Vanity

Chapter 1: Scream For Me

Running, all I can feel is adrenaline pumping through me.  Tree branches scrape against me, the cutting edge barely breaking my stride.  I smell fear, and hear it too. I'm so lost in my head I don't know if I'm running from safety or running towards someplace.

Soft.

I feel something soft in my grasp.  What is it?  It's not an animal, and it's crying.  It's not an animal crying, it's a person.  Begging even, but I can't understand what they're saying.

"Let me go please, please, not like this"

Suddenly, like a pin dropping, I can hear everything, silence broken. The person in my grasp, a thin framed woman, pleds for her life.

"I'm sorry, I..."

I let go of her, she kicks away and flees, leading me again in a sick game of cat and mouse

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Walking home was the hard part, knowing that the woman I attacked is now free, guilt clouds my mind.  Like it always does...

We were raised to be monsters, we were meant to kill, shown to kill. We were desensitized to death.  They called us Hunters, the born and bred to hunt down those weaker than us.  For some, they were brought up right, able to kill on sight, no hesitation. Others were not so lucky, if you were ever tested and failed, you were severely punished, either you were beaten and toughened up, or you were sent to the preyed.  Those we were told to hunt were called Prevailers, they were trained in the next facility by two Hunters, raised and tested, if any were found to have a taste for blood, they were transfered to be a Hunter, there weren't many that transferred.  Only two, me, being of those.  There were a few close cases, but when they were tested, they failed, and were sent to a different facility, one no one even knows what happens there.  The only thing we know is that once you go there, you're never seen again.

"Failed, again, you let them all escape.  This was the third one of this week, it's not very often we call on you, we have plenty of others who you know would actually KILL for this chance."

Speaking to her was always the paralyzing part, all numb and speechless, no one ever mutters a word when she speaks.  The Primal Hunter, the one who started this all.  To her, this was all fun and games, watching the people suffering, the bloodlust, the sickening games that we are all put into play.  Anyone to deny her would be punished

."Fail me again, and it won't be such a sweet interaction.  Understand?"

The endings of our interactions always woke me from the paralysis nightmare she endured.

"Yes, Ma'am"