text: [Themes: horror, dystopia, fantasy]
  
  As you stared down at the lifeless body of the woman you had just murdered, you sensed a moral switch being flipped somewhere inside you. As desperate as you were to keep feeding, you knew that if you kept killing humans, you would only help the Hunters. The doubt you previously had about them wanting to rid the earth of humans was fading. So, you made an executive decision: no more killing, for as long as you could. If it came down to survival, you would seek out lonely, suicidal humans. No more harm to anyone, if you could help it.
  
  You couldn't really put the body in a better place, so you left it behind and started off in the opposite direction of your neighborhood. The sun was starting to peek over the horizon, reminding you that the Hunters usually hid from the sun. It was another mystery, since you weren't sure if the sun harmed them, or they just didn't like the light, but you didn't want to stick around to see if you would start melting. You picked up the pace to a light jog, your weightless limbs floating through the air like paper.
  
  Eventually, you came upon a road. You didn't recognize it, and there were no buildings in sight. On the bright side, there weren't any cars on the road, so you were safe from human eyes. You considered following the road to see where it lead, but there was no telling what it would be, and stumbling onto a group of humans in your current state would definitely turn out bad for someone, most likely the humans. You decided to cross the road and keep moving in your current direction.
  
  The sun was now higher in the sky, bathing you in light. You couldn't feel the warmth of the sun anymore, a painful reminder of what you'd lost of your humanity. But, your skin wasn't peeling like old paint, and you weren't turned to dust, so at the very least you could keep searching for somewhere to stay. You kept pondering why the Hunters would avoid sunlight, and eventually chalked it up to darkness being easier to hide and sneak around in. Being in the woods with no human activity in sight, you didn't quite have to worry.
  
  Finally, your journey ended at another neighborhood. You stopped well before you were close enough for anyone to see. Not that anyone was around. The sun was up, but still low, so not many people had woken up for the day, and those who had were still in their houses, perhaps afraid of stragglers. You watched from the woods for awhile, trying to think of a way to get through the neighborhood without being seen.
  
  As you sat there, people started coming out of their houses. The first one was a man with a bell. He shook it in the air, letting it ring loudly. He announced that it was safe once again, and a few other people emerged from their houses. It was interesting to see how other communities dealt with safety in action, but the sight of all those humans made you hungry, not to mention the fact that they thought it was safe. You would have no trouble charging up, taking out the man with the bell...
  
  No. You refused, and dismissed the thought away. You couldn't waste valuable brainpower on thoughts like that. You looked away from the group of humans, who were now performing a sort of roll call, checking to see if anyone was taken. Your wandering eyes settled on a cellar door in the ground, a few feet away from the back door of the nearest house. You considered climbing down there to hide from the sun and wait until night, but it was risky. There was no telling what was down there, or if the humans frequented their cellar. You could sit and wait to see, but you didn't want to spend too much time exposed.
  
  Your slow wit was still mulling over the pros and cons when a flicker of movement brought you back to the group of humans. They were all looking directly at you. You tensed up and crouched down, waiting for a cry or for them to charge at you. They only stood there, watching you. you couldn't tell if they could even see you, as there was no discernible expressions on any faces. The group stayed together, and watched you.
  
  You sat unmoving for another few minutes. The group had seemingly dismissed you as an oddly-shaped plant, because they were splitting off and heading back to their homes. It was safe to go back to the cellar, if you dared. There was also a tingling feeling that the humans weren't staring at you for no reason. Perhaps they had seen you, and were just ignoring you?But that would be stupid. Surely they knew how dangerous you were, a beast knowing only hunger and violence. You began to entertain the idea of revealing yourself in the open, just to see how'd they'd react. You watched the inhabitants of one of the houses pile into a car and drive off, and looked at the cellar door a final time.
  
  > hide In The Cellar
  You glanced out at the road one last time, just to make sure nobody was watching. For the most part, you were in the clear. The residents of the cellar house were all inside, and there weren't any windows overlooking the backyard, where the cellar was. You shifted your weight to your legs, and began crawling over to the cellar doors, taking great care to stay behind the brush.
  
