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A few minutes have gone by since you and Loka found yourselves surrounded by the shadow men. You take a peek out of the blanket that shields you and your cuddle monster away from the entities. Your body shakes and trembles with fear and anxiety due to the unspeakable cosmic horrors that circles around you. They just stare at you with their lifeless white eyes as their black as night bodies loom over the two of you. No light escapes the darkness of these creatures and no discernible features can be seen on their bodies, they just look like a flat pure black paper cut out of a man in a fedora. Loka just keeps her eyes off of them as she shields her face with your embrace. She’s crying hysterically and saying dribble you can barely make out. There has to be a way to get rid of them? There must be some kind of solution to this? But what?! What is it?!

You sit up to see if there is an opening for you and the monster to get out of the shadow men’s encirclement. While you are fidgeting in place to look for a path to escape, the frantic monster stops you. “STOP, JOE! There is no way out of this.” She brings you back under the covers, holding you tight.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to die?”

“I don’t, Joe. I don’t want to die at all… But Hans said if they come to anyone, it means that they are marked for death! We are both marked for death and there is nothing we can do about it!”

You hug her tighter in kind. “Don’t say such things, lady. Don’t you ever say that. We have so much more to do with our lives. We can’t just lose hope like that, even when we are faced with death itself.” Your eyes begin to well up with tears to your own words. “Have hope, Loka. Have hope that we’ll see another day.”

“If this is our last moments together, I am glad I have spent the rest of my life with you, doc. I love you.”

The two of you hold each other tight. Shivers of fright vibrate through your body and hers. You want to protect her at all cost, but these entities, they have a mental power over you. A mental power you haven’t felt since… Since you met that smiling man. He projected a fear into you that you have never felt in your life. Him and the shadow men have this stare or power to make you fearful in their presence. Like a blade slowly going into your skull and pierces right through your prefrontal cortex. The blade doesn’t kill though. The blade touches all of the right areas in your brain and deaden the parts that contain your rationality and courage, lobotomizing a part of you in the process. Putting you in a state of absolute terror. Your like a deer in headlights. No! It’s worse than that. It’s more like a feeling of claustrophobia. Like that claustrophobic feeling you get when you’re stuck in a small space with no way out. It’s cramped, you feel the walls are closing in on you and you feel like you’re going to hyperventilate and use up all of the oxygen in the tight confines. Some rationality and courage can be felt, but the fight against the fear is to great. You can only achieve lapses in rationality when fighting against it. Like a drunk having moments of sobriety in his drunken haze.

Right now currently, you’re having one of those fear drunken sobriety moments. You're out of options and as much as your a man of science who has never believed in the existence of a sky daddy before, maybe you better start believing now. Could he exist? After all, you found out shadow people and monsters exist. How far fetched is the idea of a god existing now that you know all of what you’ve mentioned is actually real? And even if he isn’t real, a prayer to these godless entities could be like salt on a slug. It probably won’t kill them like a slug though, but it may exorcise them from your house.

With both hands, you take her hand and grip it firmly to your chest. “Loka, maybe we have to have a little bit of faith too, besides just hope. Let me say a prayer for us.”

“What’s religious ramblings going to do for us now?” She says with distraught.

“Sometimes we just need to have a higher power to help us with our demons. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Pray for us then.” You both hold each other’s hands tightly.

You take a moment to collect your thoughts. “Our Lord in the heavens, we… We are grateful for the life that you give us. And we are grateful for allowing us to meet and love each other. Oh merciful Lord, please help us in these trying times. Please help us and we promise you that we will worship you with our full devotion and faith. Please, oh please oh powerful Lord, please help us.” You’re not the best with prayers, and even if the man upstairs heard your pleas for help, you very much doubt he’ll help an atheist unbeliever like yourself.

The two of you grip each other in tight embrace and wait it out under the sheets. Will the two of you die in each other’s arms tonight? After an hour or so, you and the monster take a peak from your sheets and see that the shadow men have all but vanished. You take a double-check around the room and don’t spot one of those entities anywhere.

The monster takes her turn to scan the room too and can’t find any either. “Did… Did your god save us?”

You look to her with uncertainty. “I don’t know. I… I just don’t know. Maybe he did or maybe we are drawing false conclusions because of that prayer I made. Maybe they just left of their own volition. I don’t have enough information to tell you otherwise.” You take her in a hug again. “I’m just glad I didn’t lose you, love.”

She welcomes your embrace and sighs out a breath of relief. “Me too.”

You stay there in each other’s arms for a few minutes, thanking whatever in the universe for saving your skin and her hide. Once you both get adjusted from the shock, you get out of your bed and encourage your monster girl to get up as well. “We need to wash up real quickly. Remember, those things leave off radiation wherever they walk. We’ll throw our sheets and clothes in the wash, then we’ll clean ourselves up in the shower and sleep off the rest of the night in your room for tonight.”

Loka and you rip off the sheets from your bed and pick up your clothing for the wash. The two of you cautiously walk through the halls of your house, making sure that no shadow man is still roaming about in your home. You and she manage to get to the laundry room without seeing one. While you are tossing the sheets in the wash, you notice your fluffy naked lover is by the door, nervously staring into the dark house with the expectation that a shadow man is going to sneak up on the two of you when you least expect it.

