The Hunted

“Life is not about what's fair. It's about who hunts and is hunted.” The voice rang out from above us. Light burned my eyes as the bag was taken off and I saw an old man with a black turtleneck staring smugly at me from behind a wood podium. On each of his flanks stood a pair of guards holding an MP-5 in their hand. On his left flank stood a man who looked to be thirty. Tears streamed down his face as the old man turned his gaze toward him. He smiled as he stared at him.

“I don't mean this metaphorically. You have one goal while you're here. Find the other seven contestants, and kill them all before daybreak. Once you've done that, I can promise you a reward of seventy million dollars will be wired to your bank account, tax free. If you fail, however, and there's more than one person still alive by dawn then I'll show you what consequences will await.” The old man faced us as he picked up a kukri from beneath the podium. The other man cried harder as he started to beg. If he spoke English I couldn't tell. As he lifted his hands to defend himself I could only see two nubs protruding from his arms where hands had once been. They were still bloody as the old man brought the knife down. I heard a sickening crack as the blade broke bone. The old man raised the knife again. The man’s cries became wails of pain. I looked away at the last minute but I could hear the sound of wet crunching as the knife bit deeply. I looked at the old man again as he held the knife triumphantly in the air. Blood dripped from the blade to the ebony wooden handle and then onto the fringes of his sleeves. I felt a pit in my stomach as I was brought up from my knees. The ropes they tied my hands with were cut loose as another security guard, dressed in the same green polo and black slacks handed me a knife. I'd never held one in real life before as I felt its weight in my hand. The serrated back gave me a sickening feeling as I touched it, thinking what I'd have to do. The guard pointed me to the forest and motioned for me to go. The air was thick with humidity and so hot. It felt like being wrapped in a wet blanket as I pushed my lungs to breathe this wretched air. I knew my goal wouldn't be simple.

Everyone wanted to survive. Everyone needed to kill. The moon was almost at its highest point when I entered, so I knew I didn't have much time. I stopped to listen to the sounds of the woods, and sure enough I heard the sounds of twigs snapping. It wasn't too far from me. Less than a hundred yards. I walked quickly, taking care to avoid the twigs my prey so carelessly stepped on, until I saw him. I sat and watched as he hacked vines and small trees from his way. Using all his energy to do so. I felt like a leopard hunting an unaware monkey as I closed the gap. He was bigger than me by almost a whole foot and seemed to be dressed in a uniform, but it was too dark to see what it was. When I was within touching distance, I stabbed him in the back. Just below the shoulder blade and through the ribs. I could hear the soft grunt he made before he fell onto the forest floor, lifeless. I wiped the blade off on his uniform as I continued the hunt. One down, six to go. Not all of them would be so careless. I brushed the thought from my head as I continued along.

I walked for some time before I heard it. The sound of crunching twigs behind me. I turned around to see a shining blade ark past me and end up buried in a tree. I turned toward the direction it came from to see a petite woman staring at me. Clearly she was in shock that her ambush had failed. I moved first. I hit her with a left hand punch to the jaw as I brought my knife up. I moved quicker than she did and stabbed her in the gut. Her eyes stared at me as the light left them.

“For what it's worth, I'm truly sorry.” I whispered to her as I twisted the blade. The blood was inky black in the moonlight. After what felt like a minute, she dropped to the ground and I pulled my knife from her almost like a macabre version of the sword in the stone before I wiped the blade on her clothes and continued on with my little adventure. I tried not to think about her eyes as I proceeded. She'd been the one who tried to ambush me, kill me. I defended myself. What about the man? The thought bounced around in my head like a DVD screensaver. She was lucky, I figured. Not everyone got to see the face of who killed them. To know who they died for. Who did they die for? The thought rang out accusingly. I tried to think what the correct answer to that question would be. No answer that I could think of seemed right. It seemed that without hesitation I just took the knife and permission to kill and abandoned all morals. No. Here morals didn't matter. The first casualty of war is innocence. The voice reminded me. I ignored it as I traipsed onward. The moon hung low in the sky with the echoes of dawn haunting the other side. I walked further looking for the others. I walked until I reached a large tree almost as wide as I was tall. I reached out to touch it as I heard leaves rustle above me. I looked up to see the pale face of a man above me. He jumped from the branches, knife in hand as he roared a vicious scream.