  You made your way over to the cellar doors, a few feet away from the house and a few inches above the ground. The doors were unlocked, and swung open easily. Behind the doors was a cement staircase, leading down to a small room. Taking care to quietly close the door behind you, you crept down the stairs.
  
  When you reached the bottom, you found that the room was full of food. The walls were lined with metal shelves stacked high with jars of fruit, each with a tape label. There were peaches, apples, pears, and cantaloupe, enough to feed a family for a long time. You wondered why the humans had left the food down there. Considering the new circumstances of the world, you would have probably taken the food upstairs to prevent someone from stealing it.
  
  As you scanned the shelves, your eyes connected the food with the pain in your stomach, making you hungry. You knew that peaches were no substitute for human blood, and it was almost torture to sit and stare at the walls of useless food. As you stood in the cellar, a thought bubbled to the surface, and you decided that it wouldn't hurt to at least try the food, just to see.
  
  You grabbed a jar of peaches and tried to unscrew the lid, only to find that it was sealed. You looked around for a can opener or some implement to open the jar with, but there was nothing. At this point, you were convinced that you needed the peach juice to keep going. The hunger pangs were unbearable now that you were holding food in your hand. It didn't matter that it was people food.
  
  In a moment of weakness, you slammed the lid of the peach jar against one of the metal shelves. The top half of the jar shattered, leaving you with glass and peach slime on the floor, and a half full glass of juice and peach bits. You immediately threw your head back and guzzled the peach juice mixed with broken glass. The bits of glass didn't hurt of course, but the taste wasn't superb.
  
  The peach juice did little to tame the fire in your stomach, but it wasn't bad. You emptied the glass into your mouth, and the sweet peaches only made you crave more. Maybe if you ate everything, every jar of peaches, every jar of cinnamon apples, it could at least stall you. You grabbed another jar and, more conscious of the noise factor, tried to quietly tap it against the cement stairs, until the lid popped off. This jar opened cleanly, allowing you to chug the contents of the jar unhindered.
  
  After three more jars of peaches, your hunger was diminished just a little bit. It was still painful, but you could feel an effect. The incentive of finally taming your hunger, even for a little bit, made you empty an entire shelf of peach jars. The rest of the world melted away as you fell into a rhythm. Grab a peach jar, crack the top, clear the glass if it was necessary, and slurp down the peaches.
  
  Soon, you were surrounded by shattered peach jars, an entire shelf was empty, and you still weren't full. Satisfying yourself now seemed like an unattainable goal. You could get started, but never come close, let alone rid yourself of the hunger. You decided to save the rest of the food for later. As you stepped away from the shelves, you became aware of your situation again. You were lucky nobody had walked in on you, otherwise you'd have gotten killed.
  
  You debated leaving the cellar and going back to traveling, but a trove of food like this was hard to pass by. You had no means to carry the jars with you, and you weren't about to break into a house in search of a bag. You climbed the cement stairs again and propped the door open with one hand. You saw the sun, high in the sky. It was about midday.
  
  Then your skin started to burn. It was an itchy, burning pain that made you recoil. The cellar door slammed shut as you stepped back and looked at your arms. Your pale, faded skin was now a dull red, as though you'd gotten a sunburn. You looked up at the cellar doors. The sun. You couldn't go out in the sun anymore.
  
  You were trapped in the cellar until nightfall, so you sat among the glass jars, trying to think of a way to pass the time. You scooped some peach bits off the ground and rubbed them on your skin to see if it would help, but it only seemed to make the pain worse. You had to fan your arm with your hand, stopping every so often to switch to the other one. As you sat and fanned your arms and stared at the wall, you had another thought.
  
  A few hours ago, you were walking in the sunlight like it was nothing. Just then, a few seconds in the sun had burned you badly. You were starting to change, losing touch with your humanity. The Hunters and the taken probably did get fried by the sun, which was why they disappeared during the day. You were turning into one of them. You'd had your day of grace. Now it was starting.
  