After all, she can see better than you in the dark since her eyes can absorb more light than a human’s can. If you shine a flashlight at her eyes in the dark, they glow eerily like cat’s eyes. Those eyes of hers gave you a fright the first time you ever glared at them in the dark. But, you’ve been living with her for a few months now. So you have grown accustomed to her night stare.

Once you got the cleaning cycle started for the sheets, the two of you walk over to the bathroom to take a nice shower. You start the shower and then feel the water for the right temperature. The monster shivers with fright right behind you. You turn to her in concern. “Hey, Loka, what’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong. Those shadow men are going to kill us here at some point and I’m scared.”

You pick her up in your arms, a meep comes out of her mouth when she’s off the ground and you bring her towards the shower. “Come on little lady, don’t be afraid. I’m here for yah.

Once she’s under the warm water, she coos in ease. “This feels nice. This makes me feel a little bit better.”

You hold her from behind and knead her shoulders to relax her. She is still shaking slightly still though however. The monster turns around and then hugs you tightly, pressing her face against your chest as she sobs on you. Your hand strokes her head gentle. “Shhhhh, they’re gone now. Don’t think about them right now. Just think about us. We had a lot of fun today didn’t we?” She nods her heads and looks up to you with watery eyes. “Just think about what we did today, Loka. Just think about that and remember that we have all sorts of fun ahead of us. We’ll be able to have fun like again in no time.”

Her tail wraps around your legs and she holds you tighter. “Yeah, but for how long?” She sniffles more on your chest. “How long can it last before they kill us in our sleep? You and I keep seeing them in the corner of our eyes, but when we look, they always disappear. But, this! This is the first time we’ve seen them group up on us like that. It’s only a matter of time before they get us.”

“I know, I know. I just don’t know when they are gonna get us. But I think we need to make the best with the time that we have with each other.” You pet her back to ease her tension. “Remember, when I kept on rejecting your advances?” She nods her head again. “Well, now you have me, lady. Are you going to waste the time we have left on sulking about shadow men or are you going to spend that time being happy with me?”

“I want to be happy with you, Joe!” She cries out. “I want to love you and I want to grow old and die with you, but now I’m not sure if I’m gonna see tomorrow.” She rests her face against your chest again and cries harder.

You seat yourself down on the floor of the tub, Indian style and let her cry herself out on your lap. The water from the shower pours over both of your heads as you console her. She rests her head on your shoulders and you caress her back with care. “Loka, please calm down for me. It hurts me to see you like this.” She just keeps crying hysterically in your arms. “Hey, how about we do something fun tomorrow. I can take another day off and we can watch more Harry Potter together. Do you want to do that?”

“Joe, I don’t want you to ever leave me alone. Ever! I don’t want to be alone in this house anymore.” She puts more strength into her tight embrace after saying that. Oof, she’s squeezing the air out of your lungs. “Don’t you ever leave me alone! I don’t want to die alone. I want you always by my side.” She cries out in pain to you.

“Hey, I’ll protect you whenever I can, Loka. But I can’t stand guard around you twenty fou-”

“You have to also protect your mate, whenever she feels scared! You always have to do this! Always!” She interrupts. “Never ever leave me!”

Your hand pats her on the back. “I won’t ever leave you. You have my word.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

You rock her gently back and forth all the while you hug her tight and stroke her back lovingly to calm her down. She starts to regain her composure after a few minutes and she then starts to lick your neck tenderly, thanking you for giving her a shoulder to cry on.

“Hey, are you ready to wash up?” She shakes her head up and down in confirmation. “Let me clean you up first.”

You grab her big bottle of shampoo and squeeze the strawberry-smelling cleanser on her shoulders and back. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves. Your hands move in circles and rubs the foamy cleaner into her fur. Her back shivers and she lets out a moan of comfort. She rubs her face up to yours in appreciation.

“Give me a little space, I want to wash your front up too.”

She gives you a bit of distance, you can see fear is still lingering in her eyes, but her eyes also tell you that she looks to you for her protection. You’re her guardian angel after all. You’ve given her a home, food, clothing, your bed and your love. You lovingly hold her cheek with one hand and pet her neck with the other, she purrs softly to you while you do this and you give her a smile to let her know that everything will be alright. You squirt more of the cleanser on her cleavage and rub and caress the soap into her fur. With both hands, you gyrate them in circles and fondle her small mammaries. She closes her eyes and sighs calmly as you knead the flesh of her tender breasts. You play with her nipples a bit, she yelps in delight and holds your shoulders with both hands to anchor herself. She’s beginning to ease down a bit as you see a smile trying to creep up on her face. But she still looks very anxious. You lay her down on her back and she gently smiles at you in comfort.

She breathes out loudly again. “Make me feel safe, love.”

You apply more of the shampoo to her belly and rotate your hands in more circles on her tummy fluff. The monster closes her eyes and sticks out her tongue with glee. Your hands manipulate her belly flesh with love and care, she starts to groan in pleasure from the belly rubs you give her. You softly shush her to relax her as well.

