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Snap. The sound of a twig about 100 feet north. Adeline makes a hand motion to Elias signaling the direction and distance of the sound. He couldn’t hear it of course, not just because he was deaf, but because he wasn’t an echo. Snap. The creature was only 90 feet now, just within range. Adi looked at Eli. He nodded. She raised one hand in a snapping motion and made a snap with her fingers. The strange thing about it was that the sound of the snap of her fingers didn’t actually occur at her fingers. Instead, the sound happened 100 feet away, behind the creature. Wsh crackle snap. The creature started running right at them, Adeline gave Eli a smile and a nod as he raised his Rifle and took aim. 

The deer rushed into the clearing Eli was aiming at. Bang! the rifle, once again the sound seems way off in the distance as if the sound was thrown. The shot was clean, right through a lung. The buck took two steps and fell. 

“Nice shot,” Adi mouthed appreciatively towards Eli. He was dark-skinned, as if he had a  dark tan, thick built and toned, you had to be in this world. He was dark-haired with scars from burn wounds covering his hands and forearms. 

“Let’s go get it,” Eli signed. A frown on his face, he always hated coming out here close to twilight. The other things were always more courageous in the dark. 

They walked up to the deer, pulled out a knife, and started to gut it. As they cut in, however, they noticed a black sinuous substance on the fur of the animal. 

“Rot,” Adi said, and then cursed their bad luck. Adi quickly backed away from the animal, but Eli stayed near removing his knife and hands from the deer. 

“Do you still have a shot for the day?” Adi asked. 

“Actually, I have Two,” he signed. Two! Adi thought, taken aback. It was the middle of winter and she had been freezing for the last hour while they waited for the game to pass through here, and Eli couldn’t spend an extra shot on her to make her feel warm. Noticing the furrowed brow, Eli quickly signed

“You should always save one. You never know when you will need it.” 

“I am your wife! Shouldn’t you wanna keep me safe and warm or something like that?” 

Eli looked at her questioningly and signed “Notice that safe comes before warm. First I keep you safe, then tonight,” he moved his eyebrows in a sensual, but goofy way.   

Adi punched him playfully in the arm. This man really did love her. Eli was right though, with it so close to night they would want to have as many shots of their abilities as they possibly could. Thankfully, as an echo, she had over 15 left. It’s hard to keep count when you have 51 a day. Sadly, Burners like Eli were only given 7 a day. 

“Cloak me?” Eli signed. Adi nodded and rose both of her hands into the chill air and spent four shots. One to throw the sound of Eli’s hands making a crackling sound while his hands quickly warmed, and bubbled as he touched the flesh of the dead deer. Another to throw the sound of the deer pop, pop, popping as his hands quickly boiled away flesh, blood, and bone of the deer. A third to move the sound of the surrounding vegetation that quickly burst into flames with a crackle. And lastly, a fourth to cover the loud hiss that rot makes when it is burned. She didn’t mute the sound, however. Echos could only move sounds from one place to another. Adi found that an explosion can have the sound of a whisper if it was 100 feet into the ground. 

She looked at Eli with a frown. This buck was supposed to feed them for another week. Now they would have to go to William for food now. Eli gave her a look that said he was thinking the same thing. You never wanted to owe

Snap 

What was that? Adi spun around looking out over the clearing. She saw nothing there but the light snowfall that happened earlier today. The sound wasn’t far away. 30 feet. Eli looked at her concerned, raised his rifle, and gestured. “What?” 

An immense pain-racked Adi’s head. It felt as if her brain had been squeezed through her ears. She screamed. She didn’t even have time to throw it and fell to the ground unconscious with blood dripping from her ears. 

Eli was stunned with confusion he looked erratically and saw in the trees, about 30 paces away a creature of death. Rot blackened the humanoid shape as it slowly began to walk up to them. It had a look of something, surprise? On its face as it saw Eli and opened its mouth to scream. 

Eli lined up a shot and did so through the skull. The shot wouldn’t kill the creature, only Burners and Shamans could do that. Eli only had one shot left though, so he couldn’t waste it here. 

He bent down to quickly try and pick up Adi, but then he saw it. Rot. Her forearm was covered in the pure black tendrils, but how? 

He saw something reform as if from a cloud of mist. A Mist Walker? No, this thing had a skin of the blackest rot surrounding its eyes which looked like reflective obsidian. It was completely covered in veins of rot feasting off the host that was once human. Its legs and arms were stripped of skin, and underneath the dark vein-like rot Eli could see the red and white of bone and sinew. This rotten had been dead for a long, long time. And this rotten was scarred? How is that possible? He saw it reform right in front of him. It had Mistwalker abilities. 

It vanished, mist walked. Its body turned into a vaporous cloud of water-like substance, only instead of white like a normal mist walker, it was pitch black. A miasma of death in the air. It dissipated. Eli knew it would take less than a minute to reform. He saw the one he shot in the head a few seconds ago starting to reform. His test told him that a blown-off head took anywhere from 2 to 3 minutes to reform. He also only had one shot left. He would have to use it for the Mistwalker, but where would it reform? All rotten, at least the ones Eli had dealt with in the past simply ambled slowly toward you hoping to pin you down and spread rot as quickly as possible. Newly formed rotten could still run due to their muscles still being intact, and not yet decaying away. This rotten was far too old to be able to run, so all he needed to do was land one-shot or bullet. 

He pulled the bolt on his rifle and reloaded. 

If I can land this shot with my rifle or my last burner shot I should be able to pick up Adi and get away. It should come right at me, rotten didn’t think. 

It appeared, behind him, going for Adi. 

“No!” he screamed in garbled tones, and then he jumped on Adi, back towards the ground, with his hands up. The creature's tendrils of rot began to leach to his chest. He grabbed the thing's face. Viscera that Eli could only assume was the human's rotted brain gushed out. 

Then, he used his last burner shot. The skull of this monster blasted bright white-hot flames. He could feel the power of the blast pushing him into Adi. He had to make sure he didn’t hurt her. 

It attempted to mist walk again, Eli gripped harder, making sure it could not. That was the biggest weakness about Mistwalker's, they had so few shots. If they tried to mistwalk with another person, it wasted two shots instead of one. This monstrosity clearly did not have more than one. He continued to burn. Once the head was entirely gone, he aimed toward the body. He would hit his legs a little, but this thing needed to die! He burned, burned, burned. He could feel the vibrations from the squeal of the rot evaporating into ash. That sound would act as a beacon for all rotten within a mile. The scientist in him found that so interesting. Even as a rotten died it alerted to other rotten where their prey could be found, but the survivalist in him told him to grab Adi, and run. Run like hell.