What had happened? The Boogy Man couldn't remember, only knew up to the point when he was brought into the water with his brother and woke up torn up on the bank miles away from the niche.

More questions raced through his head. "Did I kill him? Am I dead? Where is TCT?" He pulled himself up, wincing at the pain of a gash in his shoulder as his muscles moved. "Jeez, where am I?" He asked no one, looking around, ears perked and listening.

The land around him was lush with life. The grass was thick, tall, and green. The trees were tall and bountiful with white, pink, and yellow flowers.

The Boogy Man shook his head. "Man, I have to be dead," he said as a bird flew by. "Or... Dreaming. Why.......I haven't dreampt in years." Helifted his muzzle and sniffed the air, smelling a familiar scent. His birth place... Had he been so close, yet so far away? Was this the scent that had been luring him this direction the whole time?

He sniffed again. It smelled like... fruit and flowers. Sweet, yet with a dangerously warning tart smell. He looked around, his ears flicking, and closed his eyes. Suddenly, he felt like something tore through him. He jerked his eyes open and took a mouthful of white out of instinct. He was still in the water, fighting his brother. He squinted his eyes as dirty water smashed into his face. They were caught in a current. The Creepy Thing kicked away from The Boogy Man, toward the bank. Only then did The Boogy Man turn in the current, being flipped around and around, head over heals, know where he was going.

The waterfall.
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The Creepy Thing stood atop the falls, tears rolling from his eyes. "I...I'm so sorry, brother. I should have warned you, should have saved you... But you are evil, and it is my job to relinquish the world of evil..."

A tear fell and mixed with the water, which was still flowing with blood, fur, flesh, and mud.
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Six months later
Ayla moved to the river's edge. Some forty feet to her left was the waterfall, clean and crystal. She pulled water into a bucket, her mother joining her.

Ayla was much like her mother; independant at only five with long, curly black hair, tanned skin, pudgy cheeks, and light green eyes. She envied her mother and loved her very much, and was like her little shadow."Mama, what happens if the Devil Dog returns?" She asked her mother, her pudgy little hands gripping the bucket handle.

Her mother sighed. "Ayla, darling, I told you the Devil Dog was gone long ago." Ayla's parents had never believed that the 24-year-old war veteran Michael had been attacked in his sleep by a large man-eating canine of sorts. Michael and Ayla were like brother and sister, and she would listen to Michael's story about "The Boogy Man", who was, in fact, a dog.

Ayla looked at the river's edge, seeing a clump of browned sticks, duckweed, and other dead plants in a cluster. She looked at her mother and blinked. "Mama, may I go look for crabs in that cluster?"

Her mother studied the lump on the bank. "Let me go with you." She said, putting the water buckets down and wiping her hands on her apron.

They walked over, an empty bucket in hand for crustacean collection, and began to poke through the rubble with sticks.

"Mama!" Ayla screamed as a large brown dog lept from the rubbish, drooling, red-orange eyes, and jaws abroad.

Her daughter was dead. Ayla's mother ran into the water, screaming for her husband as the best dog set it's tiny-pupiled eyes on her. "DEVIL DOG!" She screamed out, hoping the water would keep the animal at bay.

It didn't.
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The Creepy Thing looked down at the mess, the bodies, the blood, the mangled aqua plants. Was his brother back? How could The Boogy Man have survived the fall, and six months under water?

Fog started to enclose; he was near the river and it was nightfall, almost midnight. "The breath of Evil," he muttered as he walked on. "Brother, riddle me this, I will kill you." He growled up at the sky, then softened. "But... How can I kill my little brother?"

The Creepy Thing sighed, deciding to walk on. He slipped into the forest and disappeared in moments, despite his white coat.
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The Boogy Man stood on the rock ledge and smirked, hearing his brother. "Riddle me that," he said in a raspy, homicidal voice. "You can't kill me, as I cannot kill you. Caught in immortal battle, are we?"

He chuckled, a sound that tore through the night like a knife, a chilling noise, as he turned and walked away.