Once you cleaned her belly fur enough, you quickly lather down the foam onto her legs and arms. Then you tell her to lay down on her stomach and you give her a nice back massage while scrubbing in the shampoo into her fluff. All the while you do this, her tail coils around your waist possessively. Deep breaths can be audibly heard from the monster. You can still feel that she’s still very tense even after you gave her those tummy rubs from earlier.

Your cleaning then moves to her butt cheeks and tail. You give each cheek a nice squeeze and rub the liquid soap into them. Then, you move your attention to her tail. Foamy lather is scrubbed all into her tail and you make sure to give special attention to fur ball on the tip of her tail.

After you’ve got her backside all covered up in bubbly foam, you pick her up and she looks to you with reassurance and love. “Close your eyes for me.” She closes them and you gently rub her face fur with more shampoo, scrubbing the cleanser deep into her fur. You then shampoo her hair and put her under the running water to rinse her off. Your fingers rake through her fur to help rinse out all of the soap studs from her green fur and orange hair. You also get a bar of soap and quickly clean down her two black horns as well. “Your all clean.” You tell her.

You then take the bar of soap for yourself and start scrubbing yourself down. But Loka’s hand stops you from cleaning yourself any further. “Let me wash you up now. I owe you for your clean-up after all.” You give her the soap and she starts to wash your back. “Can you sit down for me please?” You sit back down on the floor of the tub. She moves the soap in a circular motion on your back. Her hands also knead and caress your back muscles, helping to get rid of any tension you may still have as well.

Once she’s done with your back, she goes up to your shoulders and starts to massage them with her fingers, licking your cheek affectionately while doing so. “I want to make you feel safe too.”

“You always have, Loka.”

She hugs you tight from behind when you said that. “Stop flattering me, you sweet man. You know you’re always protecting my rear wherever I go.”

“It’s true. Without you, I would never be able to sleep. You’re my favorite teddy bear. You protect me from sleep deprivation and protect my dreams from all of those wakeful nightmares.”

“You mean that?”

“Wholeheartedly.”

She moves to your front and gives you a kiss. It’s a brief one but she resumes her cleaning on your chest. “I’m glad I got trapped here with you. Even… Even though we may die from shadow people.”

She starts to lose her nerve again, you can feel that she is shaking while she cleans you. You place your hand on her cheek again and look into her eyes. “Loka, calm down. We’re safe for now. Just take a chill pill and keep cleaning.”

“You stupid Human! How are you not scared right now? You don’t seem to be taking this seriously at all.”

“I am aware of the seriousness of all of this, but we shouldn’t let the fear rule us either. Look, I’m just as scared as you are. But we can’t just stop doing what we do because we fear death. What if we were to die tonight? Would you want your last moments of me being a weak, scared pathetic man or would you want me to hold you, to love you and to make you feel safe? Which one do you want me to be?”

Her eyes start to well up with water, her tears flow with the flowing water of the shower. “I want you to make me feel safe and I want you to hold me and make me feel loved.” She comes in for another hug. “But I want to make you feel safe too, Joe. Please give me the strength to do that.”

You hug her back and comfort her in your embrace. “Just calm down and live in the now. Just help me to clean up. It will help you to forget about them.”

She breaks away from the hug and continues to wash you down. “You’re right. I need to just forget and just live in the now.” She lathers soap on your stomach next and you hold her cheek in your hand to soothe her through her cleaning. After she cleans your belly, she moves down to your groin, her snout goes to your crotch and takes a deep whiff. “I always find your manly smell relaxing.” She takes a quick lick of your Johnson and process to clean the glans with the soap. She makes quick work of her cleaning and then moves down to legs. Her hands grab both cheeks of your rear playfully and lathers the soap on each leg in circles. Then, she seats herself on your lap and washes your arms swiftly. She then finishes her cleaning by scrubbing shampoo into your own hair. “Close your eyes for me, love.” You close your eyes and she rinses you under the shower head. Her hands brush your skin and comb through your hair to help wash off the soapy lather.

Once you were all rinsed off of any soap or shampoo, you turned off the shower and you and your drenched cuddle monster step out of the shower. You grab yourself a towel and start to dry your hair off with in. While still being preoccupied with your hair drying, Loka pokes your side to get your attention.

You see that she is offering her hair dryer and brush to you. “Can you help me dry off please?” She asks you with puppy dog eyes as more water dips off of her soggy self.

You take the utensils out of her hands and then plug the hair dryer into the outlet. “Of course. Would you rather do this standing up or sitting down?”

“Standing please.”

She waddles closer to you and you ready yourself with the hairdryer in one hand and her brush in the other. You start with her head, the warm air makes her hair flow, you brush her hair all while doing this, making sure that you don’t get her hair all tangled up in knots. You sometimes may have to put down the brush altogether and use your fingers to rake out the knots. Doing so didn’t make her finch in any way, you were obviously being careful enough that she didn’t have to recoil away in pain from any unnecessary hair pulling.

