The Hunt (475 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 3 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by sword (View user info) at 2005-02-15 02:21:35 EST
My dilated pupils thrash frantically back forth amidst their milky spheres of existence. The fluctuation of their position is attributed rightly to the hunt. They vacillate in search of my quarry attempting to penetrate the murky gloom of the forest at night; the moon is their aide, giving them the only light. My heart's beat is a near constant strum, pulsating, granting my legs the requisite energy to run. My lungs expand and contract with a breath taking velocity but there is no exhaustion, there is no weakness, there is only the hunt.
Suddenly my ears detect the vibrations of her stride and my nose the scent of her fear. With these clues for guidance it is not long before my eyes capture the shadowy image of her fleeting figure. My path changes, vectors are altered and destiny is made. My footsteps elongate and begin to consume her trail; I am fire incarnate come to devour the flesh of man. The distance between us shortens in direct relation with her distance from summation. With my ocular organs I have now obtained a total target. Her form is bent, straining against the earth all her energy expended to obtain more speed that she might escape the hunt.
Her efforts are vain though, she has embraced her fear counting on it to help her, to guide her to elusion whereas I am the epitome of predatory nature and fear is my aspect. The hound who lets the hare escape presents the excuse that the rabbit runs for life while it runs only for dinner. I have no such compunction I run for the pursuit and for death. The chase is the foreplay before the climax of the kill. She runs for life but there is something greater then that motivation the ultimate of all human machinations and it is the hunt.
She looks behind her and deduces the impending solution but ignores reason and redoubles her efforts. Presently a ditch, a chasm in the forest spreads immediately before us. She makes it to the very edge and hurls herself to the air's welcome embrace; there she is deluded into believing she has obtained a temporary safety. Here is where the impossible happens, even as she climbs to the apex of her leap I am moving faster. Already I was running at my maximum pace but now I accelerate, my body is translated through the forest with greater speed then nature could possibly allow and I reach the brink of the breach even as she finds her summit of solace. Instead of following her path now and jumping in an arc I merely throw myself forward perfectly horizontal and dare gravity to move me otherwise. It doesn't accept my gambit and I cross parallel to the ground to collide with my prey as she returns to earth and she tumbles to the ground completing the hunt.
She tries to struggle to her feet to escape again but I am quicker. I wrap my hands around her throat and attack with all my strength and she is forced back to the ground. She gasps in pain and tries to form words, pleading with me and trying to explain the reasons why I should desist. I am unmoved and continue to clamp down on her fragile airway. Her arms feel my shoulders and torso as they are waving in a silent plea for her freedom but they are brushed aside as the irrelevant appendages they are. Her eyes bulge as if they are trying to free themselves from her face and I laugh in appreciation of their treachery.
Then suddenly, while I watch the change comes over her. A new fire blazes in her eyes and her mouth that was once devoted to groveling now has a new pursuit. With inarticulate savagery she now invokes all the evils of every superstition of every age and commands them to ravage my flesh and steal my soul. Her hands now turn to ferocious claws and she brings them to bear against my body slashing and tearing at the skin. One hand searches the ground and finds a tiny stone. She smashes it into my forehead over and over again but still she cannot with her violence purchase her freedom. The new power that has imbued her already has enchanted me. Her strength fades and soon she passes from the world.
I pause for a movement suspended above her shattered vessel and wonder how things might have turned out if she had given in to the bestial nature of her birthright earlier. If she had stood in the darkness to combat me rather then flee before me what would the result have been? Humanity is a weakness when life is reduced to simple melee; civilization and morality are handicaps to survival. As the hunter I have seen that and experienced it on my own. To partake of the savage feast of success one must rebuke humanity and embrace the feral nature of the human animal.
Now the pause, like the possibility is gone. Gently I place each of her still digits into my mouth and one by one suck on them until they are devoid of the traces of my skin. I tear her shirt and rub her neck thoroughly with the scraps and then I wrap one such scrap around her arm and drag her back to the gap she barely crossed and shove her lifeless corpse in. Perhaps there will be enough evidence here in this empty secluded wood or on her lifeless body to identify me and perhaps the authorities will soon arrive to capture me. But perhaps not; either way for as long as I possibly can maintain I will continue the hunt.
User Reviews
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-02-15 22:12:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Pretty good...it must be hard to keep up that kind of pace in storytelling. I think some of your word choices were not quite right, though.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-02-15 11:32:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Creepy.
Submitted by TheMidnight12AM (user info) at 2005-02-15 02:53:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked the description, but the diction reminded me of a role-playing chat entrance on AOL, so +1.