  You were angry, mostly at yourself. Your memory of being human was fuzzy, but you knew this: it was your fault you had been taken and bitten by that Hunter. You let it happen. Now you were going to turn into a soulless husk, just like the forgotten wanderers who roamed the streets at night.
  
  You lay down on the floor among the broken glass, waiting until it was dark enough for you to emerge from the cellar. It felt like you spent days in the cellar, checking the doors every so often, only to find that it was still hot and sunny. When the sun finally set and it was safe to go outside again, you exited the cellar slowly, still careful not to alert any humans to your presence.
  
  As soon as you got a safe distance away from the house, you broke into a run. You didn't know where you were going or why. Maybe you hoped you would stumble upon an answer, a way to go back. Maybe you were trying to run from the hunger in your stomach. Maybe you were just going insane. You ran, and ran, and kept running, until you ran into a Hunter.
  
  You stopped short, just a few feet away from it. It was the same color as the night, its blurry outline hard to spot. It was long and slender, just like the one that attacked you. You hid in the brush and watched it, still fearful it would attack you, which was silly. You were part of its team. You and the Hunter were one and the same. Its long, slow stride was almost rhythmic. It raised a long, leathery leg and cleared a few feet in one stride, slowly moving forward. It almost seemed docile.
  
  Eventually, after watching it saunter around for awhile, you rose up from your hiding place and called to it. You weren't sure if you were expecting a response, but you didn't get one. The Hunter turned its deformed head in your direction, and, for a brief moment, you held eye contact. Then, the Hunter deemed you unworthy of wasting energy on, and turned away. You watched it move away from you.
  
  A few moments passed, and you realized you were following it. You felt drawn to the creature, as though it was a friend you had known for a long time. It took long strides, passing quickly and quietly through the woods, and you just walked behind it, crunching leaves and snapping twigs. Some faint echo in your head warned you that this was a bad thing, that your instinct was to follow the creature, and that you had to fight it. The thought was quickly snuffed.
  
  You lost track of how long you were following the creature, but you were suddenly lifted back into semi-consciousness when the creature stopped. it lowered itself and took on a defensive posture. You looked up, past the creature, to find that it had led you to an apartment building. The forest you stood in was encroaching on the apartment's back wall, the perfect cover to break into the building.
  
  The Hunter began to move forward. The motion would have been terrifying, watching it crawl across the ground with alarming speed and in total silence, but you weren't afraid. You went to follow it like a lost puppy. The Hunter crawled all the way up to the back door of the apartment building. Slightly more aware, you noticed the windows had been boarded up. The door, however, was still free of obstructions. The humans trusted that the hinges could survive an impact.
  
  You knew the metal door would stand no chance. The Hunter would tear through it and find the nearest human to take away. Suddenly, at this turning point, the small voice in your brain became very loud, telling you to stop the Hunter. You were right behind it after all, and it didn't seem to care about you. You didn't know if you'd be able to turn the beast away, or injure it to the point that it couldn't hurt anyone, but it was worth a try, right?
  
  > grab the Creature's Hind Leg
  At that moment, the drive to keep fighting the Hunter's domination of the human race was reignited inside you, if only briefly. You grabbed the creature's right leg with both hands, as tightly as you could, and pulled backwards. The Hunter didn't expect it, and it slid backwards. It tried to create traction by hooking its claws to the concrete ground in front of the door, but this only created a horrible scratching noise.
  
  The creature howled in anger and kicked you in the chest, sending you flying backwards. You landed in the brush a few feet away, but your work had been done. The sound of the Hunter's claws on the concrete had woken up the apartment's inhabitants. Flashlight beams shone from the windows above, illuminating the Hunter. It howled, and fled as quickly as it could, once again paying no attention to you.
  
