Bob sat cross-legged on the floor, his hands firmly grasping the shaft of his spear, while he vigorously polished his weapon.

  It had only been an hour since Mr Squeeks scurried off with another letter for Rebecca. Even so the period of time between letters was extremely short, and not viable over an extended period, Bob and Marlo were just too excited.

  Mr Squeeks had come back, the same letter within its jaws. A downcast expression on its face for failing its mission.

  Bob stopped cleaning his spear and laid it down, extending his hand for the rodent to climb up.

  "Ehh, what's wrong? Did that pack of rats bully you again!?"

  Mr Squeeks dropped the letter, and with an indignant expression it began rapidly squeaking out its story.

  The more that Bob heard, the uglier his expression became. With a loud groan, he put Mr Squeeks on his shoulder, held his spear tight and mounted his undead steed. Straddling the undead crocodile, Bob shouted to a confused Marlo as he vanished into one of the tunnels.

  "Marlo there's a monster made its way down. Shut your mouth and don't come out"

  Grumbling under his breath, Marlo made his way back inside his most respectable home. "Tsch, I'll leave you monsters to fight each other. Better come back....Stupid bastard".

  Somewhere within the tunnel network under the city, a small group of petrified people were running for their lives. The giant snake like monster was approaching them fast, only backing off when it was graced with an array of bullets striking it.

  With an insidious glint in the monsters eyes, the pain from the bullets was negligible, and the damage was non existent, yet the monster still slowed its chase. The unlucky victims had no idea they were being toyed with, the monster already seeing them as prey that was within its jaws.

  At the rear of the group, the two security guards continued firing until one of their guns jammed.

  "Ahh fuck....JAMMED, JAMMED!"

  Instantly he begun to work on unjamming his pistol, but unfortunately the fact he stopped shooting meant something else to the giant monster.

  He was out of the game.

  The other security guard kept firing rhythmically, trying to give his partner time to unjam his pistol. At that moment though, all he could do was watch in horror as the giant monster took action. An enormous tongue shot out of its mouth, crashing into the security guard, with the shear impact smashing his sternum and leaving him helpless to his plight. The tongue wrapped him up with ease and retracted back.

  A fresh meal now safely within its stomach.

  The last security guard looked on in horror, his teammate, his friend, his brother he had been beside his entire professional life was now dead. Just a helpless mass of flesh dissolving within a monsters stomach. At that moment something snapped inside his mind. Instead of continuing running, he dropped his pistol. With a splash the weapon fell into the shallow sewage water, disappearing from sight.

  The monster actually stopped chasing at that moment, coming to a halt directly in front of the traumatised man. Its cold eyes stared down at the man in front of it with utter disdain and ridicule. A prey that gives up is no fun at all, it believed that dearly, but when it looked into the man's eyes, that was not what it saw.

  The monster saw hatred and determination. A burning resolution to die, but with not a drop of fear instead. Curiosity permeated the monsters mind at that point. Its eyes momentarily glanced passed the interesting man, and saw the brightly coloured meals getting further away. It disregarded the distance entirely.

  Where could its slow moving food go in a tunnel it called home.

  Standing in front of the monster, the man stared at the creature, and as soon as he saw its eyes flash off him, his hands went into motion. In a well practised fashion, he retrieved two grenades from within his jacket and pulled the pins in a singular, fluid motion. Holding the grenades tightly, a smirk played on his lips as he spoke to himself.

  "Those idiots should be far enough away. True to the end brother....I'm coming!"

  Averting its gaze, the giant monster looked back down to the man, expecting to still see that resolute gaze, only to see the man no longer staring at it, but sprinting instead. With all the strength he could muster, the man was seemingly running into its open mouth willingly.

  Failing to notice the danger, or the two newly produced objects within his hands, the monster simply closed its mouth, enclosing the man. With a flick of its tongue, it enveloped its food and was about to swallow it, until the unthinkable happened. The tasty morsel vanished and was replaced with an intense heat that seared its tongue and spread throughout its body.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Further up ahead in the tunnel, Little Quacks and Giles were sprinting full speed when they heard the muffled explosion from behind them. Neither of them stopped to look, with only Giles sparing a glance back, and he was shocked by what he saw. Expecting the monster to of taken some sizeable damage from the explosion, he was depressed to see that the monster seemed fine, with only streams of smoke escaping from its mouth and nose.

  The strange sight made Giles think of the mythical Dragons, the thought making him squeeze out all his energy and force it into running away from the looming danger.

  "Keep going young master, their sacrifice has bought us some valuable time"

  Little Quacks did not respond, only nodding his head subtly as he ran, his breath laboured and his chest burning. It was not long before the tunnel had rounded and the monster was not visible behind them anymore. They knew for certain the monster would not let them escape that easy, so the terror they faced did not diminish in the slightest.

  The dark tunnel soon revealed a cross road, the tunnel branching off in two directions. Just before Little Quacks was about to sprint down the left tunnel, Giles quickly stopped him. His breath erratic, he forced himself to speak as he took off his bright pink jacket.

