“Hold on a sec,” Danni paused. “Let me try to figure out where we are”.
“I’m pretty sure we’ll run into it if we just follow the river,” Liz replied. “It’s supposed to be right where the river bends, look right there!” She pointed at the crappy bus map.
The girls continued along the slushy sidewalk until they came to a small crossroads. One option was to take the safe, dry high road well above the river. The other option was to descend to a small icy path along the banks of the river.
“What do you think?” Danni asked. “Stay up here, or walk along the river?”
“I don’t know,” Liz replied. “It looks kind of pretty down by the water.”
And just like that the girls made one of the worst decisions of their lives! As they ambled down the slick cobblestone path towards the water’s edge they could not have know that they were slipping and sliding towards an almost certain doom.
After only a couple of minutes the girls realized that they were not alone along the river’s edge. The banks of the river were teaming with snowy white swans. Now while some cultures worship the swan as an elegant and majestic creature it is a known fact that they are actually quite mean and dangerous. They have small razor sharp teeth capable of piercing even the toughest human flesh, and their uncommonly long necks help them to reach their prey from a great distance.
“Hey look!” Danni pointed at the winged beasts. “Swans”.
Liz took a step backwards, “swans are mean Danni, don’t you remember Geneva!”
The two girls laughed, and pulled out their cameras, so as to not miss a possible, photo du jour. As they began to photograph the scene the girls became aware of the horrific stillness settling on the river’s edge. The swan beasts began to drift away from the banks hissing through their fangs as they retreated to the safety of deeper waters.
“Something’s spooked em,” Liz cringed. “But what could be terrifying enough to spook a swan!”
“Shhh” Danni whispered.
From around the river bend the girls heard a small scratching sound. It started off quiet like the sound of someone scratching their head in a crowded room, but it continued to get louder, and louder until it was just inches away.
“Look!” Danni pointed into shadows under the bridge. “There’s something there!”
At that moment the setting sun began to reflect off of the surface of the water, revealing an appalling creature under the bridge. At first the girls thought it was a small dog, but in a flash of furry it whipped it’s rat like tail through the air bringing it crashing down on the hard stones.
“Oh my God, what is that!” Liz screeched. “It aint no dog!”
“Can it be…” Danni stared, “Liz, I think it’s one of those rat things, I’ve heard about in Besançon! What does it have in its mouth?”
“Well Danni, that would appear to be a human hand” Liz coughed.
The rat beast was indeed chewing mercilessly on the index finger of what could have once been a right hand. Sensing the girls fear, the creature shifted position focusing its glowing red eyes on Danni (she was the smaller of the two girls and therefore the easiest prey).
“I think it’s looking at me Liz” Danni shifted uncomfortably. “I think I’m going to call it a dograt, because it’s obviously a rat, that is the size of a dog.” Liz mused.
She couldn’t have known the mythical origins of this king of rats. Folklore claims that a “rat king” is a phenomenon that arises when a number of rats become intertwined at their tails forming a giant rat ball. This dograt, however, was more terrifying in nature and intent that a million small rats stuck together. It had glowing red eyes capable of piercing the deepest darkness. Its long sharp teeth, second in hardness only to diamonds, were able to slice through steel. Its breath created a poisonous cloud that followed it wherever it moved. Finally, in the heat of battle the dog rat could detach its left hind leg and throw it like a grabbling hook at it’s prey.
The dograt dropped the hand, licked its blood soaked lips, and scampered along the edge of the water straight for Danni. This sudden movement from the beast startled the swans even more sending them into a fearsome feathery flapping frenzy. This was enough to catch the attention of the dograt. The extreme toughness of swan meat, and the thrill of the chase were more than enough to entice the creature.
In the heat of the confusion, the beast slipped into the water. Moments later it had grabbed a large swan by the neck and begun dragging it down stream, as the girls watched in horror. Dograt and swan entangled in a bloody death grip toppled about in the shallows of the river, feathers and fur flying in all directions. In the end the dograt was victorious. It hoisted its prize up to the hard stone steps a couple of feet from the girls and began to devour the still warm swan. 
“That was probably the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen… in my entire life” Liz whispered.
“What?” Danni replied.
“That was disturbing.” Liz repeated.
“Yeah,” agreed Danni. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
The two girls decided to take advantage of the dograt feast to escape the potentially harmful situation. Once safely back on the main road, they took one look back only to see the dograt hiss, and latch onto the face of an unsuspecting tourist as her husband attempted to take a picture.
“I guess we got pretty lucky today,” Danni mumbled trying to make sense of the situation
"I guess we did” was all Liz could think to respond.
The girls moseyed along the correct path to the Petite France neighborhood where all the wonders of the Christmas markets and the beauty of the historic buildings would ease their minds of the horrific memories of dograt.
“I think we should get gauffres” Liz smiled.
“I agree,” Danni laughed. “Gauffres au nutella”.