“I DON'T WANT TO DIE!” He shouted as he came down, knife in hand. His aim was slightly off and instead of hitting my neck, his knife was lodged in the lower part of my right arm. The pain was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was both hot and cold at the same time as blood poured profusely from my arm. I looked at him as I switched the knife to my left hand. His eyes were wild with rage and bloodlust. He jerked to pull the knife from me and I jerked back in kind. I slashed him across the face and blood flowed freely across his cheek. I made a feint to the left and as he dodged right I was able to push the blade through his neck. He clawed at it like a ravening beast before he fell to the ground. Dawn was now on us as I heard the sounds of footsteps and shouting. Guards had rushed to me in a matter of minutes with the old man, in a dark blue turtleneck this time, following behind. His wispy gray hair fluttered in the slight breeze as he stared at me and looked at the dead man.

“There can only be one. Congratulations.” He said as he spat on the corpse.

He motioned for me to follow him as a pair of guards set their rifles down and picked up the corpse. Now that I was close to the old man, I could see that he was a very frail figure. His shrunken stature made him stand almost a full five feet tall and his sweater seemed to cover his frail body but I could see by his movements that he was nothing more than a bag of bones. He looked over to me and narrowed his steely gray eyes.

“While we get our accomodations ready for tonight's ceremony, I'd like to tell you a story. About myself and this island.”

“I don't really care, I just wanna go home.” The old man glared at me. I felt a cold pressure at the base of my neck as his eyes turned away.

“My name is Clinton Moghrie, and I'm one of the wealthiest people in the world. When I was twenty-five, I didn't have that. In fact, I worked for a failing bank at the time and I was sent to talk to a prospective client. Needless to say the plane I was on didn't make it. In fact, it went down just two nautical miles from shore of this island.” He said as he pointed to the east.

“Yeah, I remember now, they found you on this island about a week after the plane was lost. You were the only survivor. New Oz Airlines flight 171.” I said, interrupting the man.

“That's right, but that's not the important part of the story. I wasn't originally the only survivor. There were eight of us, just like your group. When I landed on the island I heard a voice speaking in a long forgotten language and it told me to kill the others, just like I told you. This island is home to a god as forgotten as its language, a remnant of a world before ours. There was a time before Creation. Before Jehovah made the universe, another entity lived. It was not a god. No, it was something that's existed in the shadows of Creation since before Mankind was even a stray thought in Jehovah's mind. After Creation and the Fall, this thing lurked in the shadows and built a cult around itself. It gathered power, watched and waited. It has a name, one descended from its forgotten language. It calls itself Yolbaoth. Every year around September we organize The Hunt.” He said, his eyes boring straight into my soul.

“Who are ‘we’ and why is The Hunt so important to this thing.” The old man started chuckling and hit himself in the forehead.

“We are the Members of the Forgotten Order. The Hunt is important to Yolbaoth because it allows him to gain more power. In return for us doing this and creating another acolyte, which would be you in this case. It grants us wealth and success.”

So you kill people for money?”

“No, in a successful Hunt, the acolyte kills people for our success. In an unsuccessful one, we hunt them down and kill them all. Yolbaoth needs the Hunt because it cannot leave this island. You can think of this place as the Island that God Forgot. Jehovah doesn't exist here. A portion of His domain that not even He has control over.” He said with a slight smirk.

“I don't think that's right. There's nowhere you can hide in this universe and not be accessible to God. I want to get out of here.” I said, feeling cold dread creeping into the back of my throat. The old man stared at me and gestured to a white yacht.

“Pity you won't stay for dinner.” He said before he started laughing. I jumped onto the boat as the engines came to life. On the far horizon above the setting sun were a bank of thick black clouds. I watched the island start to get smaller as a massive wave crashed by us. From where we were it was easily 30 feet and growing. By the time it hit the island, it stood as tall as a skyscraper. Even from nearly a mile away I could hear the sounds of screams as the water crashed onto the island. The event took merely seconds but felt much longer and by the time it was finished, there wasn't a trace of the island except for shards of wood and bits of scattered trash.