  A human emerged from the back door with a flashlight, and scanned the woods. You were already down and lying in a pile of leaves, and apparently the human didn't see you. Once the human decided it was safe, the flashlight beam disappeared, as did all the others. The door was locked, and you could hear scuffling sounds as something big and heavy was pushed against the door.
  
  When it was safe again, you rose, and patted your chest. The kick didn't break any bones, and you were still upright. After you knew you were safe, a new emotion took hold of you, one you didn't know still existed: pride. You saved people. You saved an entire building of people from the jaws of a wicked beast.
  
  The feeling of happiness didn't last long, but the thought didn't leave your brain. You looked up at the apartment building, then at the woods where the Hunter had fled. You decided to stay by the apartment building, just in case something else came in the night. You searched around for a place to hide from the sun when it rose, and eventually came to rest in the building next door to the apartment.
  
  It looked abandoned, and there certainly weren't any people inside, so you stayed in, and explored. From what you could gather, the building used to be something along the lines of a nursing home, but it was stripped bare. No posters or photos, not very much furniture remained. You were curious about what happened, but the thought didn't survive long.
  
  You idly watched the apartment building from a window in the nursing home until you saw another figure approaching. Too small to be a Hunter, you knew immediately it was another taken. Another former human. You left the nursing home, and looked up at the sky. Sunlight couldn't have been more than a few hours away.
  
  The pale-faced ex-human approached the apartment's boarded-up front window and began to push against the glass. You could only stare at the thing as it awkwardly tested the glass, trying to find a hole or weak point. You called out to the thing quietly. It ignored you and kept leaning against the glass. You wondered if would be best to leave the thing be, until a spiderweb crack appeared on the window.
  
  The glass was thick and secured by wooden boards, but the thing was eventually going to get in. Several emotions fought for control of your next move. Part of you wanted to save the apartment again. Make a noise and alert them. Another part of you wanted to stay neutral. Stopping the Hunter was different, because a Hunter had killed you, and you held a grudge. A Hunter was a massive, gangly beast. This was just another person, like you.
  
  > alert The Humans
  You watched the taken human push against the window again, slowly deepening the crack in the glass. You knew what had to be done, even though you didn't like it. You roared out, a primal roar from deep in your hungry gut. Then you disappeared back into the nursing home. Immediately, faces appeared in the apartment's window's looking for the source of the noise. They quickly found the intruder, and dispatched someone to kill it. You sat away from the window, refusing to watch the taken human die.
  
  You kept careful watch over the apartment for the rest of the night, although you probably didn't need to. The humans were much more alert after two attacks, and guarded the damaged window heavily until sunlight dominated the world again. They went back inside, knowing it was safe. You didn't have the forethought to find somewhere else to go before sunrise, so you were trapped in the nursing home. You didn't mind, though. It was a large building.
  
  You wandered through the nursing home, now illuminated with sunlight, careful to avoid the streams of light coming from the windows. The place was relatively small, and the rooms that previously held patients were now stripped bare, save for a few random drains and pipes. The main thought that occupied your brain was curiosity as to why the place was so empty. Abandoned buildings were understandable, even if that was a bit much. Maybe keeping the elderly alive now was too costly. But removing every piece of furniture? It seemed excessive.
  
  You pushed opened the wooden doors to every room, scanning the empty floor, not entirely sure what you were looking for, if anything. You certainly weren't expecting to find a frantic message scrawled on the floor of one the rooms. You passed it before because it was dark, but now you could see faint scratchings in the floor, done by some sharp tool. You had to step into the room and lean down to read it. It said, 'chlorine kills the demons.'
  
  A chill ran down your spine. From the looks of the message, whoever had written it was in a hurry, as if something was pursuing them. The message was clear, and yet you didn't understand it. 'Chlorine kills the demons'. It couldn't be that simple. It made no sense. The Hunters had wandered the earth for months now, and not once had they come in contact with chlorine? Even on accident? For that matter, who found out that was their weakness, and how?
  
