Kipo blinked. "Where'd it go?!"

"It's alive!" Wirt cried. "Bipo brought it to life?!"

"It's not," Kipo told him, but she poked her head over the table to check. What used to be a rotting corpse was now dust on the floor. Bipo was lapping it up, and Kipo winced.

"Bipo, stop," she tried to say, but Bipo took no notice of her. Wirt took a look over her shoulder.

"W-What are they even doing?!" Wirt asked. "Are they eating it?"

Kipo shook her head. "I don't know..." she said. "But, better the corpse than us, right?"

That didn't calm either of them at all.

Kipo stepped away from the gruesome sight, and looked out into the window. Rain was falling, thumping lightly against the window. Despite not raining much, it was still a lot for such a short amount of time, barely even a couple minutes.

"Come on, Wirt," Kipo said. "Let's get ready for the storm and leave Bipo to their... meal."

Wirt looked at her incredulously. "We're not going to worry about this at all?"

Kipo gave one last glance to Bipo. "Um... I mean, I doubt their going to eat us."

"Huh?" Wirt asked. "How do you know?"

"Well, there's a very big difference between the person that was eaten and the two of us," Kipo pointed out.

"There is?!" Wirt cried, looking from Bipo to Kipo and then back. Kipo blinked, and then shook her head.

"Come on, Wirt, let's go," Kipo called back to him. "We're going to make a pillow fort!"

Wirt frowned, and he didn't immediately follow her, instead studying the pile of ash that Bipo was enthusiastically licking up. A difference, a difference... what did she mean by that?

Oh. She meant the fact they were both alive and that the corpse was dead.

Wirt sighed at his stupidity, and then hurried out of the room to follow Kipo.

After a couple minutes, it was clear that their blanket fort was a bust. Unfortunately, that did not come into light until Kipo and Wirt were sitting in their fort (that Kipo, admittedly, built the most of) and water was soaking into their shoes. Wirt and Kipo exchanged a glance.

"This... uh," Wirt looked around. Their fire they built would probably be extinguished soon. "Hm."

Kipo sighed. "Aw. And for your first blanket fort, too."

Wirt winced. "I-it's not that big of a deal," he tried to say, but his voice was too low for Kipo to hear.

"I promise that your next pillow fort will best the best thing you've ever experienced!" Kipo promised somberly. Wirt shrugged. The fort was actually pretty good, so maybe he should be excited.

"Okay." Suddenly, Wirt shuddered. The water that he was practically bathing in was freezing cold, and the fire wasn't even helping anymore. His jacket wasn't helping at all, in fact, it was making it worse. But taking it off would be worse than leaving it on.

Even the animals, which had stuffed their way in there, were looking like they were starting to regret it. Regal had draped himself over Wirt's shoulders (Wirt had not taken kindly to that at first), and Bipo was lying on the ground, looking miserable. Kipo surveyed all of them, frowning.

"We should probably start looking for a better place to stay, right?" Kipo asked. The water was rising quickly, it wouldn't be long before the entire fort was full of water.

"I think that's a good idea," Wirt nodded. He tried to move, and winced. "Ow! I think my legs fell asleep..."

Kipo laughed. "Stay here, I got it."

Wirt frowned. "Are you sure?"

"What's the worse that could happen?"

Wirt's eyes widened, but Kipo turned away before he could say anything.

"I'll be right back," Kipo promised, and ducked out of the fort. She emerged in might as well have been a sea.

Somewhat bewildered, Kipo looked down as her pants, which seemed to be waterlogged at this point. The water was up to her knees. Kipo was surprised at how slanted the house seemed to be, there hadn't been any water in the fort. They picked a good spot.

Kipo shook her head, turning to the couch. She shuffled around; would this be enough for all of them? It would last long, though, it was only up to her waist.

Probably not the couch, then. Oh well. There was plenty of time to check other places-

"Um, Kipo?"

"Yeah?" Kipo called. "Something wrong?"

"The forts really, really full of water

Kipo sighed. She'd spoken too soon.

"Well, that's a bust," she said, trying to keep her spirits up. "Come up onto the couch, Wirt. It's dryer."

"...There's no choice, huh?"

