She had grown tired of waiting for the moose monster to return.


    She had looked in all the normal places she had seen it before, though she was beginning to think that they weren’t normal places for the moose monster. When the monster had proven itself absent from anywhere she cared to look for it, she had returned to its lair.


    She had spent the rest of her time awake trying to scavenge the lair in search of the materials the monster had used in its craft. She didn’t find them, but she did find a small stash of treats. They were in one of the high spaces in the room, just as she had seen when the monster took out the powder, but there weren’t enough to move them elsewhere.


    ‘If there is a stash here, I don’t have to worry about my stashes.’


    That led to an intriguing thought though. She had not found anything in the low spaces in the room. If the monster simply didn’t look in them because they were too low to the ground, would her stashes be safe there?


    She spent a sleep thinking it over, but it was foolish not to try. She spent the remainder of her time before sleeping again going to the stashes of treats she felt were the least protected. The stash in her home was safe and the one near the rain room should be safe as well. The ones near the food place and farther out needed to be relocated though. She also had to determine where the moose monster had marked out territory.


    The Pages said that living things had territory. They all marked them differently but if you knew what to look for you could find it. At first, she had thought an unstoppable moose monster wouldn’t care and that there was a mistake. But the moose monster had a lair and that was territory, right? Clearly territory wasn’t just to keep others out, it could have another meaning. The moose monster might not care if others came into its territory, since they couldn’t do anything to it, but if she made a big mess in its lair, she imagined that would cause it to be angry. Just like she would be if something made a mess in her home.


    Since she had a territory in her home and the moose monster clearly had a territory as well, the Pages were likely correct on this. It would be strange for something that big to have a small territory though, so there had to be some way it was marked. How did the other monsters know not to intrude on the moose monster?


    It was possible that the moose monster used magic to mark it, but she thought that was probably wrong. If something couldn’t sense the magic, like her when she first encountered the moose monster, it wouldn’t know to be afraid. It was possible smell was used, as she could smell the moose monster clearly in its lair. The tunnels seemed to whisk away all smell though, so something like that wouldn’t last long. While that could be why the moose monster was gone so often, she thought that a combination of things would work better in that case.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    If the words on the walls had not been there before the moose monster shown up she would be convinced that was how it marked things. It was possible that this area had belonged to another monster before though and the moose monster had simply taken it over. Things had changed drastically once the moose monster had come to the area. If that was true then everywhere was the moose monster’s territory and she was back to the beginning, if it was everywhere than no where was special. Since its lair was special there had to be a limit.


    The only way forward was to find another monster.


    If she could see what it did to be afraid of the moose monster, she would know what to look for. She could think of only two ways to accomplish that though. She either had to use herself as bait, most likely in the food place, to lure the monsters in and see what happened or she had to wait in the moose monster’s lair.


    She had no interest in the first way. Not only did her curse of light make it impossible to not see her anywhere but the moose monster’s lair, it made it difficult to see what was stalking her. If she was to make herself the bait, she would only draw in monsters that needed food and couldn’t find it. If a monster was that desperate it might not be afraid of anything other than the actual moose monster.


    Since she only had one good option to choose it would have to be what she did. Using the blanket with the opening made moving her treats all at once fairly easy. She found a low space that seemed unused and made her first stash there. Just to be safe and make sure the moose monster didn’t get them all, she made another stash in a room nearby.


    Once her task was complete, she left her small blanket on the floor near the opening and crawled under the blankets in the moose monster’s nest. It smelled the strongest of the moose monster, so she felt it should hide her. Combined with the darkness in the moose monster’s lair and she felt well hidden. It gave her a sense of comfort and a strange wiggly sensation once she had settled in.


    ‘If all the darkness feels this good then the light really is a curse.’


    She could understand why the moose monster allowed the darkness into its lair.


    Once the light lost interest and fled the darkness in the tunnel she began the slow part of her plan. She didn’t know how long she would need to wait, but she hoped she would hear the monsters before they came to the opening. She didn’t know if she could keep quiet if they surprised her.


    Of course, it didn’t take long for her first mistake to make itself known.


    As she lay there waiting, the warmth grew more and more. With the softness of the floor and the warmth from the moose monster’s nest, she began to feel the tingles she associated with magic.


    ‘Of course the moose monster’s nest has magic in it!’


    She was torn. She really had no other idea to test and if she stopped now she may never be strong enough to try again. If she didn’t stop though she may well fall into a haze and not notice another monster invading the lair. She felt safe enough, shrouded in the darkness, but if she couldn’t react than no where was truly safe.


    She debated too long though, the decision stolen from her as the warmth pulled her into sleep.