  The revelation was a sensory overload for you. Your faint whisper of an existence, wondering what on earth you would do with your rotting corpse, suddenly had the tools to dismantle the creatures. Well, that was an exaggeration. But this new potential weapon could prove useful. You wanted to try it first, just to confirm it worked, before trying to save a town full of people with a bucket of chemicals.
  
  When hearing chlorine, your first thought was swimming pools. Most domestic pools were full of chlorine. Would pushing a Hunter into a pool make it melt? The idea seemed foreign and impossible, and at the same time worth a shot. The next most common chlorine source would be soaps and disinfectant. You'd need a hardware store.
  
  As you carefully approached a window to check how long it was until sundown, you found your animalistic urge to hunt being awakened. The fruit jars weren't holding up anymore, and you were hungry. Your stomach growled at the knowledge of a building full of food just next door, but you distracted yourself by deciding how to find and transport chlorine. The sun hovered just barely over the horizon, it couldn't have been more than an hour until sundown.
  
  Your vacant mind churning with new knowledge, you sat under the window and watched the light until it disappeared, and the world wore a cloak of darkness. You found yourself moving at alarming speed, leaving the nursing home behind and bounding down the road. You searched signs and buildings, hoping you would see an ad for a Home Depot, or something similar.
  
  The first source you came across was a neighborhood with a large swimming pool near the entrance. It seemed abandoned, with all the houses' front doors wide open. At first your brain tingled with confusion, but the feeling quickly turned to horror when you noticed that all the windows were shattered, and the road was soaked in crimson.
  
  The trails all lead to a forested area west of the neighborhood. You followed the blood trails as best you could, although you couldn't tell if hunger or fear was driving you. You hoped that the humans had just fled the neighborhood, but with each passing step that possibility shrank. Finally, you came upon the sight you knew you would have to face -- a messy pile of human bodies, all with severe bite marks on the bodies.
  
  Just as your initial wave of shock subsided, a new crashed into you as you realized how many Hunters would have to be involved with this attack. Was each human attacked by one Hunter, or did a few Hunters make forward and back trips? The former implied that the Hunters were becoming pack animals, a thought too terrifying to keep feeding.
  
  As your fear and shock disappeared, your hunger was the next to take control, and you dropped to your knees over the nearest corpse, sucking the remaining blood from the tissue like a slice of orange. The humans lost blood fast, but you still got more than a full meal of blood from the corpses. You weren't proud of what you did, but it was a temporary solution that stopped you from harming the living. After you drank, you started back towards the neighborhood to retrieve the pool water.
  
  You arrived back at the neighborhood in time to see another Hunter standing in the middle of the road by itself. It seemed almost dormant, and eerily calm. It was looking at the road, and apart from the slight movement of its arms due to breathing, it was still as a statue. You approached slowly, not wanting to wake it up. You slowly made your way towards it until you were standing right in front of it. It paid no attention to you.
  
  The swimming pool wasn't too far away. You had to go up the road a bit further and make a right turn, and there was the pool of death. The only obstacle was moving the behemoth over to it. You were slightly afraid to just push it or grab its skeletal hand, so you tried making a noise. You clapped, and the creature raised its head. It saw you, and leaned in to examine you. Upon realizing you were already dead, it brushed you aside and began to mill in place.
  
  You knew there weren't many options, so you fought your fear response and took the monster by its elongated wrist. It didn't take much notice. You slowly began to march in the direction of the pool, with the Hunter in tow. It clearly didn't want to follow you, but you pulled on its arm until it spun around, and began to walk in your direction. You guided it in the direction of the pool, and it wasn't until you were halfway there that you realized the humor in your situation. You were like a small child dragging its mother through the toy store.
  
  Eventually, you were at the pool's edge. The Hunter didn't seem too afraid of the water, and had stopped resisting you. You sat there, holding the hand of a murderous beast, on the edge of a recreational swimming pool. Drawing in a breath, you pulled the monster in the direction of the water. It pulled back, and used its claws to latch onto the ground.
  