"Probably." Kipo cast a concerned look at the water. "Though, I'm really not sure the couch will stay dry for long."

Wirt poked his head out of the fort, a worried look that mirrored Kipo's own on his face. "What?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Kipo told him. "Can you swim?"

"Yes," Wirt told her, climbing beside her onto the couch. "But I'm not sure how well in these clothes."

"Huh?" Kipo raised her waterlogged pants, and instantly saw what he meant. "Oh. That's not good. Well, hopefully we won't need to swim."

Wirt cast a doubtful look at the rapidly rising water, which Bipo and Regal were emerging from. They scrambled onto the couch, forcing Kipo and Wirt apart with Regal's soaking wet fur. Kipo and Wirt's efforts, though, were in vain.

Wirt sucked in a breath as his efforts went unheeded, and Kipo squealed as the front of her jacket was eventually soaked in water.

Kipo shook her head, patting Regal on the head as Wirt groaned.

"That was a little mean, Regal," Kipo giggled, but her laughter faded away when Regal suddenly perked up, his ears up in alarm. Regal swiveled his head, and Kipo went quiet. Wirt, however, didn't get the memo.

"What's going on?" he asked. His eyes widened when Kipo silently tried to shush him with frantic gestures. "What's he doing?"

"Listening," Kipo told him franticly. She remembered the first time Regal did this. That was when she'd seen the burrowing tigers for the first time. Kipo looked out the window nervously, but nothing could be seen through the pitch black that painted the sky.

Now that Wirt knew what was happening, both of them held their breath. The seconds ticked by, and the apprehension grew as they waited. Then, suddenly, they heard it too.

Boom

Kipo and Wirt both jumped, staring at each other with wide eyes. They'd both heard it then.

"What?" Wirt mouthed, and Kipo shrugged. She hadn't heard anything like that before.

Regal suddenly barked, and Kipo and Wirt jumped. Regal had jumped up, and he was snarling in the direction of the window. Against their better judgement, Kipo and Wirt turned to look.

The room went dark, and Kipo sucked in a breath. Just before the fire Kipo had set up in the fort went out, she'd seen something outside the window. A gigantic, grey leg and went up, and past the window. Whatever it belonged to must be huge, it would tower over the house.

"Wirt!"

"P-Please tell me you're going to say that whatever that leg belonged to is perfectly friendly!"

Kipo winced. "I... would, but I don't even know what that is..."

Wirt groaned. And then the roof caved in.

A large, horrible smashing sound came from the left side of the cave, and Kipo and Wirt scrambled away just in time to see a part of the house on the left side of the house crumble down. The rumble fell with a horrible crash that thankfully just missed Bipo.

Kipo and Wirt let their eyes travel up to the new hole in The House, and met with two black sphere's staring down at them from a speckled grey snout.

"A... A bone dragon," Wirt gasped. "Could it be-?"

Whatever Wirt was going to say, Kipo didn't get to hear it. The dragon suddenly opened it's mouth, black saliva dripping from the row of what seemed like over a hundred huge teeth ('Even bigger than my arm!' Kipo noted, terrified) and roared at them.

Kipo and Wirt shrank down like flowers closing in the night, covering their ears from the sound that seemed intent to completely shatter their eardrums. They couldn't even think of running away, they could barely think at all, but eventually the dragon stopped, and it lowered it's head, sharply. There was no question of whether it would be gentle or nice, it snapped at them fiercely, stopping basically centimetres away from the because of The House. But it wouldn't hold it for long; the dragon was already tearing it down with its teeth. The whole wall was nearly non-existent now.

"Wirt!" Kipo cried when the dragon reared back. She grabbed his arm. "Let's go!"

Kipo left him no room to argue, pulling him along the couch and then into the water, which was quickly draining through the hole. Behind them, Wirt could feel the dragon spike, just missing them.

"Regal, NO!" Kipo cried, and Wirt turned just in time to watch Regal jump up at the beast in a large arc, snarling with his paws outstretched. But he didn't even stand a chance.

"REGAL!" Kipo screamed, but before Kipo could even completely get the name out the dragon and turned it's head, snapping up Regal in its jaws. There was a sharp snap! And then the paw hanging out of the dragon's jaw went still.

