The Hunt

After the ball, everything is nothing but a blur. I remember people running, screaming, from this scene of blood strewn everywhere. I remember a little girl from when I entered the ball with a bright blue bow in her hair but the last I saw of her was a bloody bow and her parents crying. To the Alumni, we are nothing but toys, instruments of entertainment whether it be games of death or working at the Top Casino. I remember nothing after leaving except seeing one thing. A man with a black mask. He was staring only at me. I knew what he was a Grim. I knew my time was almost up and I had to prepare for the worst. I stand here pounding at this boxing bag, giving it kicks and punches.
Out of breath, I sit down on the bench nearby and close my eyes then rest my head on the wall. I think of how much time I have before they come. I’m so deep in thought that I forget everything around me.
“You actually look decent when you’re like that”, I hear a voice say. I open my eyes and see a smiling face. He looks familiar but I can’t place it.
“Do I know you”, I ask and reach forward to him. He takes my hand and purrs softly.
“You mean you don’t remember me, Zal”, he said in a pout,” That makes me so unhappy”.
He runs off and out of the gym. I quickly run out after him and see its night. I’ve only been in there an hour, it was morning and now it’s late at night. I hear him chuckle and I turn around and see the gym is gone. I instantly start panicking. What the hell is going on?
I turn around and see an alley in front of me now. It’s dark and very narrow with a light at the end. I walk toward it carefully until I see the hand. The hand was pure white that appeared around the corner and waved my toward it. My feet moved on its own accord and walked toward it. I tried stopping but I couldn’t something in my very bones told me that this wasn’t a good idea. I stopped in front of the hand and my hands reached out for it. The moment my hands made contact with the skin, I felt it fall apart into blood, staining my hands.
I looked down at my hands and saw the bright red blood covering it. Out of nowhere, I heard a little girl’s voice say to me,” It’s your fault. You killed them. You killed them all”. I looked over at the source of the voice and saw the little girl from the ball and immediately backed up into the wall. Her face. It was distorted.
Her face had become like the monster at the party. Her mouth now cut wide open and her jaw crooked; blood came out of every crevice of her face. Her body looked as if it had been torn apart by wolves but the strangest thing was her dress. Her dress still perfect without a single drop of blood. It was still white and prim. Her eyes now completely white and her doll still in her hands. Her doll was missing an eye but its long blonde hair still remained untouched.
“I didn’t kill anyone”, I said to her in a repulsed but fearful voice.
“Yes, you did. Don’t you remember them,” she asked as I started hearing screams in my head. It felt like someone was ripping my head apart with the loud screams of children, women and men. “It’s your fault that they are suffering the way they are. You killed their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and family. You are the scum of the world and you killed us all, even me. Why are you even alive”, she said in a haunting and evil tone. She smiled then and I felt nothing. I felt completely out of control of my body until everything went black.
When I awoke, I saw nothing but a white light above me. I look around and see nothing but black and shadows of people. I try to move but I only find myself strapped to a table. I start to panic and erratically start squirm to try and free myself but stop when realizing that someone is laughing. I look and see the little again with her still distorted face. My stomach instantly churns in disgust.
“Now the fun starts. I get to watch you suffer as you feel the pain of a thousand deaths slowly”, she said in a demonic voice. She waves a man with purple hair and green eyes in a doctors’ outfit over. He had a table of surgery equipment and a “Joker” smile like the villain from 2,000 years ago. “I think she needs fixing. She’s not pretty enough to go into the scalp pile”, she said.
Just as she said that, I could smell something. Something rotten, something foul, something dead. I look over to my side and see the skins of each person I had to kill. Even my parents. Their flesh was not that far and sat in a pile. The “Joker” doctor came closer with his table and lifted up a scalpel, making me squirm in my place. Once he reached me, he smiled at me and held my arm still as he slowly grazed my skin with the scalpel.
At first, it didn’t hurt. But soon after he lifted his tool, I felt the burn. It felt like someone was ripping apart my nerves one by one. I looked down at it and saw my hand slowly becoming a glove of scarlet. I could feel my blood moving down with its warmth to coat my arm. The man smiled and giggled at me. His giggles echoed in my head and the pain became more and more intense.
As I started to writhe in a slow agony, “Joker” once again grazed my skin again but this time he came off of the first line he created and made a new shape. Blood was now dripping all over the floor. I looked over at my arm and saw the word “BURN” written on my arm with deep gashes. I tried to look away but “Joker” held my face to watch as he burned the cuts so it could be permanently marked on my body.