  This was going to be difficult. You released the monster's hand and went behind it. You pushed firmly on its back, forcing it forward. It stopped just short and let out a short howl as if to protest. You pushed its legs one final time and sent it careening into the water. Immediately on impact, you heard a horrible hissing noise, like grease on a stove. It was a sizzle, accompanied by pained screams from the Hunter. It scrambled to escape the pool like a dog out of a bathtub, and eventually pulled itself out of the water.
  
  The Hunter's skin was falling off its frame in large chunks. The creature was literally melting before you, its organic matter crumbling. The Hunter staggered forward, then collapsed into a heap of biomass. Seeing its bare skull and bones was a little unsettling, but you couldn't care less. It had worked. The chlorine in the pool water was lethal.
  
  > A New Weapon
  There was a small building next to the pool labeled 'maintenance'. The door was closed but not locked, so you could easily get in. There was only one room inside, and it consisted of multiple shelves stacked with all manner of pool-cleaning supplies. You read some of the bottles, looking for chlorine as an ingredient, but didn't find much. You figured you could still use the soap containers to store pool water, so you took them anyway, along with a metal bucket in the back corner.
  
  You emptied the bottles of soap, took all the containers outside, and filled them with pool water. When you were done, you had thirteen bottles and one bucket of Hunter poison. The job had taken a long time, but it was still hours before the sun would rise again. You had time to test the effectiveness of your arsenal. The only issue was transport. Water was heavy, and so was a big metal bucket. You needed a way to carry the bottles with you.
  
  Without proper materials, the best you could do was a makeshift bag made from the pool net. You made a mental note to find a duffel bag soon, and packed as many bottles as would fit in the net, minus the bucket. You left it behind because it had no top, and would probably be more hindering than helpful. You took the net bag and left the neighborhood, keeping a safe distance away from the pile of Hunter bones.
  
  With no clear destination in mind, you started off in a new direction. You had never actually seen a Hunter during the day, and didn't know where they hid, or if they had homes. The closest you could get was to find a group of humans, where a Hunter was likely to attack. Neighborhoods were your best bet, and you were in a residential area, so the odds were hopefully in your favor.
  
  You passed two more neighborhoods, both of them secure. There were humans in the houses, and the streets were safely lit. No sign of any Hunters. You sighed. Of course it would be difficult now. They were everywhere when you didn't want to see them, but seeking one out was apparently impossible. You kept walking down the side of the road, intently watching the darkness for moving silhouettes.
  
  Another few hours passed, and the moon was sinking lower into the sky. You feared you'd have to wait another day before searching again. You were ready to admit defeat and start searching for a hiding place when you heard a scream, followed shortly by a grating scratching noise coming from the road ahead. You tensed up and started sprinting down the road towards the noise.
  
  A young, female human was sitting in the driver's seat of a car parked on the side of the road, near the entrance to another neighborhood. At first, the car seemed to be violently shaking for no reason, but then you saw the faint outline of a Hunter sitting on the car's roof. The human screamed, and the Hunter dragged its claws across the windshield, repeating the grating noise you heard. This was a perfect opportunity.
  
  You dropped the net bag and grabbed the first bottle you could find. It was a decent size, probably enough to at least scare away the Hunter. You ran for the car, praying the Hunter wouldn't tear the car in half before you got there. As you got closer, the human saw you through the windshield. Her eyes widened, but she was speechless. You made eye contact with her and held a finger to your lips, instructing her to stay silent.
  
  The Hunter was pulling at the passenger side door now, trying to rip it off. You feverishly screwed the cap off the bottle of pool water and moved in closer. You could see the Hunter perfectly now, its jaw slick with saliva. The human watched in confusion as you dumped the bottle of water onto the Hunter's arm.
  
  The water made contact with the Hunter's skin and immediately created a loud sizzling noise. The Hunter roared, and swung its arm down at the car. The window shattered, and the human screamed again. The Hunter adjusted itself and reached a claw down into the car. You quickly started splashing the water onto the Hunter's face and arm, burning it badly.
  
