Starring:
Bathory
Date: February 23, 2011
Summary:
None given.
"The Most Dangerous Game"
Unknown location
Ue Toto was a man of wealth and sophistication. He was one of the most
premiere hunters in the world. He was also an arrogant, pompous,
self-absorbed sociopath. He made his fortune at a young age via investing
and various business ventures that were then turned over to competent
underlings, leaving him plenty of time to perfect his skill at 'sport
hunting'. He has killed at least one of just about everything. When he ran
out of land-based animals, he went after airborne ones. When that lost its
amusement value, he tried his hand at marine hunting. When killing sharks
in melee combat lost its thrill, he despaired for a time. How ever would
he continue to feed his appetite for the thrill of the hunt? Then the
solution came to him: The only type of animal he had so far not hunted
successfully surrounded him on a daily basis.
Human beings.
In his mind, the logical next step was to begin hunting humans. And so he
did. Sometimes he would pay people to take part in his 'hunting games',
typically without fully explaining what is entailed in their new (and so
far quite temporary) jobs. Most of the time he just had some 'contract
workers' pick up a few healthy specimens and bring them to his private
island.
He loved hunting human. He loved tracking them, he loved finding them, he
loved killing them, and he loved skinning them or otherwise making
trophies of them. They were the most interesting of all prey animals he
had ever faced.
The event in the Land of Whirlpools changed everything though. Once the
tsunamis settled down, red clouds gathered over Toto's island. They rained
blood for an hour. And now it is Ue Toto who is being hunted like an
animal…
It all started when Ue Toto received word of the odd weather and chalked
it up to nerves. Raining blood? Who had ever heard of such a thing? Utter
nonsense. His security forces must just be upset still after the vicious
battering the island took from the >real< weather. Ue Toto retired to his
trophy room to read a book. He entered the large room to find his trophies
standing around waiting for him. Stuffed predators; the heads of deer,
bears, crocodiles, and more; the feet of elephants; the hands of gorillas;
and all manner of body parts from human beings. They were not where they
should be. They were >waiting< for him. >Staring< at him. Toto had never
been uncomfortable around dead things before.
But before now, dead things did not leave the places they were put and
gather in preparation to confront him. Before he could demand to know who
was responsible for this — ignoring the fact that more than one of his
trophies was >floating in the air without any sign of support< — they all
let loose with the most horrifying cacophony of rage, fear, and pain that
he had ever heard! He was utterly overwhelmed by the sound! He clapped his
hands to his ears and staggered backwards!
And then the dead started chasing him.
They chased him throughout his mansion, where he ran into sickening sight
after sickening sight. His guards, his business partners, his
"associates", his cooks, his maids… All of them…
Dead and waiting for Ue Toto.
He fled outside. He took with him his hunting tools — no point in being
out in the wilderness without a means of surviving, after all — and tried
to lose all pursuit. Though he saw no more signs of the dead, he realized
gradually that he >was< being hunted down. He didn't know how he knew. He
would see things out of the corner of his eye… Hear voices whispering…
He would just >feel< that something awful was following him. Toto had
never known fear once in his life. If it had been just the dead chasing
after him, he would have seen this as a set-back. He would have treated
this as a temporary situation, and tried to reason it through. Perhaps
someone slipped some hallucinogenics into his food? Perhaps some ninja was
using those blasted mind tricks on him? Perhaps—
No.
No, this was something else completely. He could just tell, on an
instinctive level, that all of this was real. It was >wrong<, but it was
real. Eventually, after three days of running, doing everything he could
to evade pursuit, Ue Toto was too tired to keep fleeing. He reached a cave
he had set up as an emergency defensive position in the past — just
incase he ever needed a fortified location during a hunting trip. He
barricaded himself in and waited. Eventually he saw what was chasing him.
If he had lived a hundred years he could never have imagined it.
Two little girls. That is what had evaded every trap he had set, ignored
every counter-tracking method he had employed, and followed him over every
type of terrain available. Two, little girls with curly blonde hair. The
one on the right was a bit older than the other, but they otherwise looked
remarkably similar. They were both garbed in funeral dresses, with black
shrouds of lace. Red lipstick stained their lips. Shiny black shoes
adorned their tiny feet. They were just children.
Simultaneously, they were the most terrifying thing that Toto had ever
seen.
They walked and moved in perfect unison. Their eyes had black pupils. They
both bore neutral expressions on their faces. No specific thing cried out
to Toto… But somehow their very presence screamed, 'THESE ARE NOT
HUMANS. THESE ARE THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT BE.'
Toto closed off the entrance to the cave with explosives. He didn't care
if he suffocated or starved or anything else. He would >not< let those…
lantern. He found the two girls standing within arm's reach of himself.
In innocent, high-pitched voices, the two girls spoke the same words at
the exact same time.
"I was born a monster." A pause, and then the younger of the two asked,
"What's your excuse?"
The lantern went out. Then there were only screams in the dark.
