The Hunt

The first encounter I had with the danger of this game was on my way to school.

It was a cold day, the wind bit into my skin and the cold froze every cell in my body. I couldn’t hear anything but the whipping of the wind. I couldn't see, but one foot in front of me. I saw a broken beer bottle, from the party the day before and got distracted by it. I watched my feet patter against the cold ground, and felt my breaths form smoke as it left my mouth. Suddenly I heard a subtle crack behind me, I jumped and looked back and that, was when he jumped on me with a knife in hand. My heart skipped a beat and I reached for the beer bottle. I could hear the person's heavy breathing and I could barely move. I stretched as far as I possibly could but it was no use I couldn't reach the broken bottle in time. His clouded breath swarmed my nostrils and I couldn't think, couldn't move.

I could see the terrified look on the boy’s face as he heaved the knife into my soft warm flesh. I felt the pain flow through me as I screeched and threw him off of me. I took the few isolated seconds that he wasn’t on me to get the glass from the sidewalk and held it in my hand, waiting for the moment to kill him. He dug the knife into me again and I could feel the fresh blood rush over the sidewalk and into the streets.

I saw my chance as the boy stopped for no more than a second. I used all of my strength to shove the broken glass into his chest. I heard the screams of agony that flowed from him as I ran away. He lay sprawled on the street, he coughed up what looked like a few gallons of fresh blood that thawed the street around him before he went still and the color flushed out of him.

I felt a slight buzz from my back pocket, my phone, I looked to see who it was and it was K.

“Nice job player you have taken one player out; Ady Fender, player 4 good luck on your rise to godliness”

My head throbbed and everything seemed to be shades of red, as I got dizzy and fell to the ground. I lay there unconscious and bled out onto the cold damp concrete.

When I came to, I was at Flynn's house in his basement. I felt the throbbing in my leg and stomach and reached down to see the bandages around me and the stitches that held my wounds shut. Luckily the wounds were not severe enough for hospitalization, as they were not even 2 inches deep.

The memory of what had happened rushed into my head and I screamed as I realized what I had done. I had killed someone, I had stabbed someone with my own hands. The tears that ran down my face reminded me of my blood-stained memories. I looked down and saw that my hands were bandaged where the glass had slit through me as I shoved it into his chest.

Flynn heard my screams and rushed down the stairs the pounding of the wood echoed in my head, as he came over and held me in his arms.

Flynn cradled me and said, “Shh please I heard what happened from K and I ran to get you as fast as I could”

“I-I killed someone, I am a murderer!” I said with tears in my eyes and a terrified look on my face.

“No you are not. It was self defense, 4 stabbed you twice, you had a right to kill him”

But the thing was, I did have a right, really I was supposed to kill 4, that was how the game went. You found the players and killed them, nothing more nothing less. You did that or you got killed. Yet, it cut into me deeper than the knife he stabbed me with, it twisted my mind ever so slightly, so that I dwelled and dwelled on it. So in that I said, “I know, that’s how the game goes right? You kill or be killed, want it or not.”

I could see the look of deep sympathy in his eyes as he told me, “ I guess that is how it goes, huh, that’s how the world is no matter where you go. It is a kill or be killed world and if you can’t live with that you die.” As he said this he leaned down and kissed me.

When I woke up the next morning he was gone.

When Flynn got back I saw something in his hands, bandages and first aid, I was so lost in the memory of the blood gushing from his disfigured jaw that I forgot about my wounds.

He got out the first aid and started treating my wounds again. The pain burned into me, yet it wasn’t as fresh as when they were inflicted.

I wasn’t the strong type back then, I would come to know pain as my closest friend. Come to  welcome it, but at that time I did not know.

When Flynn got done treating my wounds he said to me, “ I love you, you know that. I will make sure you win this no matter what. I promise.”

I knew what he was saying. This game was a last man standing death game. He was saying he was going to die for me and I wasn’t about to let him do that.

“What is that supposed to mean?! Don’t say that! We are both getting out of this, okay?”

“You could try, but there is no way out of this game but death!”

At this point I was completely mad, I couldn’t bare to listen to him say things like this and there was no way he was going to die for me. That is one of the things I would never understand, that you can’t fix all things. Some things were just how they were.

He looked so sad when he looked down at my bandages on my leg and stomach. He looked so upset, yet understanding. I couldn't bare the look on his face it hurt too much to see him like that. It was one of the many things I would not stand to see.

