighter than he seemed to anticipate, and was held fast. She came to the conclusion that being told "no" was something he wasn't used to. Six shook her head, and pointed to the hunter, who was still shining his torch around. Could he not see how stupid going out into the open was?

Looking at the hunter for several seconds, he turned to look back at her. "Look," said the boy in a surprisingly quiet tone, "If he decides to turn around, he'll definitely look in here, and probably unload a few rounds into our skulls. If we sneak past him we might have a better chance at living. The farther away from this house, the better, right?"

Six stopped to consider his words. Staying safe in the ditch was a more appealing idea, however the idea of the hunter wandering back around and finding them made the idea suddenly much less appealing. Looking at her options, she found herself slowly nodding. Judging from the way he gripped her hand instead of attempting escape, Six knew he was satisfied.

Carefully they snuck through the grass, and narrowly avoided detection except at the last second where they were spotted, forcing them to drop into a hole underground, and avoid the angry hunter who blindly fired into the hole, pellets scattering the dirt around them. The hunter grunted in frustration, before eventually wandering off, to Six's relief.

Six was grateful for the rescue, being trapped in that room with her only source of comfort being a music box. She had adored it, but being alone for that long had been slowly driving her to the point of insanity. Yet for some reason, she had a feeling her new accomplice was going to be trouble.

Mono hated mud.

Mud was stupid.

That was the conclusion he came to as he waded through the muddy pond alongside his silent companion. They were in the middle of an attempt to sneak past the hunter once more. Somehow he had managed to get ahead of them, effectively cutting them off from an easy escape.

When they first tumbled into the tunnels, Mono had assumed that the hunter would have wandered off in a random direction to look for some deer or something else to catch, not going the same exact direction they went. How did he even get ahead of them so quickly anyways?

Now they were being forced to trudge through a muddy pond surrounded by a plague of flies constantly hovering around, occasionally slamming themselves into a light bulb. Or Mono's face, which he would have been more disgusted with if not for the brown paper shield that protected his delicate features. Speaking of his favored headgear, the cold mud certainly wasn't doing it any favors with the wet bits and chunks clinging to it.

Coming up for a gasp of air after diving down to avoid the hunter's light, he could feel more mud weighing down on his bag. More flies happily buzzed down to investigate, causing him to realize that maybe the flies weren't so bad. More flies, more noise. For once, the noise was good. It would be difficult for someone to hear a tiny child gasping for air if thousands of flies were buzzing in your ear.

Resisting the urge to say something witty about their current predicament, he grabbed his friend's hand and they continued on their path to escape, finally climbing out of the mucky mess below to get onto higher terrain. But the high ground quickly ran out as they were forced to drop back down into an uncomfortably open area, but it seemed the hunter's back was turned, for once. They could easily pass without him noticing. Mono began to creep forward, hand clenched tightly around the girls hand.

Easy. We just have to sneak by and…

CAW CAW!

Any possibility of stealth was quickly eliminated, courtesy of a few startled crows picking at rotting flesh, their loud screeching and flapping quickly gained the attention of the hunter. Mono spotted more boxes, and it turned out the same technique worked. He wondered why the hunter never just walked up and around the box to shoot them point blank, but he wasn't going to question it.

BANG

"Wow, nice shot."

The last box was destroyed, forcing them to take shelter in a small shack. Scrambling in, Mono saw the girl had closed the door and quickly used the bottom door lock to secure it.

He doubted locks would trouble someone with a shotgun.

His assumption was correct, as the hunter began angrily bashing down the door. The old and deteriorating wood started to give in with each smash of the hunters gun.

Man, why can't we have a shotgun?

As if Lady Luck herself had been listening to Mono, he turned around and saw a freaking double barrel shotgun resting contently on a stand attached to the wall, as if it was waiting just for him. Scrambling up on a small box and pulling with all his might, the shotgun cluttered to the ground. Quickly catching on to his plan, the girl ran over to help. Together they managed to prop up the gun, and waited for their moment with Mono on the trigger.

The hunter continued breaking down the door by force, causing a hole to open up, his head now visible. But he stopped as he seemed to realize that the offending end of a shotgun was staring right back at him.

Mono didn't know what the hunters expression was under that mask, but he could guess after seeing a double barrel pointing towards him, it probably was priceless. If Mono hadn't been overcome with the adrenaline, he might have thought of some cool one liner to finish the hunter off, but he settled for the only thing he could think of.

"Uh, hi."

He pulled the trigger.

Mono had never fired a gun in his life before. Hell, he'd never held a gun in his life before this. He remembered the dangers of guns being burnt into his mind by adults telling him how dangerous guns were. He was aware how they worked, any idiot could fire a gun. Point and pull the trigger. Simple as that. He knew it would be loud, and that there was a kick, simple.

BANG

He realized he might have underestimated everything he knew about guns.

