52 Project #31: Survival Traits (Patreon)

This is a horror story. TW: harm to children. Also will probably fuck you up if you're autistic, because I am, and it fucks me up, 

***

My heart beats faster, my palms sweat, but tension is good. Tension keeps me on edge until the moment it begins. My eyes seek a pathway through the crowd, and I am ready for the Hunt.

Our Hunt is being conducted in an abandoned shopping mall. In the basement of one of the department stores we wait, tensely, for the Hunt to begin. I am more ready than the others, the spirit of flight in me. I will find safety before they do.

"Let the Hunt begin!"

And I shove my way through the path I found, faster, ever faster, threading my way through the milling mass of children around me. This is the moment of exploding forth. When they come to hunt us, we need to be in a place of safety.

I will find such a place.

I take the stairs as fast as I can, running, almost flying. There are others, in front of me and behind me. I thread past them, going up, always up, then out into the store and running. Dozens of them swarm onto the escalators‑‑ I dodge through them, out onto the top level. A boy nearly falls as I brush past him, and I give him a hand to right himself, then go, through the bed department. Perhaps I can find safety there.

Groups of girls congregate and sit down, shutting me out with their laughter. Are they stupid? Don't they know they have to find a safe place? I run past them, through them, ignoring them as they laugh behind my back. There is no safety here. I dodge around the curtains and head out into the mall.

Already it's full of children, seeking hiding spots. They are in the stores, behind counters, under clothes racks, in groups. As if there's safety in numbers. Don't they understand how easy it is for a group to be found? I leap down over a banister, onto a staircase, and run down it. No telling how much time has passed. I've seen no place that could be truly safe. They could search anywhere-- a shopping mall doesn't have true hiding spots!

I understand the Hunt. I know it's safer to keep moving than to stay in a bad hiding spot-- but it won't be safer for long. Soon they'll begin searching. I have to find a place before then.

All around me, children are forming into groups, sitting in places that, while not immediately obvious, are certainly not safe. Do they think numbers will save them? Part of me wants to be part of such a group-- they seem to feel more secure than I do... But that security is an illusion. I'm contemptuous of their huddling, and I don't want to die.

Besides, they wouldn't have me anyway...

There! A blacked-out store window!

I run to it and press my face to the glass, looking as hard as I can. Try as I might I can't make out more than vague shapes. I go around, inside. The window is one of the kind that isn't open to the store-- there's a wall in front of it, with a door. I open the door to the window and toss in my white shoes. Then I run back outside to check. I still can't see them-- it's completely dark in there.  So I go back around again and climb in, shutting the door behind me-- and then I hear the siren. They're coming. The hunters are coming, but I have the perfect hiding spot. From behind the darkened window, I can see them, but they cannot possibly see me.

And I watch, somewhat shocked, as group after group of children escapes their notice. We were told the Hunters would be tough, merciless, would spare only those with the necessary survival traits. These children are barely hidden, and yet the Hunters spare them-- could it be I was wrong to be so worried? Maybe they're not so tough after all.

Then I see a boy who hasn't yet found a hiding place. He looks around him in terror, and my heart stops for him. Run, hide, come on! Hide! He runs, finally--

--and a Hunter grabs him by the ear. He struggles desperately, kicking, then begins to scream as they lift him and muscle him into the portable compactor. My heart is slamming with terror and horror for that poor captured boy. He shrieks, an inhumanly high sound, as they turn on the compactor.

Then they remove a cellophane-wrapped square bundle of flesh. I want to be sick, or scream, but my mesmerized eyes can't leave the Hunters outside. Now horrible anxiety overwhelms me. What if they find me?

They won't, I tell myself over and over. I'm hidden too well. They won't.

But what if I'm wrong?

They pass another small group of children, who appear to be sick, but not particularly afraid. Now I know they saw that group-- why didn't they take them? Not that I want them to-- god, no one should die like that-- but what's the reason?

They pass the water fountain, where one of them leans down suddenly. I see signs of a struggle, and then they pull a slim girl out by her leg, shrieking. Again my heart pounds, sick with dread, and I cannot turn my eyes away as they throw her in the machine and crush the life out of her...

Where was she hiding?

If she'd been in the fountain, she wouldn't have been able to breathe-- and I saw them reaching, pulling. I read a story once where a child hid in an air pocket in the reservoir that fed a fountain. But if she'd been there-- how did they find her? That would have been the best hiding place of all...

Then I see they have some sort of device, that they're passing back and forth. Several groups they see, and ignore, but children alone they take, and kill them. No matter where they're hiding. This happens several times. I cling to a piece of mannequin and tremble, terrified beyond imagining. My heart wants to stop with terror.

They're ignoring the groups, and coming for the loners. Like me.

I've never fit easily into groups. When they used to tell us to do something with partners in school, I could never find a partner. Unless they assigned it, I could never find a group. Hardly anyone ever wanted to be my friend.

It's not my fault! It's not my fault!

I'm generous! I saved that boy on the escalator, before-- didn't I? It's not fair that the ones who form groups and shut other people out should live! It's not my fault I don't belong!

They are heading toward me.

Mad thoughts run through my head, of breaking out of here, running to join a group-- oh, but there's no time, they're coming, they see me, I know they see me, oh help me help me somebody please save me--

They open the door to the store I'm in, flick on the light, and open the door to the window.