In the morning, Zell and Bindi wake up feeling refreshed and renewed after the long day they had before. Yawning, Zell thinks over what the lady of petals said. After not making much headway, he succumbs to sleep, knowing he will need his energy in the next few days. Bindi sits on a log across from the thinking Zell, with a worried look on her face because she knows what her responsibility and duty will be in the next couple days. Her slender body and agility, make her an equal match to a snake, the age-old fight between the mongoose and a snake. Though, if the lady by the river has special powers, then she may more than a snake… and what will that mean for Bindi? ponders Zell. After contemplating ideas and trying to conjure up a plan of attack, Zell stands up with a burst of energy, “Eureka! I’ve got it!” He figures that since she is part snake and snakes rely on smell, even from their tongue, if he disables her senses they might have a chance. Coincidentally, they are in a region that has copious, and bountiful amounts of Lureem, a plant that if touched to the face or inhaled, will impair your sense of smell. In their excitement, they barely hear the even crunch of footsteps coming nearer to them. Just in time, they crouch behind the log Bindi was sitting on earlier and watch the person go by. To their amazement, it is a young man from their village. They expected it to be a nomad or traveling gypsy, but it was young man from their village. Zell was about to call out to him when he notices something is off, he is humming a silly little tune, his eyes transfixed onto something in the distance, his feet tripping over each other. It looked as if he had had way to much alcohol, but Zell knew that couldn’t be right because it was the middle of the day and he was a two days travel away from the village and you can’t travel in a specific path for two days safely when you’re drunk. Right before he goes out of earshot, he mumbles a woman’s name and something about a river! Zell and Bindi quietly follow after him, knowing he must be under her spell somehow and that she must be near, so they decide to watch. They were just about to give up following him, when they hear a harp playing a tune that matches the tune the man was humming. Then, as they are watching the man inhales deeply a miniature pink cloud that’s path was straight to him. After inhaling the cloud, that clearly was not normal air, the man falls deeper into the trance he was in and continues walking, worse than before. In their horror, Zell and Bindi stuff their noses with leaves and panic claws at them as they know they are getting closer to this monster.
They decide to not follow the man, as to not fall directly into the same trap he is about to go into, but decide to run ahead and climb up a tree that overlooked the river. The man, now entirely under the woman’s spell, trips and falls face first into the river. The woman glides over to him and picks him up out of the water, with surprising strength for her slender frame. Her voice smooth and sweet, drawing the man nearer to her. she whispers to him, “We can’t have you hurt for your death now can we?...” Her smile fades and she laughs a sinister laugh as her skin turns greenish blue color, and snakes slithers out of nowhere down her arm, her torso twisting and wriggling out of its skin. She picks him up, holding him above her head, and Zell could see the last bit of sanity in his eyes die and his recognition that this was the end, broke his heart to see him give up all hope and concede to the monster about to destroy him. Her eyes menacing, her determination clear and objective obvious, there was no way out for this man. Then as Zell watches the monster rip the man apart, his cries of mercy ignored, the words of the lady of petals, the monster’s sister, floated through his mind, “She was heart-broken... he only pretended to love her...” Zell comes to the realization that she blames everyone, all men for her sadness and is taking her rage out on them! Then Zell remembers that the lady of petals mentioned something about the head being needed to be cut.