The force of the firearm threw him backwards like a ragdoll, slamming his head against the wooden box whilst knocking the wind out of him. Everything seemed to be hurting at once. For what seemed to be several long minutes, the only thing he could hear was ringing as he stared up at the ceiling.

Mono felt awful. He hadn't felt this awful in a long time. His head was hurting, his body was hurting as well. However, he deduced the hunter was probably off worse, considering the guy had just eaten a god damn slug shell point blank.

I bet he'll be feeling that, and much more, in the morning.

As Mono lay limp on the wooden floor, he realized how nice it felt to finally relax after the hellish game of cat mouse that took place before. Moments of rest were scarce in this world, so he would savor every moment. Closing his eyes, he felt sleep slowly coming to claim him. Although he felt what seemed to be something brushing his shoulder, he ignored it, too tired to care.

Maybe I should just lie here until the ringing stops, and sleep a little…

"Oi…"

That plan was cut short however, as he heard the raspy voice of his friend. Reluctantly opening his eyes, he saw her crouched down above him, slight concern showing on her face. Now that her darkish hair was hanging away from her face, Mono managed to get a good look at her features.

Her facial features were soft, roundish, and very easy on the eyes. The frazzled short hair hanging from her face combined with her chocolate brown eyes was… not that bad looking. Honestly, kind of cute …

Only after several seconds her eyes widening did Mono realize he said the last part out loud. "Uh I mean.. Well I er…"

"Cute…"

All of the thoughts in Six's mind came to a screeching halt as she heard the boy utter those words. Why he say that?...

When she first noticed the boy not moving after they had killed the hunter, she assumed the boy first needed a moment to catch his breath. She couldn't blame him. But considering the considerably loud thump she had managed to hear along the ringing of her ears, she feared he might have hit something delicate. After a few minutes passed, she lost patience and decided to shake him slightly.

No response.

Dread had begun creeping up her spine. No need for panic… "Oi…"

She held in a sigh of relief when the boy stirred, his bagged face turning to look at her face. Seconds passed as the boy seemed to be looking very hard at her face, making Six shuffle uncomfortably until…

"Cute…"

Exhaustion and pain seemed to suddenly disappear as her half open eyes flew open wide. Feeling her face heat up, Six turned her back to the boy, hopefully blocking his view of her tomato red face.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy also seemed to notice what he had just blurted out loud, as he quickly sat up to back up on his feet. "Uh, I mean… Well, I er… Sorry, it slipped out, sometimes I can't help myself." He stuck out his hand. "Now that the hunter problem has been solved, my name's Mono!"

She still wanted to be irritated at the "cute" comment, as she was nothing close to cute, more like the complete opposite. The kids at the orphanage had reminded her of that several times. However she didn't want to scold him either, after all he saved her life. Mono… weird name.

Sticking out her hand after turning to face him, she shook his hand with hers. She noticed how soft his hands were, compared to her grimy and rough palms. "Six…" Gripping his hand with her left one now as well, she started to feel his palm. "Your hand soft."

Mono seemed to light up at her name, whilst chuckling in embarrassment at the touch. "Th-Thanks, I take care of them as much as I can…" Surprisingly, no sarcastic or witty comment followed. He didn't shy away from the contact, so Six kept indulging her curiosity.

These days, the few children Six came into contact with had rough and tough skin. Struggling to survive, they had to fight tooth and nail just to make it to the next day. That kind of lifestyle did not leave hand care as a very high priority, other than keeping your hands attached to your arms. Lack of hand hygiene caused dirty grimy hands covered with scrapes and bruises. But Mono's hand was different. Although covered in dirt and grime, they were very soft, smooth, and squishy.

Like a pillow.

As she felt his surprisingly soft hands, she heard giggling coming from the boy's mouth.

"That tickles," Mono said, turning his head bashfully.

After getting a good look (and feel) of Mono's hand, she was satisfied. Six released Mono's hand and allowed the boy to regain his composure. Squishy would be better name for him… But she decided not to, just to avoid the possible whining that would probably follow. And she would probably be annoyed if he called her shorty instead of her real name, just because of her height.

"So uh, now what?"

Six inspected the window at the back of the shed. "We leave through the window." She could hear the waves outside, to her relief. The forest had most certainly outstayed its welcome. Leaving this forest and the hunter to rot sounded great to her.

"Sounds good to me," Mono said as he hopped up on the wooden box. "I was sick of this place already." He turned and offered his hand once more. "Shall we, partner?"

Six looked at the squishy hand being offered to her. Never in her life had she formed an alliance this quickly. The few alliances she had in her life were short, and usually ended in one of the party members dying in the end. But with him, under the span of 15 minutes, she had been rescued, chased, shot at, and got to shoot someone. And they were both alive.

She reached out and took it. "Okay, partner."