The last thing, however, I heard him say was,” Good luck”. That’s when I woke up. I found myself in a room that I had never seen. White covered the walls, the floors and every inch of the space before me. The door opens up and I see figures in black move toward me, I automatically cringe and begin to move away from the figures, backing myself into a wall. I don’t know why but seeing them made me extremely scared, the more they approached, the more I felt cornered and afraid. One of them grabbed my arm and brought a needle to my skin. I immediately moved away from him but he held my arm still as he stabbed it into my skin. I could feel something, I don’t know what, move into my skin. It felt alive and angry. I could feel my anger grow as in got deeper into my skin.
I looked at the man and he said something about it helping me later on in the Hunt. He then pulled me up and dragged me out the door to a new room, a room with cameras flashing and blinding me with light. All I hear was tons of people yelling questions at me and people around me. All these people look familiar, where have I seen them?
Out of all the questions, all I could hear was one, “How do you feel about your best friend being in the Hunt”?
Before I could answer, I felt an arm wrap around me and hold me close. “She has no comment but if she did, she would say that she wishes that fate had been in her favor”. I looked over and saw Faux, smiling with his huge façade. He lured me away from the press and pulled me into a hallway.
Faux looked around and let me go, stepping away like I was a germ of some sort. “I am always rescuing you from trouble. It’s annoying and very unattractive. How are you supposed you win if you stand like a miserable slob all the time? I look at you and all I see is a weak, scared little girl”. He smiled and I glared at him.
“How am I supposed to win if I don’t have any support but the person who hired me? If you keep putting me down, I can’t do anything! God, I hate you”, I say in anger. He just looked at me like nothing happened.
“Are you done acting like a child? If so, please go make yourself presentable to be seen with me because how you are now isn’t cutting it”, he replied in his typical snarky attitude, “So how was the Stims? Did you enjoy getting your little helpful friend? All I can say is use him wisely”.
“Stims? Is that what they put in me”, I said as I looked down at my arm then looked at him as he nodded, “What is it exactly”?
“It’s hard to explain because it varies for each person. But it’s something to help you in The Hunt. Nobody knows what you have. Aside from that, we need to get through some interviews in the next couple days so you can be seen and supported. The more bets, the more money you get at the end of all this”, he said with a smile. The press quickly came by and he pulled me into a hug, squeezing me tightly. “Act normal”, he said through his teeth. The many people took our pictures, until I saw someone peering over the crowd with a giant smirk on his face. Not just any smirk. A smirk that promised something. Death. Only one person can make that kind of smirk and it was Xander. As to whom his smirk was directed toward, I have no clue but I’ve never seen him so angry. He pushed through the crowd and walked up to us, confidently smiling. Faux broke up our embrace to look at him with a deep death glare.
“So you’re Faux, huh? You seemed taller and stronger on TV. I guess I was wrong. You don’t seem like Claire’s type. I thought she would pick someone who’s less lanky and pick someone like me. Oh well, at least she can protect you, right”, Xander said, he spoke with no regret, just anger and arrogance.
“Xander, my name’s no longer Claire. It’s Xahila”, I said to him, calmly.
“You’re still Claire no matter what”, he replied, not even looking at me but straight at Faux.
“She said her name is Xahila. Deal with it. I can see why she picked someone like me, I actually have brains”, he said and leaned forward to sniff the air,” What is that ungodly smell? Oh, it’s you. When was the last time your master bathed you, swine? By the looks and smell of it, I would guess never. Would you excuse us? We have interviews to attend”, Faux said and held my hand to pull me away. But before we could get even to steps away Xander grabbed Faux by his collar and held him up. Faux looked completely unfazed by this.
“Don’t talk low to me, rich boy. I’ll kill you”, Xander shouted. Faux looked at him unbothered and smirked.
“Well, first let go of me, you are ruining my nice silk shirt. Secondly, you can’t kill me, you’re going to be dead very soon. So let’s move on”, Faux replied. Xander tossed him away and looked at me with anger deep in his eyes.
“When we get into the Hunt, you are first on my hit list. After the Hunt, I’m going to kill your little boyfriend”, he said as he walked off. The press snapped so many pictures it almost blinded me. At least I know one thing now; my best friend just became my worst enemy.