The Game of the Hunt

My life is flashing before my eyes, my dull, but happy, childhood and the awkward beginning of adolescence. It is a bizarre feeling to see my entire life from a different perspective. It makes me question what all I missed the first time, and why must I wait until the end to see it? Now, I finally see all of what happened today in great detail.
It was a beautiful fall morning. The sun was shining, and the leaves were all different shades of orange, red, yellow, and green. My very best friend, Charlie, and I were taking a walk down by the woods. This was a usual practice on a brisk Friday afternoon. Charlie was a year younger than I, but we always had the best times together. When we were younger, we loved to play pretend, and make up that someone evil was chasing us. It was a great game, and we always won. I could trust Charlie; he was the only person I had ever told about my family secret. A secret that left me cursed with keen hearing and a third eye in the back of my head. Once we began into our teen years I became an object of mockery. The hair on the back of my head looked odd due to the eye, but I feared even worse teasing if the children at my school could see my eye. I never had anyone to turn to but Charlie. He told me not to be ashamed and to put on a smile because one day my acute senses would make me a hero, and I would win. I would smile because Charlie always knew how to make me smile. I love to win and so did Charlie.
As we drew closer to the woods, Charlie swore he saw a strange man on the path. I knew he was joking; he loved to return to times when we played pretend.
“Right there! Didn’t you see him?” Charlie yelled.
“You’re crazy!” I laughed in delight.
“It’s the evil captain! He’s come to steal our picnic basket!” he said, this time with a hint of laughter in his voice. The “evil captain” gave it away. He was a common character in our make believe.
Charlie hurried off in front of me to beat me to the woods. I just kept walking and shaking my head. I could not help but laugh at his quirky childishness. When he was just feet away from the woods, he spun around to be sure I was following. But seconds later, his foot caught on a tree root and he tumbled backwards behind the tree.
I hurried to the edge of the woods, but Charlie was nowhere in sight. “Charlie,” I said. “Charlie!” I repeated, now screaming. But, as I started into the woods the tree root lifted higher into the air and I tripped. The strange thing was, I just kept falling. I saw the dark ground , but I never hit it. It just kept looking darker and darker, like falling down a deep hole. After several minutes, I reached the bottom of, well, whatever it was I fell down. The landing was softer than expected, like jumping down a few stairs as opposed to falling down a staircase. Right next to where I had landed was Charlie.
“Charlie!” I cried with sheer joy. But, he did not respond. The look on his face was utter shock and terror. I glanced around where we had fallen as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light.
At first glance, the room in which we now stood looked like a cozy room in a cottage. It looked like something out of an old animated Disney movie. But, then I noticed the numerous jars filled with strange gases, organs, and bubbling liquids. There was also a large bookshelf piled high with thousands of books. Then, I saw the most horrible sight of all, the thing Charlie was staring at, the owner. He was tall, slender and white as a sheet. His eyes were completely black and he had a ghostly glow about his whole person. He smiled at us each one of his little pointy teeth showing.
“Why hello there,” he began. He voice sent a chill down my spine. “It was so kind of you children to stop in. I was just about to go out hunting, but it appears my dinner has wandered right into my home. How delightful!” He lunged at me, and I screamed.
“Wait!” Charlie yelled, finally finding his voice. “How can you enjoy your kill if you didn’t hunt it?” he inquired. Charlie loved to hunt, and if this monster did too, Charlie had a valid point. The monster man took a step back from me, and I began to breathe again.
“You propose an excellent question my boy!” he said, grinning again. “How can a true hunter enjoy a meal that he did not have to track and kill? Ha! I shall make a bet with you boy. I bet on your life that you, and your friend, could not escape from my tracking.”
“And, if we escape?” Charlie questioned.
“Ha! If you escape? Ha! My dear boy, to humor you, if you escape you will have your life, and I will never hunt again. But, don’t you worry about that. You will never escape.” He said this so calmly, so coldly that a shiver once again ran up my spine. “To have any chance at all, you two must first find a large book with the word ‘prey’ on the front. This will give you an advantage you will need to compete with me.”
He took us both over to his massive book shelf, and we began to search. He had given us a deadline of five minutes to find it. I believed this was completely impossible until I heard the lightest chuckle ever, one too soft for normal human ears to hear. He then whispered something about us never finding it. The eye in the back of my head then noticed a small leather bound book peaking out of his shirt pocket. I whipped around, and said, almost in a yell, “It’s in your pocket!” For a second I thought he looked shocked, but he composed himself so fast that I couldn’t be sure.
“Yes. Yes it is,” he replied coolly. “The hunt begins now!” As he said this, he thrust the book at me and disappeared in a puff of smoke. The smoke then engulfed us, so that we couldn’t see. We began to tremble with fear. After an agonizing few minutes, the smoke cleared. Charlie and I could now see where the hunt would take place.
We stood in the middle of an old abandoned amusement park. The sun was starting to go down, and the sky had turned dark red. All of the rides had begun to rust and cast mysterious and frightening shadows. I began to cry. “Ah! Charlie, what are we going to do? We’re going to die!” I wailed.