Your hair drying then moved down to the rest of her body. The warm air drying you give her makes her breathe deeply as you move the brush against her body while blowing off any water that still saturates her hide. After a few minutes of doing this, she’s all dried up and brushed up.

She clings to you tightly and presses her face to your chest. “Thanks for helping dry off.”

You pick her up and carry her in your arms to her bedroom. You lift up the blanket and get yourself and her under the covers. The two of you cuddle up to each other and you can feel the monster shaking in your grasp, sniffling and whelps can be heard from the poor girl.

You stoke the back of her neck and hush her to calm down. “Shhhh, You’re my teddy bear, remember? I’m not gonna let you go. I’m here for you.” You grip her tighter to your torso, shushing her more to relax her.

She starts to calm herself more to your lulling, she lets out a small giggle. “I’m your cuddly teddy bear.” The monster lady tenderly grooms your neck with her tongue, slathering your throat with a thin layer of her slaver. The tip of her snout also nuzzles under your chin while she licks you up.

The two of you comfort each other for a few more minutes until you and your cuddle monster drift happily to sleep.

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The next day, you called out for work again and spent the morning with Loka. Though, you didn’t expect that Loka would want you to walk her around the house where ever she went. She got all shaken up from the shadow men incident yesterday and by no means wanted to be alone anywhere in the house without you. That meant that she would be near you when you were watching TV on the couch, next to you when you had to look at something in your office, close proximity to you when cooking, bodies touching when showering together (you don’t mind this one much) and then having her watch you use the bathroom or you for her. Yeah, she couldn’t even be alone to take a piss or a dump without having a stroke of fear creep up in her arteries. Hopefully, you can help her through this. Besides, you don’t want to walk her around everywhere like you’re her special ed teacher or something. You know she’s deathly afraid of those entities, but you’re not stopping your whole life just because she can’t deal with hers. You’re going to get her through this and bring back the fun times again, so help you god.

After going through all the charades that you’ve just mentioned, you’re sitting on the couch next to her, watching the second Harry Potter movie and sending a text to Hans about the shadowy encounter from yesterday. You’re curious monster gal tries to see what you were texting him, but you shooed her away politely. You told the physicist about how scared the shadow men have made the monster and how she’s clinging to you desperately like some imprinted duckling. It’s not all bad, she is way more affectionate to you and this affection is comparable to a puppy of sorts, but step five feet away from her and she’ll shriek in terror. It’s sad to see her like this, but it’s also getting on your nerves. At the same time though, you got to be patient with her. She is a stranger in a strange land, so she deserves the sympathy. This will all blow over at some point. You told him all of this (excluding the relationship part of it), and he suggested to you that the two of you should meet up with him at some nature trail, saying that she can use some fresh air to help clear up her head. You weren’t sure how safe that would be though since she wasn’t exactly human, but he said the trail he wanted to bring you guys on wasn’t really that busy during the middle of the day on a Thursday. “Okay, why not.” You text him back. Being out of this house will probably be good for the scaredy-cat monster girl of yours anyway.

As you’re waiting for a response, she licks your neck and cheek lovingly while her eyes are glued to the movie playing on your flat screen. You hold her to your side snugly while petting her back. Then you get the location for his meetup. He wants you to meet up at the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park in an hour. The place isn’t too far from where you live either, this is a pretty good location. From what you can see about it on Apple maps, it actually looks like a pretty big place with a lot of open space. There is even bushes and stuff on the trail that the monster can hide behind if people were to walk by. You hope it won’t have to come to that though. Anyways, if she was going to need to hide, she’s probably going to drag you to the bushes with her. Besides all that though, fresh air would probably be good for her since she doesn’t really get out of your house that much anyway. Or she would be at Hans’ lab, helping him out with the portal tech.

You bring the monsters to your chest and kiss her on the lips. Your tongue breaks through her lips and her mouth accepts the oral member with welcome. Her tongue then snakes its way into your mouth in return. The two of you suck each other’s faces off and grip each other tightly for a few minutes before you break away from the kiss. She however gets more enthusiastic with her affectionate lapping, making sure to cover all of your neck and face with her slaver.

You get overwhelmed with her enthusiasm and keep her tongue at bay by pushing her maw away from your face. “Hey, come on, cool it. I’m gonna be drenched in your slobber if you keep this up.”

She gets past your hands and gives you one more long draw-out lick on your face, leaving a thick trail of her saliva in the process. “I got to leave my scent on my boy toy somehow. Besides, if you need to wash up after my grooming, I don’t mind helping you clean up in the shower again, my big doctor Joey.” Loka then uses her shirt to wipe off the glaze of saliva that she left on your face. Once she’s got it all wiped off, she nuzzles your face with the tip of her snout, you reciprocate back to her by rubbing your own cheek to her snout.

“Loka, how do you feel about leaving the house today and going on a nature trail with me and Hans?”

The monster reels back from her nuzzling, you can tell she is getting very anxious about the proposal. “Ummmm… I’m not sure it’s safe for me to do that.” She gets pouty-eyed with you and starts to fiddle with her fingers. “Let’s just stay home and watch more Harry Potter.”