“That’s it!” Zell says in a not too quiet voice. The monster, who’s in the middle of biting the neck of the young man, slowly stands up to her full height and turns around to the direction of the sound’s origin. Her eyes now focused on finding a new target, while her tongue goes crazy slipping in and out of her mouth trying to smell and sense a new presence. The blood that is dripping down her seems as if it’s taunting Zell, making him even sicker to the stomach and scared for his life. She slowly stalks toward the tree Zell is hiding in. Each step sending a new wave of butterflies and trembles through Zell’s body. Clearer than ever, her comfort and advantage to all adversaries is when she is in or by water. As she steps out of the river to the side that Zell is on he lets his eyes leave her for a moment and glances to the other side of the river where the harp still lay. The once beautiful carvings and engraving along it seem like records of the deaths that occurred here and the ivory that forms the structure for the harp now looks like bones and could be some poor man’s femur for all he knew. When he looks back down to where the monster was lurking, he finds, to his horror that she is standing directly under him, staring up at him. Laughing. Zell is paralyzed, his heart, he thinks could beat out of his chest, the blood drained from his face, his fingers shaking, and his body now feeling ice cold. He struggles to look up at the sky and away from the monster below him, but does so without much luck when she hisses, “Come down from there boy... I don’t want you to get hurt”. Struggling to find a response and what to do he feels a familiar nudge on his elbow and turns his head ever so slightly to find Bindi sitting behind him holding the Lureem the collected earlier. He takes it from Bindi, trying to block out the monsters hisses below him saying “Who ya talking to boy... you got more of your friends up there?” The monster looks around and takes his eyes off of Zell for a moment to look for a way to get up there when Zell drops the Lureem and it lands directly on her face, covering her mouth and nose. Shocked, she stumbles backwards a few steps before regaining her balance. But then, without her main sense she trips over a rock and falls into the river. Zell and Bindi utilize this time to get down from the tree and into a fighting stance by the time she stands up again. She lunges at them and they scoot to the side just in time. Bindi, being evenly matched to a snake, jumps onto her back and starts wildly fighting the monster with a kind of strength and determination that Zell didn’t know she had. The monster pins Bindi to the ground, but not without suffering a few gashes. The river that was calm moments before is now rushing by, being diluted blood red as it passes.
While Bindi fights the monster, Zell has had enough time to help the unconscious, partly disassembled man to the shore. When he sees Bindi pinned down, he rushes over to her and throws the monster off. Now livid as ever, it hisses with tenacity and swims underwater away from them to get a better attack angle because they know this is far from over. Zell and Bindi retreat to land where they know she is more vulnerable and Zell grabs a knife from his bag, preparing to go for her head. They, together, step back over to the water’s edge, ready to fight but find there is nothing to be found in sight. Not a single animal moving. Then, like an arrow shot from a bow, it flies toward them at a speed unimaginable for an animal. It dives for Bindi and bites her in the leg, and as it goes by Zell its tail whips his thigh so hard that he staggers to the ground. It rises up, poised to strike Zell for the final kill, but Bindi leaps in the air and bites its neck. The monster shrieks in agony and starts to shake its head to get Bindi off, but she holds on with all her might. Finally, the snake shakes Bindi. Bindi is thrown down the river, venom coursing through her legs from the bite of the snake from earlier, and a chunk of its neck in her mouth. She slaps the water with a thud and Zell knows that she won’t make it. He takes one last look at her and turns to the monster still chuckling at her kill.
He channels his anger into the attack, thinking of Bindi and the many men that had lost their lives due to this sadistic creature. He must avenge their deaths. Now. He can taste victory, smell the sinew. His legs and arms plead for him to stop and rest, but he refuses. With adrenaline, uncertainty, and anger coursing through him, he gives it his all. It’s now or never, he thought. This is the moment of truth of who lives and who dies. He runs, full speed, at the monster and leaps into the air at her. Time slows, Bindi’s last cry ringing in Zell’s ears, his heart pounding, fear and fatigue giving him second thoughts. He sees the horror in its eyes when it realizes that he is attacking when she least expected it. Upon seeing her eyes turn from confusion to fierce determination, his body gets a jolt of energy and slams his knife into her neck with the power only a life-or-death situation can provide. He can feel it plunge into her flesh, cutting things that aren’t supposed to be cut. Blood splutters out onto his face and hands. He shuts his eyes hoping it was enough. Then he feels his knife come loose and hit the water with a splash. He opens his eyes, and to his surprise, he finds the monster contorting itself, writhing in pain, and splashing in the water, headless. The cold blood pouring out of it turns the water a sickly red. The twitching that was rippling through its body slows and to his surprise it comes to a still. For a moment, he stands there in silence and takes it all in. Then a wave of grief overcomes him as he remembers Bindi and her last moments, and how she fought until the end. The young man that was dying and unconscious, slowly regains consciousness and splutters water out of his mouth. Moaning he cries out but Zell calms him down and together they make it back to the village. On the way back a mist, a blue haze of another young woman reminding him of the lady of petals, forms She tells him he is granted one favor because he killed the menace to the village, the monster to the lands surrounding it. He wishes to have the lady of petals turned human again. He figures he owes her that much because she helped him so much. Back in the village, a monster of any kind never disturbs the people again. Zell and all the village people live long happy lives without another disappearance at the river ever again.