"REGAL!" Kipo shrieked, and she tried to take a step forward, but Wirt held her arm tight.

"Kipo!" he cried. "We need to go! It'll kill us!"

"Regal!" Kipo sobbed. It didn't even seem like she could hear him. "Regal..."

Kipo almost looked like she wanted to run at the monster thoroughly enjoying it's meal, but before she could, Bipo bumped into her, staring up at her with wide eyes. That seemed to snap her out of it, and she stared at Bipo.

"Bipo..." Kipo looked from Bipo to the bone dragon and back. "I..."

"Kipo, come on!" Wirt begged. And finally, Kipo turned.

Holding tightly onto Kipo's wrist, Wirt quickly tugged her away from the dragon enjoying it's meal, and out through the hole in the wall. It didn't know where exactly to go, but he knew that staying there, just a meter or two from that thing, would be the worst option.

But as soon as Wirt took one step onto the grass outside, he immediately sunk down to his knee. And he would have sunk down farther if Kipo hadn't snapped to her senses just in time.

She held Wirt up by his coat, staring around at their surroundings with an agape mouth.

"It's completely flooded!" she cried. "But how?!"

Wirt twisted around, looking for another escape option, but instead his eyes found the bone dragon. It towered over The House, bigger than the biggest building Wirt had ever seen, and the expanse each of the two wings on it's back were probably bigger than small towns.

And it was staring right at them.

"Kipo!" Wirt shouted, but he didn't have anytime to explain or point anything out. So he just took hold of Kipo's coat and pulled her into what was essentially liquid mud.

It wasn't like swimming in water. Compared to this, swimming in water felt like something a baby could do. But in this mud, they could barely see, barely move, and the long grass, which went far deeper than either of them expected, kept getting in the way. And then Wirt found a burrowing tiger.

A gigantic maw, bigger than Wirt himself was, appeared right in front of him when he was trying to take a breath of air. Wirt cried out, working desperately to backpedal, but the burrowing tiger was much, much faster, before the jaws could close around him, however, Kipo took his sleeve and hurriedly pulled him out of the way. The burrowing tiger missed by a hair, and Kipo got them away with surprising speed. Wirt stared at her shocked. How did she do it?

"Careful," Kipo told him as they sped away. "They're everywhere."

Wirt looked around, and saw she was right. There were more burrowing tigers pedaling around on the surface of the mud than Wirt felt that he ever needed to see.

"H-How are you going so fast?!" Wirt gasped out. Even though Kipo was doing all the work, he felt out of breath.

Kipo clutched at a clump of long grass, and Wirt watched as she used it to pull them along. "The grass is surprisingly sturdy! You can use it to swim!"

Wirt nodded to show he understood. "Where are we going?!"

Now Kipo looked lost. "Um..." she looked around nervously. "Um...!"

"The forest!" Wirt shouted out. "Let's go to the forest!"

Kipo's face brightened. "Yeah!" Then it fell. "Wait..."

"With this we can go under the fog!" Wirt shouted, motioning to the mud. "We can-!"

"Forest it is!" Kipo suddenly interrupted, and Wirt wondered why before she was shoving both their heads down, just missing another pair of jaws descending on them, this time grey ones.

Using Kipo's new-found method was a lot easier than trying to swim through the mud, and soon enough, they were at the treeline. But there they found a problem. The liquid mud cut off at the treeline, giving away to dryland that Kipo and Wirt had to climb up on. It was good for their tired and aching muscles, but not for their situation.

"What do we do now?!" Wirt cried when he finally got his breath back. It had taken a long time. Longer then they probably had. Out of the corner of their eyes, they could see the bone dragon approaching.

Kipo shook her head. She didn't know what to do. "We could climb a tree...?"

Wirt cast a skeptical look at his shaking hands. "I can't. Besides, the dragon would pick us off easily."

"Then..." Kipo looked around wildly. The bone dragon was descending upon them. "Then... Bipo!"

Bipo made a snap decision for them, crawling out of the mud and running into the trees. Without hesitation, Kipo followed them. With a little bit of hesitation, Wirt followed Kipo. They threw themselves into the fog.