The Hunter and the Prey

For a moment feels it; the feeling that his co- workers and his buddies at the country club shared but never with such intensity, his body clenched as the hunger washed over him once more.

so....hungry

 Midnight; a metropolis hums with life below a 165 storied building. A man named Arnold Quartz watched the world from behind the safety of his multi-layered, glass office window.  For a moment he felt it; the feeling that his co- workers and his buddies at the country club shared but never with such intensity, his body clenched as the hunger washed over him.

 His heart began to flutter as his palms began to sweat. The room began to spin as his breaths became shallow. A warmth washed over him, a desire so primal, so vulgar that small beads of sweat began to blossom from his forehead. His face was a pale bleached white; due to overexposure to computer screens. His suit was crisp and neat. The hairs on his head were neatly cut, and on his face a pair of expensive, horn rimmed glasses. As Quartz watched the world below him, he felt the tingling of the hunger grow and reveled in the sensation. It had been so long since he had felt this type of emotion, and it made him feel almost human.

Quartz looked at himself in the mirror of the window, he’s features depicted a mild mannered, middle aged man, a man who had worked harder than anyone else in his department and whose work had finally begun to be recognized. His mild mannered smile was deceiving symmetrical, for his world of serenity was missing something. though on the cusp of success he could not shake the realization that he was leaving something behind, leaving part of himself behind. 

The elevator led to a hallway, and the hallway led to a lobby, and the lobby led to a company car that would escort him to any destination he desired, but that night Quartz did not use the elevator, or the car.  Instead of being mild mannered, instead of doing the ordinary, he decided that today he would use the counterfeit key card he had obtained, to break into his supervisors office and download all personal information about the female half of the company to his personal computer.

Quartz’s raincoat hung closely to him as he made his way to his bosses’ corner office. He had planned this night for a year, anticipating any anomaly, calculating every detail.  There had been over a dozen times when he would lose the will to continue. The cost would be too great if he was caught, but then suddenly a woman would look his way, or in an elevator he would be consumed by an exotic perfume, and the hunger would return with maddening intensity.  

The office was down a bleach-white hallway. His shoes whined with every step. He was alone, he had made sure of that, he had covered every angle in order to make his task as easy as possible, and the only obstacle that remained were the cameras.

Three of them; sentinels mounted on the walls of the hallway. he stood in front of Two of them, mounted on the left, spaced evenly from each other; the third mounted itself on the adjacent wall filling the gap in the middle. The hunger was growing; he began to perspire as he glanced at the cameras and them at the clock that rested above the bosses’ door. Quartz checked his watch: 12:44:55. His breath grew uneasy as he glanced over to the clock once more, then the watch, then the cameras, then at the clock once more.

12:44:57

12:44:58

12:44:59…all the cameras began to sweep the hallway as it did once every minute. The red recording lights pierced through the dim light of the hallway and slowly making their way to Quartz's  line of sight. Quartz heart pounded in his chest, the water droplets that had blossomed from his forehead had begun to seep down his neck and dampen his shirt, he stood solemnly in front of the hallway. All three cameras faced him and stared at him for a moment, then as if blinking, the red lights that’s glowed became dark. Quartz exhaled deeply as he whipped his brow of sweat. He was home free.

“Cake walk,” He mumbled to himself as he walked, this time more urgently to the door of the corner office. As he walked he extracted the counterfeit key card from the coat pocket and in an instant the cool blow of the office airconditioning welcomed him in. As he crossed the threshold of the doorway something else welcomed him, A voice as soft as the wind and as distant and vague as a memory. He hesitated only for a moment, and in that moment he wondered if he should  go home. The car would still be waiting for him if he hurried. The hunger shook all second thoughts from his mind.

Quartz closed the door to the office quickly as he made his way into the faintly lit office. The lights of the outside world seeped through that cracks of the blinds on the large window that made up the entire wall behind a large mahogany desk. On that desk rested a monitor, Quartz gateway to the answers he craved, the tools he would need to satisfy his hunger.

In a half second Quartz was behind the desk, crouched forward in the expensive leather executive chair, fingers gliding across the keyboard, shattering the firewalls and the administrative blocks. He was seconds from his prize, seconds from satisfying the hunger

when a soft breeze blew in his ears. 

His fingers instantly cramped, freezing in place. He heard the sound again, swearing he had just heard his name, he quickly glanced pass the monitor and saw that he was alone, the only sounds; car horns, and the faint voices of the people that existed outside the building. The hunger tore at him until it had become painful. He pressed the enter key on the keyboard and the Files he had searched for lay in front of him. Quartz savored the moment briefly, for as soon as the files appeared on the screen, the monitor instantly became blue.

“So swift like wind, death is to mend

 for those with the hunger. 

the end is the end.”

 The wind whispered, through Quartz did not fully understand the meaning of its words. His worst fears became  reality, the wind called out his name once more. This time Quartz was immobilized by fear,this sound, a swift liquid poison that reached every vein, every artery in his body. The only thing he could do, the only thing he was capable of now was continuing to looking blankly at the black computer screen. All hopes of typing long abandoned he noticed the lights were blinking on and off again. The voice spoke his name again, this time with more force, this time in a harsh whisper that shook the office. The lights flicked on and off again. The voice called his name once more, Quartz broke free of his paralysis. He shut his eyes and covered his ears to cut out the noise, yelling at the top of his lugs for it to stop.