  The Hunter was enraged now. It yanked its arm back out of the car, and you could see tears and bubbles in the skin. The Hunter swung a claw at you, pushing you backwards and knocking the bottle out of your hands. It screeched again, and launched off the roof of the car into the woods. You righted yourself and watched the creature disappear into the night. Picking the bottle up off the ground, you inspected it for damage. Unfortunately, it seemed the Hunter had slashed it in half.
  
  The human girl was in shock, unable to move. She stared at you with her mouth open, not knowing how to react. You stepped forward to address her, but she cowered back into her seat. You caught a glimpse of yourself in the rearview mirror, a pair of cloudy, sunken eyes looking back at you. Your skin was bone-white, and your jaw was clearly visible underneath, a painful reminder of the difference between you and the human in front of you.
  
  Deciding there was no way to communicate with her safely, you turned back to pick up your net of chlorine water. You'd lost a bottle, but there was enough left that you could keep going. The pool you had collected from was miles away now, and you wished you had taken more. There was no telling when the next source would pop up.
  
  You heard the car door open behind you, and the human stepped out. She was watching you intently, but the fear was gone from her eyes. She slowly moved toward the neighborhood, and it occurred to you that no other humans had come to help her, despite her screams. You wondered if she was an outcast, and that was why she slept at the entrance of the neighborhood, rather than inside it.
  
  She moved into the neighborhood, eventually looking away from you to find her way. You stood still and let her leave, until she stopped and turned back around. It was almost as if she was beckoning you to follow. You took an uneasy step forward, and she nodded. You walked slowly towards her, and she turned to continue walking into the neighborhood. You stared to find your footing with more confidence now that you knew she wasn't afraid.
  
  She led you down to the far reaches of the neighborhood, past rows of empty houses. They were all as vacant as the neighborhood that had been attacked, and you wondered if something similar had happened here. The air was quiet, except for the light padding of your feet on the road and the human's ahead of yours. You walked all the way down a road until you reached a lone house bordering the woods. A makeshift fence had been built around the property, sheltering it from the forest. One look and you could tell it wouldn't stop a Hunter at all, but perhaps it was for taken humans. Like you.
  
  Another human opened the front door of the house. Upon seeing you, he ran outside, ready to kill you. The younger human raised her hands to stop him, and explained what had happened. As she told the story, the man watched you with a look of fear, then shock, then remorse, then acceptance. He had deemed you safe.
  
  The young female was the one to invite you inside, the man didn't seem too keen on allowing you in. But, you had saved a life. That was enough. Once inside, you dumped your net of bottles onto a table. The man looked at you in confusion, not understanding. The female didn't make the connection either. You couldn't speak, so you looked around the room to find something to write with.
  
  You found a sharpie in a drawer, and approached the wall. You took off the cap and began drawing a diagram. The man stepped forward to stop you at first, but stepped back when he read what you wrote. You drew a crude picture of a Hunter, then crossed it out. You drew a picture of a bucket, labeled it 'chlorine', and showed it pouring onto the Hunter as best you could. You finished the drawing by aggressively scribbling out the Hunter.
  
  The man stared at what you had drawn for a moment, then looked at you. He held up one of your bottles with a quizzical look. You nodded. He looked at you, then at your drawing, then back at you. He set the bottle down, and gestured for you to follow him. He took you into a basement, where he had a rubber hose hung on a wall.
  
  > War
  The two humans lived in the neighborhood alone, their neighbors either leaving or dying. This meant you had everything in the other houses at your disposal. The man had a workshop in his basement, and besides the hose he had tools to build a weapon of sorts, a powerful liquid cannon to attack the Hunters.
  
  Your job was to search the neighborhood for more chlorine. You broke into windows and searched shelves, reading fine print and ingredients labels for anything and everything that contained chlorine. You gathered them all on the road in front of the humans' house, totaling over thirty bottles when you finished the first street.
  
