Thanks again to my always whumperful crew. @sparrowsage @whumpcereal @quietly-by-myself and @oddsconvert for the fantastic beta job on today's entry.
Warnings: Human's as prey, Human's being hunted, death of a minor character, vacation gone wrong.
I swear I'm not copying The Most Dangerous Game, but, like... look at the prompt list, it write's itself.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a vacation. Darren was amazed at how quickly circumstances could change, his world flipped upside down in a heartbeat. Less than 48 hours ago he’d set sail for his first ever deep sea fishing trip with his buddy Barrett. They were celebrating Barrett’s 23rd birthday.
Where was Barrett? He hadn’t seen him in hours. Had it been more than a day?
They had landed on what was supposed to be an uninhabited island for some shore time and swimming. They’d been there mere minutes when the captain of their sailing boat took an arrow to the neck. Who the hell uses a bow and arrow? Darren and Barret ran for the jungle not knowing where to find safety.
“What the fuck was that?” Barrett cried as they crouched among a thicket of tropical ferns. Barrett kept trying to wipe the captain’s blood from his face. His position relative to the captain meant he’s been covered in the sticky spurts. The red blood was at odds with Barrett’s pale complexion.
Darren clamped his bronze colored hand over Barrett’s mouth as their stalker wandered past them.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but we’re getting off this island,” Darren whispered in Barrett’s ear. “We just have to elude him long enough for someone to figure out where we are. Now be quiet and stay low. Let’s find somewhere to hide.”
“This is his Island,” Barrett hissed, panic suffusing every word. “Surely he knows every hiding place.” Fear and terror had replaced all thoughts about the birthday fishing trip.
“Don’t think like that. We just gotta stay one step ahead. Now let’s get moving.” Darren grabbed Barrett’s t-shirt and shoved him along. Barrett liked to fish. He liked things calm and quiet. This was not that.
They stayed together as long as they could, but they were being hunted. They’d heard him. Footsteps trudging and squelching in the mud, bowstring string stretching with a grgrgrgrrrr. He’d called to them.
“Come out and I won’t kill you.”
Yeah, right. After what happened to the captain, no fucking way!
Eventually they’d had to split up. Strength in numbers did not work in this situation and if one of them got caught, it might give the other a chance to figure out a way to get help or get off the island. It was not a good option, but they didn’t have any good options.
Several hours after they’d split up, Darren heard the scream he knew was Barrett. He slapped his palm over his mouth to muffle his own scream. Darren didn’t know if his childhood best friend was dead or alive. He didn’t know why Barret screamed. He just knew that now, he was hiding on an island, all alone, with a mad man on his tail, stalking him relentlessly.
Hours had passed since that scream. Darren had found a cavern that he could shelter in for the night. He didn’t dare light a fire, and he curled up against the wall in the deepest shadows he could find.
Darren was a hunter. He’d won awards. The man hunting him was good, masterful even. Darren didn’t think he would ever find out what it felt like to be the prey instead of the predator. He didn’t like it. Humans weren’t supposed to be at the bottom of the food chain.
TIn the morning, just after waking, the hair on the back of his neck prickled and there was an unexplainable shift in the atmosphere. Darren whirled around and came face to face with the tip of an arrow on a string mere millimeters from his face.
He froze, his entire body quivering with fight or flight instincts at war within him. His eyes slowly moved from the shaft of the arrow to the bow itself, then slowly to the broad chest, up to a burly neck and then up further to a terrifying wide grin and wild sea-green eyes alight with malice.
“Hello. You really shouldn’t have come here.” The hunter’s voice was softer than Darren expected, but no less deadly.
“We… we didn’t know,” Darren stumbled over his own words, trembling hands raising up surrender style, “It was just a pit stop. Our captain-”
“They always blame the captain. And they may be right. It’s why I always take out the captain first. But you have a choice. I can shoot you now, right through the eye, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground, or I can take you back to my place, give you a meal, clean you up and then you play the games I want you to play the way I want you to play them. What’ll it be?”
Darren swallowed, this couldn’t be happening. “Wh-where’s Barrett?”
“Barrett?” The hunter cocked his head as if trying out the name on his tongue. “Oh, the little one, the screamer. He chose to come back with me. He’s all snug in his little cage right now, had to gag him to shut him up. Damn, that one is a whiner.”
Darren swallowed again. “Wh-what sort of g-games?”
“Oh, all sorts of fun ones. Even more fun since there’s two of you.”
“You’re going to hunt us, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But that won’t be for a bit if you choose to come with me. I have all sorts of other activities that I’m sure you will not enjoy. I like to play with my toys, break them in a bit before I finish with them. But who knows, you might win and get a chance at making it off this island. I couldn’t say, but it’s possible.”
Hope, dangled out in front of him like a fucking carrot. It wasn’t fair. Something about the way that Barrett had screamed told Darren he should choose death, but he couldn’t. He might live. The captain never had a shot, but Darren and Barrett could, right? He knew it was a trap. Short of a miracle, they didn’t have a chance in hell at getting off this island. But the thought of survival gave him the will to keep fighting. It was cruel. Darren could see it in the hunter’s eyes, but he couldn’t force his own brain into not believing there was a chance. As long as I’m still breathing, right?
The hunter’s smile grew impossibly wider. “I can see you’ve made your choice, so let’s get on with it. Kneel and put your hands behind your back.”
To his ever loving shame, Darren knelt and did as he was told.
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