  "Young master, take off your jacket and hand it here. I will throw them up the other tunnel, hopefully it may confuse the creature"

  Little Quacks did what he said and handed over his bright yellow jacket.

  "Giles, you.....You are not leaving me are you!?"

  With a smile on his face, Giles took the two jackets and screwed them into a ball as he replied.

  "No young master. Do not worry, this servant will stay by your side until the end"

  With that, he threw the jackets a fair distance up the tunnel. Without wasting anymore time, the duo continued their sprinting up the left hand tunnel. They had shed as much as their gear and clothing, as they could afford. The brightly coloured articles of clothing were gone, the camera equipment had long been discarded, with its signal light now off.

  After the grenade had gone off in the monsters mouth, two different people were alerted from the conspicuous noise. Above ground, Henrietta was travelling by car as fast as she could, with one eye on the road, and the other on the handheld device and its 2D display.

  At the moment the grenades went off, it had caused havoc above ground as well, with exploding manhole covers turning into projectiles and a large waft of toxic fumes being created and dispersed within the air. The air in the sewage tunnels was less than enviable to begin with, then mixed with the monsters breath and the high explosives, a toxic gas was created. Luckily, or unluckily, the gas was forced above ground.

  Numerous police reports, as well as social media posts were created, with the pertinent ones coming to the handheld device in Henrietta's hand. Her eyes went wide when she saw the alerts, and even more so when her vehicle came to a halt in traffic.

  With zero hesitation, Henrietta exited her car and took off in a flash, leaving her car abandoned in the traffic jam. All the people saw was a flash of red that resembled fire rushing past them. Pushing her body onwards, she ran at full speed, vaulting over walls, and diving through alleys, travelling in a straight line for her targets estimated trajectory.

  Travelling agilely through the sewer tunnels, a lone Lizardman mounted on a crocodile was making his way forwards. The undead creatures powerful tail was swaying back and forth, its propulsion easily sending the odd combination of entities forwards. All the while, the undead rat sat atop Bob's shoulder, playing the part of the commander, even so it was pointless, with the noise and smell permeating the tunnel.

  From far up ahead, a muffled explosion was heard, its noise echoing through the tunnel and alerting them to a sudden change in the situation.

  With a hard kick into the crocodiles body, Bob gave it a command while pointing his dark, black spear forwards.

  "Faster Mr Crocks, our prey is getting closer! How dare that bastard get in the way of Rebecca's letter delivery! Tsch"

  It was not long after, when Bob's cold blooded eyes spotted an anomaly down the tunnel. The blanket of darkness proving futile to his senses.

  There was one problem though, the giant monster he was expecting to see was not visible. What laid before his eyes were two terrified people running towards him.

  "Ehh, there are other people down here?....Are they our neighbours?"

  The undead rat replied with a series of squeaks, successfully focusing Bob's mind on what was important at that moment.

  The giant monster had stopped at the split in the tunnel, its head moving side to side, and its forked tongue, although badly mutilated, was tasting the air for its prey. Before long it came to a conclusion and stared at the right hand tunnel.

  With its mouth closed, the monster seemingly convulsed several times, before its cheeks puffed out. With an explosive movement, its mouth opened wide and an intense blast of air flew out of its mouth. Contained within the air was not only its vile breath, although being a strong stench, it was functionally useless, but more than half of its stomachs supply of acid as well. The stomach acid was vaporised and travelled down the tunnel with no sign of stopping.

  Everything it touched was badly damaged, the walls themselves were broken and crumbled, the sewage water boiled and the air itself distorted. Further up the tunnel the acid swept across two entwined jackets, the bright yellow and pink dissolving into one another in an instant.

  With that, the monster swept its head back to the left tunnel and continued on its way. The giant monster was seemingly angered by its previous exploding food, and just wanted to vent on its foods brightly coloured wrappers.

  The giant monster had sped up and it was not long until it caught site of its prey far down the tunnel. Even so it was looking from an elevated position, and had superior eye sight, it could not make out clearly another object that was seemingly moving towards it.

  It was not long before the object came into sight, although still slightly blurry, and because of this blur, the monster refused to believe its lying eyes. The object was actually people, or more precisely a monster and an animal. A Lizardman sat atop a crocodile, riding it as if it was a valiant steed and he was a Royal jousting knight. The whole premise seemed ridiculous to even the monster.

  What happened next was even more ridiculous, the two pieces of food it was chasing abruptly stopped, and turn to run back towards it.

  Little Quacks and Giles were frantically running for their lives, with their chests burning, their leg muscles aching and their psyches thoroughly traumatised. With the enemy at their rear, all they had to do was focus on running forwards, just putting one leg in front of the other and not looking back.

  Simple.

  That was until the most bewildering sight straight out of a fever dream was in front of them, and straight bearing down on them. If they were not so exhausted, they both would of pinched themselves to see if they were dreaming.

  A red Lizardman mounted atop a crocodile and wielding a spear.