A moan of frustration escapes your mouth. “Come on girl, don’t be such a scaredy cat. Hans says that there aren’t many people on the trail today. I know you’re afraid of other people seeing you and so am I, but we want you to still go out and do stuff. I don’t want you to just be locked up in my house or in Hans’ lab all the time. I want you to explore the world with me, it’ll be fun.” You give her a pat of reassurance.

“What if those black people capture me when we’re there?”

“Hey, I told you those guys are called men in black. Black people don’t catch monsters and aliens and bring them to Area Fifty-One. But that’s besides the point, don’t you want to do something else besides watching TV with me or working with Hans? Don’t you want to explore the world a bit and get a little bit of exercise in the process?”

The monster is silent to that question. You can see that her eyes are blinking a lot and her lips are trembling. “But, I’m scared, Joe. I’m really, really scared.” She wraps her arms around you and grips you tightly. “I only feel safe around you and Hans. Walter too but mostly you though.”

You stroke her back to soothe her. “Remember how we helped Stevie with Jennette?” She nods her head. “He stood up to what he was afraid of and he was only seven.”

“But Jennette wasn’t going to kill him at all! The shadow men are a completely different story!” She cries out loudly.

“For all Stevie knew, Jennette was going to eat him up if he was going to stand up to her. But he did it anyway and was able to rid her from his life for good. You need to be brave, Loka. And you need to stand up to the shadow men just like how Stevie stood up to your friend.”

“But how am I going to stand up to shadow people? I can’t just fight a shadowy thingy that can walk through me and kill me. How am I going to stand up to something like that, huh?”

She has a point there. You’re trying to be supportive to her, however though you are just giving her advice that sounded good when you said it, but probably won’t be executed well in action. “You’re right, you can’t stand up to them physically, but what I am trying to say though is that you shouldn’t show that you are afraid of them either. The shadow men win if they live rent free in your head. Show them that you’re strong and you won’t go down without a fight. They win if you hide behind me for the rest of your life.” The monster holds you tighter as she shivers with fear, her breathing starts to become more erratic as well. You hold her tighter in return and pet her head to help her calm down. “We are all going to die at some point. We can even get killed by random accidents that we won’t expect. But people keep persevering through life even though death can be a few feet away from them. You have to tough it out and just forget about it. The more you let the negatives of life pull you down, the more miseries you will bring to yourself and to others. Don’t you want to be happy, my little lady?”

“Yes.” She squeaks out softly.

“Then, pull yourself by your bootstraps and show life’s manager who’s boss.”

She rests her head on your shoulders and hugs you with all her strength. “Alright, then. I’ll go. I want to be brave like you, doc.”

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The car trip there was a little awkward, to say the least. She agreed on coming with you, but during the whole car trip she was making these weird chants with her eyes closed. These chants however were not in English or in Monsterese (which is basically English). It was a totally different language that you’d never heard before. The monster was also making weird gestures with her hands while making these chants.

You give her a quick glance as you drive. “K’uk’ulkan wáantik ti' le máako'obo' bo'oyo' náach to'on. Yáantiken in beel jump'éel adorador asab k'a'an. Wáaj k ti' k náachil.” She chants.

This is making you feel very uncomfortable, but it looks like whatever she is doing is making her feel calm. Hopefully she’s not speaking Babylonian and trying to summon demons on the road trip. “Loka, what are you doing?”

“Táan in payalchi'.”

“In English please.”

“You mean Monsterese, I was praying to Kukulkan. I think I’ll pray to Jebus next.”

“It’s Jesus Loka, and why are you praying to Cuck-ule-can and Jesus all of a sudden? And why are you praying in… Uh, in whatever language you are praying in?”

The monster looks embarrassed with the question. “Well, since your god saved us the other day, I’d thought that praying to him and praying to the monster god, Kukulkan can help protect us against the shadow men.”

“You were praying to Jesus in that monster language of yours?”

“No, not at all, I was praying to Kukulkan in Yucatec. If I’m going to pray to Jesus, I’m going to pray to him in Monsterese.”

“You mean English?”

She waves off that remark.“Same language, different alphabet, remember?”

“Yeah I do. Just don’t be too loud, okay?”

“Okey dokey!”

She prays in that language for a few minutes and then looks up the Lord’s Prayer on her phones and starts chanting that along with her own Christian prayers for the rest of the car trip. Once you reach your destination, the two of you get out of your truck and meet Hans at the trail’s entrance. He’s sporting a pair of pilot shades along with some blue pants and a light brown coat.

“Hello, guys and gals. You two ready to go on the trail?”

Loka holds your hand and waves a nervous hello to the physicist. “Hi, Hans.” She says quietly.

The man bends down to meet the lady eye to eye. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with us. We’re just gonna have a nice walk today and have a nice talk along the way. I promise, you’ll have fun.” He gives her a pat on the back to cheer her up and then straightens his back once more. “Come on, time is of the essence.”

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The three of you have been walking on the trail for about an hour or so now. Hans wanted to get us away from any prying eyes and walked you and Loka through a trail that people don’t usually like to hike through that much. He wanted to ease off any tensions that she may still be having before going to the topic of shadow men. Right now though, the monster is berating Hans about not liking Harry Potter.

