Oh Hunter My Hunter

Amias took bated breaths, sprawled in the pools of crimson blood. He desperately tried crawling away from the shadow. His spear. He had forgotten about it completely. He just needed to run. To escape.

He scrambled to his feet, turned, and tried to flee, but the blood-slicked floor betrayed him. His legs kept slipping, sending him crashing down again and again. He gasped, clawing at the ground; his own frantic movements only seemed to pull him closer to the unmoving, unrelenting shadow. No matter what he did, it was still there. Watching. Waiting.

He felt cramped, trapped in the vastness of this space; it felt as though there was nowhere to go.

He reached out his fingers, narrowly but finally grabbing the spear. A desperate move to survive. He struck with all the force he could muster in that moment. The blade connected and impaled the shadow, but the creature merely tilted its head. Confused by the act. Then slowly, it reached down and, with eerie ease, it snapped the spear in half like a twig.

Amias stared, horrified.

I-I don't know…

He didn't know what to do, and the shadow was there right in front of him, mimicking him one-to-one again as it stared at him. They were both in a standoff. Neither moved. But eventually, the shadow tilted its head. Amias did too wait; no, he did first; then the shadow. Fuck, this thing was mocking him.

It knows?

It could anticipate his every move; everything he did, it would copy. In fact, it was the perfect copy.

This thing had been toying with him all this time from the very beginning. When it first saw him, he had just been a game for the shadow. It waited for him to lose himself, watched him break down, and when he thought the shadow was gone, it came back.

It knew from the beginning. This whole time I've been played from the very moment I met eyes with it, Amias thought, shocked, feeling the intense dread crawl up his entire body.

Eventually, the shadow must've gotten bored as it grabbed his arm, lifted him effortlessly, and hurled him against the wall. The impact ruptured through his bones as his back connected to the wall. He felt a sickening pop ring in his shoulder as it dislocated.

He couldn't breathe; the wind knocked out of him. He collapsed into the blood, splashing into its warmth. The taste of metal filled his mouth as he was stuck gasping and coughing; his body barely responded anymore as the shadow dropped him and simply watched. Grinning wickedly.

Even as Amias struggled to his knees, it grabbed him again by his leg and, in a single, brutal swing, brought him over itself and sent him slamming into the floor, blood splashing and flesh splattered. His back blazed with agony. A scream tore from his throat. His eyes could barely focus as his head rang.

It wasn't killing him. It was simply playing.

Hate boiled in his veins. Rage threatened to consume him. But... Amias was only human. Weak. Fragile.

His vision blurred. His body limp. His thoughts spiralled.

What weakness could it possibly have? It was a shadow, right? Wh-Where even am I?

The creature flung him aside easily again. He rolled, his body unresponsive, a distant part of his mind noting the crimson streaks smeared across the ground, the bodies splayed in the carnage as his blood mixed with the scarlet river below. The pain was unbearable. Too much. His body shouldn't be moving anymore.

And yet… he had gritted his teeth and stood. A switch turned in him as a desperate last resort.

The shadow grinned.

Amias stared back. He barely understood what was happening anymore. His body trembling, but not with fear but hysteria.

"What's happening?" He laughed. A breathless, broken, dry laugh. His head lolled back; the sound poured out of him as he stood. With every move, he could feel bones cracking.

Endorphins flooded his system. The pain should still be there, but it felt distant now. His body wasn't listening to reason anymore. His mind was unhinged. Reckless, everything and anything didn't really matter in this moment.

It all happened too fast. Too much. Trauma stacked upon trauma. His brain refused to process it the way it should. Instead, it disconnected. Survival instincts overrode reason. All rationality, gone. He was an animal backed into a corner.

It was all impossible. So why not laugh? And he did.

He bared his teeth, a manic grin stretching his bloodied face. He was going to die anyway. So why care? Why not take this shadow bastard with him?

The shadow grinned too with its static eyes; each speckle moved with excitement.

Amias and the shadow were grinning. His mind had snapped. He couldn't run, so he'd fight.

"I better be called Shadow Slayer or something cool like that after this," he said and laughed madly, looking hysteric and delusional, detached from reality.

Is this what it means to be a hunter? he thought as the taste of metal loomed in his mouth and out of sound mind.