Then there was silence, a sudden uncomfortable silence far more frightful than the noise before. The room was dead. There was no sound, no voice, only Mr. Quartz alone in the office of his supervisor. He removed his glasses once more the wipe the sweat from his face. The room was dark again and he knew he was not alone. He could feel the terror crawl up the  back of his neck and ring into his ears. The word, the single name that had caused him this level of fear was not the name he had become familiar with; it was his real name, His true name. For in truth, the man named Arnold Mathew Quartz did not exist, the voice had spoken a name that meant death and destruction where he came from. The name that echoed throughout  the room caused him to shed the false identity . The name called to him, deep down. Past his skin, past his bone and shook awake the very core of his being. It awoke what he really was, and behind the desk in his supervisor’s office, high above the busy streets of Boston, Quartz was no more; behind the blue fluorescent light he became a creature that was in no way resemblance to human, he was Balon.

The voice called to him again to seal the transformation, as dull blue eyes went crimson and pupil less, his jaw unhinged and his white teeth grew more ridge and yellow. His skin turning into scales erupting from inside him. The voice called out again. This time he could hear the source of its origin. Whatever was hunting him was coming from the chair in front of him, out of site by the light that radiated from the computer screen.

He had to face it. That, Balon knew.  a confrontation was unavoidable. He removed his glasses, loosened his tie and looking past the flat screen monitor slowly, his crimson eyes straining to pierce the darkness, straining to meet the monster that had come for him. As he looked over, past the desk, he saw sitting in the chair  a well-dressed young man in a three piece black suite. His hair was jet black, his face covered in shadow. In one hand held a cigarette, the other, a silver pocket watch that glimmered in the light of that monitor. The figure took an inhale of his cigarette and blew the smoke into that air.

 “So...” Balon said calmly trying as hard as he could to mask his fear, “you are real.”

“Yes”. The well-dressed man said as he blew another cloud of white smoke toward his prey. Balon stared hard at the figure that sat in front of him.  He had heard whispers of what this medium built figure could do, but never the less Balon was far more powerful than his predecessors, he slowly leaned back in his chair.

“You know you cannot stop me. these women are mine!” Balon said as he stood up slowly, the last ruminants of his humanity shedding away, he was preparing to make his final mistake, a mistake that would cost him his life.

It was then that the figure looked up, met Balon’s blood like eyes with his own, as dark and as empty as the space between them. His face was unreadable, yet those eyes, the eyes that seem to stare into Balon’s very soul seemed to show an unmistakable  sense of curiosity shadowed only by the overpowering urgency. It was then that Balon smirked in disbelieve. It was only a boy! not even in his thirties. Balon’s confidence grew as he remembered how long it had been since he had killed someone so young. His mouth unconsciously started to drool. The figure noticed this and from the corner of his mouth a smile grew.

 The Balon growled as his entire body set flame, the glow of red fire illuminated the otherwise dark office. bathed in pure rage he  Used his superhuman strength to lunge across the desk toward the figure. The Balon’s razor sharp golden talons were only centimeters from the figures face when he was stopped.  His whole massive body jerked suddenly, the Balon focused more on the figure's face, unchanged, his eyes brilliantly dark. Somehow the figure had moved so fast that he hadn't noticed the arm snatch him by his neck right out of the air, the Balon was now floating in his grip, the red fire around his body raging. How is he not being burned? he thought as his grip remained firm. Balon tried to spit acid, or claw at his face using his incredible strength but he could not. Something about the grip that he was in stopped him, paralyzed him. The figure placed his cigarette on the ash tray next to him, still holding the Balon in place with his free hand in mid-air. Then the figure went into his vest pocket and extracted a pistol, equipped with  silencer, He carefully aligned the barrel of the gun to the temple of the Balon’s head and whispered “sleep well Balon.”

Author's Note

i felt that the prologue wasnt being read because i was in Thoughts not the book, so here it is!

Reviews

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

The praise:
1.Overall, already intrigued and interested in what will happen next.
2. You have a very poetic way of description. I particularly loved the sentence "A warmth washed over him, a desire so primal, so vulgar that small beads of sweat began to blossom from his forehead. "
3. Good description of Quartz's appearance, I feel able to draw him simply from reading the third paragraph
4. In the travel to the office, you did very well in describing not only sights but sounds, feelings and even smells
5. You built a very tense atmosphere in stating the time on his watch. Excellent job getting the reader on the edge of her seat!
6. I liked the transition from the realistic to the fantastic, magical and otherworldly. It reminded me of how JK Rowling started out Harry Potter, going from the mundane to the extraordinary

Suggestions and comments on content and mechanics:
1. The switch from present tense in the first paragraph to past in the second was very jolting. It left me temporarily confused about whether the story was becoming a flashback.
2. "His face was a pale bleached white; due to overexposure to computer screens." The semicolon is unnecessary and the words pale, bleached and white are redundant. I'd suggest dropping the word pale and the words "was a" to improve the impression of someone who's seldom seen daylight.
3. There's a fairfew run-ons (I can be prone to those too!) and comma errors.
4. I would have loved to see more of his thought process leading up to his decision to break into his boss' office. Why the sudden rebelliousness? Why is he so interested in the females? Is it because he wants to stalk them? Because he gets off on their photos? Because he's looking for a dating prospect?
5. The description of his idea to break into his employer's office was made to sound impulsive at first, but then you began to describe how he'd planned it for over a year. Perhaps more lead-in to show this was not a snap decision on his part?


Am I correct in thinking that Quartz is a sort of creature similar to a werewolf, where he's a human under some circumstances and a sort of monster under others?

[Yaseen J Malik]

thanks Cher! the way you constructed this review was not only help full but it also made my corrections easier to do!
what i want to do in this novel, in all of my novels that include monsters is let the reader share in the creation of the creatures appearance. if you read it and pictured a flaming werewolf. awsome! if you picture some kind of hulking scale screature, great! if you picture some kind of crazy red eyes flame monster, thats cool too.
thanks for reading and theres more to come!