“How can you not like Harry Potter? Everyone likes Harry Potter, how do you not like it?”

“I just don’t.” Hans says in a weary voice. “The franchise really appeals to Wiccans, liberal soccer moms and Redditors. That’s just not my cup of tea. I’m more of a Lord of the Rings kind of guy.”

The monster’s jaw hangs in bafflement. “That’s just crazy talk, Hans. Harry Potter is way better than Lord of the Rings. Plus, it’s not as boring. The Hobbit movies are actually better than those movies in my opinion.”

Hans just looks at her with disdain. “That has to be the most blasphemous thing I’ve ever heard from your mouth. We’re done this conversation.” He keeps walking ahead of you and the monster.

You lightly sprint up to the Dane to get his attention and the monster sprints behind. Your hand lightly grabs him by his shoulder to stop him in place. “Hey, we’ve been getting sidetracked for what we really wanted to talk about out here.”

Then you feel Loka hugging you tightly from behind. “Don’t run away from me, doc.” Tremors of fear can be felt through her embrace. “I don’t want to be alone out here.”

Your head turns to the shivering monster that is currently wrapped around your waist. “Don’t feel scared, lady. I just wanted to remind Hans of something.” You give her a pet to her back to calm her down, you then bring your eyes back to the physicist. “Sorry about her, she’s still all shook up about the shady people from yesterday. If you know what I mean.”

He looks to the spooked monster, the man notices the fear she has in her eyes. “What happened yesterday, Loka?” Concern can be clearly heard in his voice as he asks the question. The monster gets a bit more anxious with the question and hides her face in your shirt. “You can tell me. I’ve dealt with these things before.”

“K’uk’ulkan much ts'áaten u muuk' utia'al Tsikbalt ti' yóok'ol le wíiniko'obo' bo'oyo'.” She says quietly to herself.

Hans raises an eyebrow in confusion. “What language is she speaking?” He asks you.

“I forgot. She did tell me in the truck ride over here, but the name was kind of complicated to pronounce.” You scratch your head, trying to remember the name. You’re probably going to butcher the name trying though. “I think she said it was Yukaca I think.”

The monster just looks up to you with annoyance now. “It’s Yucatec, Joe. And by the way Hans, I was just having a quick prayer with the monster god. I wasn’t talking bad about you. You have my word on that.”

The Dane rubs his chin in intrigue. “I know Joe here wanted me to start the conversation with the hard-hitting questions, but let’s talk about this prayer of yours. Are you praying to that god Kukulkan you’ve told me about?”

She nods her head. “Yeah him. Joey here seems to have a lot of issues pronouncing his name though.”

“Hey, I can say Coo-kuck-an.” You say as you butcher another one of her tongue-twister words.

Loka is laughing hard at you over your miss-pronunciation of the word. The vibrations of her laugh can be felt through her grip. Hans has a smirk on his face and tries to contain his laughter out of politeness, but it’s obvious that the monster’s giggling is contagious, so he can’t help himself much either.

“Oof, You really know how to butcher words.” Hans says to you while trying to contain another laugh.

“Yeah, he can’t even say Yucatec too.” She laughs.

You start to get agitated from their laughter and decide to get the conversation back on track. “Come on, let’s get back to what we were talking about.” You say defensively.

“Sorry, her laugh is contagious.” Hans says to you with a smirk. He then turns to the smiling monster. “But Loka, I asked about the language you were praying in because I’ve heard it before. It’s the language that the ancient Mayans used to speak in. It’s actually still spoken today by the modern Mayans, but it’s very different from the ancient dialect. In fact, your Yucatec Mayan dialect sounds very different from the modern one. How come I’ve never heard you speak in that language before?”

“Monsters don’t tend to speak that language out of religious context. We usually just speak Monsterese to each other. Yucatec is only ever spoken when praying to the feathered serpent god Kukulkan or in sermons to him. It’s not really polite to just speak Yucatec out of religious reasons. To speak it out of term is considered to be blasphemy among Kukulkan followers. And I’m a very polite girl. So, I’m not going to speak the language of the monster god just willy-nilly like that. It’s just rude.”

“Hmm, I see. Well, why are you praying to him all of a sudden? I do remember you distinctly telling me that you didn’t believe in him when we were talking about him in my lab a while ago. So, what’s been troubling you lately to make you want godly divination in your life?”

The monster’s tension creeps back up into her system. You can feel more shakes of fear erupting from her grip. “Me and Joe yesterday were.” She pauses as you give her a pat on the back and subtly gesture to her to not tell Hans about your late-night rutting yesterday. Her eyes look up to yours and immediately understands what you want. “Umm, Joe and I were sleeping in our beds and… And… And those shadow people.” She starts to slur her words more as she’s telling him. “Thoze wonz with thoze hatz sur… Surrounded our beds… I thought they were gonna kill us and, and… I was so scared that I hide under the sheets for about an hour… I think?” Loka starts to get a bit hysterical, she starts to break down and sob on your shirt from just remembering the experience from yesterday. The little monster lost her composure to speak from the post-trauma of the whole thing.