He kissed me one more time, this time his lips felt so sad and I could tell how much it hurt him to see me like this, and knowing the feeling one single isolated tear rolled down my wounded face. I could not hold back the feelings that I felt back then, I would soon learn to keep those to myself.

He held my face in his hands and told me, “ Don’t cry, please it hurts me too much to see you sad. I promise I will never leave you so don’t shed a tear.”

I knew that was impossible I would shed many more tears and there was nothing Flynn could do about it.

We got up and went to school. I was jumping at the slightest sound the whole way there. When we got there I saw my friend Ana Utsukushi and her boyfriend Taos Yujin, we all just call him kare.

They were a bit, well distracted, when we got there. They seem to think the taste of each other's lips were the most important thing in the world, because that was the only thing they seemed to need.

“Hey lovebirds we’re here!”

Taos  looked up and waved, and then Ana yelled back, “Hey! we’re coming!” and started running towards us. She ran up to us and slam hugged us. I flinched because of my wounds.

She gasped when she saw me flinch and said, “ What happened to you!” and she looked at me with anger in her eyes, not because she was mad at me, but she was mad at whoever hurt me. But that person was already dead.

I looked back and said “ Oh it's nothing, I just fell on some glass from the party a few days ago”

She looked at me, knowing it was a lie, but decided to just brush it off and said, “Oh well you need to be less of a klutz,” and then she gingerly hit me in the arm.

I smiled back and headed to math with them. As I got into math, I saw my best friend, Lilith Nekkyo, we just call her Lili.

She was a short girl with a bobbed blonde haircut. She was the funny arrogant one of the group. I had known her the longest. I had known her for four years when I had only known Ana half a year, and Taos one and a half years. She was my neighbor and the first friend I had made when I moved there from a farm in the country. She waved and then sat down.

As I sat down I got a note, this time I knew who it was from. It was from Alix Atyer. He had liked me ever since the 3rd grade. I knew this because of his dying need to pass me notes that told me every feeling he ever felt. This specific note had said this, “ Hi I know you are with Flynn and have been for 3 months now, but I still love you. I always will and noticed that you have bandages on your stomach and leg, it really worried me. Just wanna make sure you are okay”

I know it is harsh but every note he passes me I just throw away. I know it must hurt him, and I did reply to the notes for a few years but I just kinda stopped because it got annoying. I guess I just kinda got fed up with him. So I got up and threw the note away and went back to my seat. I could see the hurt in his eyes every time I threw them away, and somewhere deep down I felt bad for him but never gave it a second thought.

During the rest of the class I just sat and replayed all of the awful night before, every time I looked to my bandaged hands and thought of the boy, cold and lifeless on the sidewalk.

After that, the day seemed to pass so quickly. Until free period. At free period the group always got together and did the homework in all our classes, Ana and Taos kissed, and Lili, Flynn, and I would talk. But today Flynn didn’t come to our spot behind the bleachers, and due to what has happened the past week I got worried. So I left the group and went looking for him.

I found him outside in a field. On top of a guy, knife in hand, blood splattered all across his body. He had killed someone. He had done what I had done. I was about to break down. There was a wide smile on the boy’s face, he was not yet dead and he whispered something in Flynn's ear before he died. That boy died with a cynical grin on his face. He died loving every bit of the pain inflicted on him. That smile, is something I would come to know very well.

I could not believe it. The sweet loving Flynn I knew had killed someone, he had shoved a knife deep into their skin over and over again. I screamed at the shock of what just happened, he turned and saw me crumpled on the floor at the sight before me.

“Oh please don’t scream!” he shouted at me as he ran from the body and next to me.

My wounds started to open again because of the stress and heavy breathing.

Flynn noticed the small amount of blood leaking onto my t-shirt and said, “ Let’s get you home and stitch up those wounds of yours.” As he picked me up and carried me back to his basement.

When we got to his basement I could see the guilt in his eyes for killing that boy.Yet I couldn't get the picture of the smiling boy, with holes in his flesh, and blood in his teeth.

Both of our phones buzzed, we looked to see what it was. It was K saying, “ Congrats to player 13 for he just took out his first player, Asura Koroshi. Player 10.”

He looked up at me with a burning sadness in him. I still wondered what it was 10 had said to him before he died. I could tell the words that had slipped 10’s mouth were churning in his mind and eating him alive.