“Shh, shh! Calm down. We’re going to be fine,” he assured me. “Think of it as a game. This is just like all the games we used to play! We’ll just find a good place to hide, and we’ll check the book to see how we can win this.” I smiled; a game is not scary. A game is something we could win.
We found refuge in the control room of a roller-coaster that had a section where the tracks had completely fallen off. We then opened the book. The first page held a single instruction, “find a map.” And, every page after that was blank. Tears welled up in my eyes again.
“We’re going to die!” I bawled. Charlie just calmly got up and strolled around the control room. I sat quietly, stifling my tears as I watched him roam around. Finally he stopped, appearing to have found what he was looking for. He returns to where I was sitting and places a pamphlet with the park map inside the book. It absorbs into the book. Now, instead of an instruction, there is a colored map. It is complete with a little dot that moves to show where the monster man is. We laugh for a moment, thrilled with this discovery. Then we pay closer attention. We realize how close that little dot is.
“Shh. Don’t make a sound,” Charlie whispered. “This way.” He grabbed my arm and led me out to the platform where the roller-coaster was. We crept silently along the wooden platform until my foot went through a rotted plank. It let out a loud snap as it broke and a glowing figure appeared behind me. I screamed as he took a lunge at me, his sharp teeth glistened. Luckily, Charlie pulled me out of the way. We took off running. According to the map, there was a fence on the other side of the roller-coaster, so we headed that way.
By the time we reached our destination we appeared to have lost the creepy monster. We thrust ourselves at the chain linked fence and began to climb. We kept climbing and climbing, but we weren’t getting any higher. We couldn’t get out. We rechecked the map and tried a different section of the fence. Still, we could not get over the fence, and the monster had to be getting closer. Panicked we made a break for the front entrance. If there was a way out, it had to be that way. Charlie looked at the map. The entrance was just around the corner, but the monster wasn’t very far from us. We took off.
We finally got to the large doors at the front of the park, but they were locked. “Maybe there’s a key?” I offered hopefully. But the lock was rusted shut. “Wait!” I yelled with a sudden idea. “Check the book! Maybe there’s another clue!” Charlie quickly flipped open the book, past the maps. His eyes lit up suddenly, followed by his shoulders slumping. “What’s it say?” I scream.
“We have to go back to the roller-coaster,” he replied.
“You’re sure it’s the same one?” I ask hesitantly. I grabbed the book and read for myself. And, sure enough, we had to go back to the roller-coaster that was missing a section of track. We had to go back to where I had been lunged at. We had to go back to where a little dot on the map rested. “Oh, what are we going to do?” I cried feeling hopeless. He was inevitable; he was going to win.
“Calm down. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We are going to win. Okay? I have a plan. Just follow my lead,” he commanded. We hurried to the rollercoaster, this time going around the back to the wooden platform instead of the booth. As we approached we saw the man strolling calmly up and down the boards. Like a soldier keep watch. But, we are back at the roller coaster, so the next clue should appear. I glance over at Charlie.
“Where’s the book?” I asked impatiently as he checked his pockets.
“The book that can save us and all our problems?” asked Charlie. “I lost it.” It was then we realized we left it at the entrance. Charlie smiled sadly. “But, don’t you worry. I think I know how to win. It’s no fun for a hunter to hunt something that’s already dead. Maybe we’re supposed to ride this thing,” he said jerking his thumb towards the coaster.
“But, but,” I stammered, “but, we’ll die!”
“Maybe so, but I have a good feeling about you riding the coaster. You need to win this for us.”
I glanced back at him. “Me? Just me? What about you?” Before I could even get an answer out of him, he had yanked me onto the platform with him. The monstrous man tried to grab us, but Charlie dodged and pushed me into the roller-coaster cart. The handle bar came down, and I became trapped in the cart. I struggled and screamed, but I could not break free. I was forced to sit and watch my best friend, my only friend, be attacked. Charlie was putting up a good fight, but he was no match for this beast of a man. He began to look more and more weary, and he began to look more and more battered. He broke from the monster’s grasp just long enough the flip the switch on the control panel. Lights began to flicker on the panel and there were some clanks before the engine started to hum.
“No!” the monster yelled. “Ah!” In anger the monster beat Charlie some more before snapping his neck. He was dead. Charlie had lost.
I remembered what he said about having a good feeling about the coaster. As the coaster headed up the hill, I opened my eyes. My third eye saw some writing on the head of the seat. It read, “Congratulations! You have found the only way to escape, to return home press the red button near your foot.” And, sure enough, there was the button. I was about to press it. Pressing it would mean I won, and I had to win it for Charlie. But, was it worth winning? I couldn’t see how returning home by myself could ever be winning. It would be lonely and full of frightening dreams of Charlie dying. No, that was not the way to win. So, I did not press the button. This was how I would win. I would be content with the decision of how I was to die.
The roller-coaster crested, and I rapidly approached the drop off of the tracks. Everything seems to be in slow motion. My life flashes before my eyes, and I see a bright light. I feel the gut wrenching sensation of falling as my ears echo words of Charlie saying, “We won, we won.”

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 11.11.2011

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To Taylor for introducing me to this site =)