“Let me finish what she was saying.” You say as you hug her back and stroke her head to make her feel better. “We were in our beds when they came. It didn’t feel like a sleep paralysis episode at all, mind you. I was reading a book when they surrounded my bed. I even throw the book at one of them and it just phased right through the thing. I was basically in the same place Loka was yesterday, I too went under the covers just to hide myself from them and about an hour or so too, they were not in my room anymore. They just surround our beds and just left. It was the freakiest thing I’ve ever saw. And just like the little lady here, I am also very concerned about these entities stalking us. Before they made their big debut to us yesterday, We’ve been seeing the weird things in the corner of our eyes ever since she had that first run-in with them from a few months ago. You said that these hat men are a sign of death. Are they gonna do something bad to us, Hans?”

The man crosses his arms and looks to the ground. You can already tell what he’s about to tell you is no good. “I’m not sure, to be honest. Also, I never said they were a sign of death. I said they were a bad omen. But to be honest, it usually just means your death too. Maybe something worse is going to happen to the two you down the road and the shadow men are just watching the show.”

Loka starts to sob harder. “Hans, help us. I don’t want to die!”

She cries herself out on your shirt again. Your shirt is going to be soaked with tears after this whole hike. The Dane looks like he’s not telling you the whole story. Now you are beginning to understand why Walter gets so annoyed with him. “Hey Hans, are you hiding something from us?”

“No, of course not. I don’t know why the shadow men were at your house yesterday, but I am fairly certain that they are observing the two of you for something big. Also, don’t forget that the shadow men are psychic vampires. So, despite being on their radar, they are still going to give you the heebie-jeebies every now and then so they can feed off of your mental energy and Loka’s. And that big thing that they are observing you two for in my opinion is going to be something really bad. I just don’t know what’s going to happen exactly, but if the two of you are getting gang stalked by shadow men, particularly hat men, I’d say whatever fate has in store for the two of you is going to really suck.”

You’re starting to get annoyed with the man. It’s still very obvious that he is not telling you everything he knows. You get yourself out of Loka’s grasp and walk over to the man with rage.

As you’re walking towards him, the frightened monster tries to drag you away from him by your shirt’s hem, still crying hysterically while tugging you. “Joe, don’t!”

You approach Hans with your eyes locked with his. He doesn’t look even slightly intimidated by your approach. You can see his eyes through his shades, his eyes just look at yours coldy, standing before you with unyielding force, like as if he’s the statue of David incarnate and won’t conceded to anyone. Not even his own friends. You grab him by his shirt collar and tug him to you. The same look of fearlessness still lingers with his composure. “Hans, quit bullshitting us. I know you know more than you are letting on. I don’t want anything bad to happen to me or Loka! So for the love of fucking god, please tell us what is happening to us! Please! Do you know what is going to happen to us or not?!” You yell in his face.

Hans shoves your hand away from his shirt, then puts some distance between you. He looks pretty annoyed right now. “First off, don’t you touch me and secondly I really don’t know what is going to happen to the two of you. But I will do everything in my power to help you and Loka when the time comes. If they are going to abduct you in a spaceship or take you to Area Fifty One or something, I’ll save the two of you from trouble, okay?”

“You promise?”

“You have my word. Anyhow, I don’t want the find of the century to fall into the hands of little grey men, shadow men or government cronies. I expect all of us to win Nobel prizes for discovering an alien race and making portal technology. Look, Joe, I don’t want all of our work to go to shambles and Loka is instrumental to our work after all. She helps me with the portal tech you know and she’s very good at it. Believe it or not, she’s really good at math. But not as good as me though.” He laughs smugly.

“Hans, I told you not to tell him!” She yells out to him.

“Why not, lady?” You ask her.

She getting flustered with embarrassment. “I… I didn’t want you to think that I’m a nerd.”

“Aww, I would never think that of you.” You pat her on the head gently. “Besides, I’m a nerd too. You being a nerd doesn’t bother me the slightest.”

“That makes me feel better about being a math wiz, doc.” She gets you in her grip again. “The other monster girls always made fun of me for it too.” She sulks as her grip tightens around you again. “They told me math didn’t help scare the kids.”

Hans gives her a light pat on the back. “Well then, you’re in good company then, Loka. We’re all math aficionados here.”

“Thanks, Hans.”

While tension for the time being seem to have calmed down, a jarring thought from yesterday nags at you in the back of your head. It’s about the prayer you made yesterday, the one that may or may not have warred off the shadow men. Are they like demons where if you chant the lord’s name enough times that they will be exorcised away from your house? Might as well ask the question since Loka has been praying to Jesus and what his name is a lot. “Hey, Hans. I got a question that has been lingering in my brain since they came into my house yesterday.”

“What’s the question?” He asks.

“Well, in a move of desperation on my part, I actually prayed for the first time yesterday when they surrounded me. I prayed for them to go away and sometime later, they left from my bed and Loka’s. Do you think god answer my prayer?”