  Soon, the sun came up. You were safely hidden inside the house, away from all the windows. Your massive collection of chlorine sat on the road, waiting for the next night. Down in the basement, the machine was nearing completion. The man had made some modifications to a power washer and attached the rubber hose to the nozzle. He carried it upstairs and showed it to you. When you saw it, a small fire lit in your eyes.
  
  A different kind of hunger fueled you now, a feeling you could only call revenge. You walked by the humans many times, not once feeling the urge to attack. Your focus of hunger and hate was not on any human, but on your killers. The world's killers. The Hunters. You don't remember how long it had been since they were here. You couldn't remember a time before them. What you knew now was that it was over. Once the rest of the world caught on, they could fight back, and this nightmare would be over.
  
  You waited impatiently for the sun to go down, busying yourself by playing with the power washer. It had power settings from 1 to 10, and you could only imagine the effect a rocket of acid would have on a Hunter. You hoped it would kill on impact. That would be ideal. But, if you could at least wound them beyond repair, make them fear humans, it would be enough.
  
  Finally, the sun was lowering in the sky. Retribution was near. Once it was safe, you and the man got to work. A new, bigger holding tank had been welded to the power washer, allowing it to hold more liquid. You dumped bottle after bottle of bleaches and soaps into the container, watching them mix into a brown color. For a moment, you worried about creating an explosion by mixing this many ingredients, but evidently you got lucky, because everything went off without a hitch.
  
  You stood in the middle of the road, the rubber hose gripped tightly in your hands. Behind you, the humans stood at the controls, ready to power you with chemicals. The sun had long since disappeared, creating the perfect conditions for a test run. You nodded to the man, and he stood up, and let out a long yell. It echoed over the trees, traveling fast and far.
  
  It didn't take long to hear a response. A faint roar came from not too far away, and you could see trees moving as the Hunter brushed past them. Leaves and twigs crunched under its feet at amazing speeds as it barreled towards you. Finally, the Hunter burst through the treeline just down the road. It saw the humans, and roared loudly, a deafening roar. From all around you, a chorus of roars responded. A slight sense of worry formed in you as you wondered if you had underprepared.
  
  There was no time to think now. The Hunter was galloping towards you. You turned around. The younger human nodded at you, and turned the power washer to setting 5. You turned back just in time to see the Hunter in front of you, ready to strike. You pushed on the nozzle and sent a spray of soap forward. The foamy wave covered the Hunter completely, creating the same sizzling as before. It howled in agony.
  
  Behind you, the human turned the power up to 6. The chlorine spray strengthened, pushing the Hunter backwards. Its skin was flaking away quickly, and the was a visible hole in its body where the spray was strongest. You stepped forward as it moved back, and pretty soon the Hunter was no more. Behind you, the human turned off the nozzle.
  
  You stared in awe at the soapy, foamy pile of bone that the Hunter left behind. You set down the hose and walked up to it. You could see the tattered skin stretched over the cracked bones. You picked up a piece of the skin and held it up to the moonlight. It looked like blackened swiss cheese, wrinkled and tattered beyond repair. After a few seconds, the skin began to fall apart, and dropped out of your hand onto the ground.
  
  Careful not to touch any chlorine yourself, you picked the hose back up. The humans were smiling, and you realized you were too. The plan was a success. From here, it would only be a matter of spreading the word. You had a pair of humans now who could help. You could unite neighborhoods,, and soon there would be an army of humans, all carrying buckets of chlorine to wipe these monsters off the earth. You basked in the aura of power you felt around you. You were strong now, and the Hunters were weak.
  
  Suddenly, a chorus of crashing broke the silence. You could hear several Hunters approaching quickly, screeching and screaming at each other. A look of fear crossed your face, and you looked over at the humans. Instead of fear, they wore expressions of determination and power. The man stepped forward and put a finger on the power setting. You nodded.
  
  Stepping forward, you gripped the hose tightly. As the first Hunter came rushing into view, you took your aim. Behind you, the man turned the power setting up to 10.