Hans walks up to you closely to whisper in your ears. “No, I am pretty doubtful on the godly intervention hypothesis. But, don’t tell her that though, god complexes can be a good coping mechanism for people. Especially for women. Just keep this to yourself.” He backs away from you.

Loka looks up to you again. “I couldn’t hear what he said? Did your prayer work, Joe?”

“Yes, it did. Hans told me so himself.” You lie to her.

She looks to the man for confirmation. “As much as I am a man of science, I am also a man of faith.” He coyly lies through his teeth. “Keep praying to Jesus and Kukulkan, Loka. Faith can do wonders for the souls who are under great tribulation.”

You get another nagging feeling in the back of your skull. Not about the shadow men, but about what came before your shadowy encounter, Mr. Cold. Just thinking about him is giving you the shivers now. Hans seems to notice your uneasiness. Loka can feel your shakes too since you’re still in her grasp. She starts to look nervous from your own agitation.

“Is something wrong, Joe?” Hans asks

“Joe, be brave, remember. Be brave for me.” She says to you.

You take a deep breath and collect your composure. “Yeah uh, it happened before the shadow men, but I’m pretty certain that this guy knew I was going to be jumped by the shadow men. He said he was the reason for me not getting fired after Stevie got barfed on by Loka’s friend and he’s been watching us for quite some time he’s told me.” A chill goes up your spine, making your visible shaking all the more apparent. “He also had this very creepy smile and his presence filled me with fear.”

The monster starts to get just as tense as you and shields her face on your shirt again. The physicist seems to also be unnerved by this news too. “Was it his smile that was making you uneasy or something else?”

“His smile was creepy, yeah. But it was like his mere presence that was filling my head with fear. I was like a deer in headlights when he approached me. I just felt so afraid of him in that instant. Almost as if he was getting into my head and making me feel afraid through his thoughts alone.” You sigh.

“Did this grinning man tell you his name?”

“Yeah, he did. He called himself… Mr. Cold.”

Hans looks petrified when you said his name. “Fuck, he found out about us already?!” He gets up and walks away from you in a hurry.

You run after him in chase. Loka tags behind soon after. “Wait, who the hell is he?”

He stops in place and turns around to face you. “He’s Indrid Cold. He’s a psychic vampire just like the shadow men and if you see him again, run.” He walks to the sprinting monster behind you. He takes off his glasses, bends down to meet her at her eye level and holds her hands. “I have to go right now, Loka. But I need to tell you something important about Indrid Cold, shadow men and physic vampires. Show no fear around them. I know you are even more afraid of them than Joe may be, but they are psychic vampires after all. They can physically hurt you, but they crave your fear even more. Don’t feed them your fear, ever! Be courageous around them. If you ever encounter the shadow men or Indrid Cold, especially around Indrid Cold, show no fear. You must be strong even if they may physically hurt you. Your suffering is what they crave and feed off of. Don’t give them what they want by any means necessary. Do you understand?”

A tear drops down her eye. “Yes, I understand. I’ll be brave.”

“You’re a monster after all, show them that they should fear you. Be a scary monster when these entities show their faces around you. Make them fear you and be strong and courageous around those who may wish harm to you or your friends. Never concede to their demands.” He turns to you. “That goes for you too, Joe. Never show fear to these beings. If you do, you’ll become their marionette.”

He then takes off in a sprint down the trail. You and Loka try to give chase to him but he’s just too damn fast. You never expect him to be able to run in a sprint like that. He is but a speck in the distance now. He’s not even tired yet. The man must work out on his own time. You’ve never gone to his house before, so you really have no idea who he is as a person. The mysterious man hasn’t even given you his address before either. There is still so much you don’t know about him, yet you believe that he can help you if this Indrid Cold guy or the shadow men will ever attempt to harm you or Loka in any way.

You still haven’t given up sprint after him yet but you hear tired hollers coming from the little monster lady behind you. “Joe, ha. He’s too fast, I can’t keep up with him.” She pants in place behind you.

You still want to know what’s going on with the physicist. So, you pick up the panting monster lady and carry her on your back. “I’m not gonna leave you behind, but we gotta catch up with him. He’s still hasn’t told us everything and I intend on finding out what he knows.”

You pick up the pace as soon as you get the tired monster on your back. However though, just like Loka, you couldn’t keep up with the man either. You can’t even see him in the distance anymore. “Fuck!” You huff out. “He’s way too fast.”

You take heavy breaths of air to alleviate your tiredness. You really need to work out more frankly. Maybe you should ask for a few pointers from him when you meet up with him again. But will he though? You believe he will. He’s said that he would help you and Loka when the time came and he said that with such sincerity that you really do believe him. Whatever got him spooked, he must have a good reason for it.

“I give up. We’ll walk back to the entrance. Hans told me earlier that if we keep going forwards down the trail, we’ll be able to get there in about an hour.”

You’re about to put her down but the monster’s legs tighten around your neck and her tail constricts around your waist. “No, don’t put me down. I like being here. I want to rest my legs a bit. You’re a very good seat after all.” She gives you a quick kiss on the top of your head. “Thanks for giving me a shoulder to rest on, love.”