The Hunt

Chapter Three: Confusion

Ed awoke, sweating and breathing heavily.

"Relax. Relax. Breathe. That wasn't supposed to happen. It tested your skills and we can tell you what paths you can go down, but that wasn't the test. If you want, we can put you back in." Ed shook his head quickly. Between deep breaths he managed to say "No... Tests... Again... Simulation... Bad..."

"Ok Ed. just breathe. We'll speak to the doctors to make sure you're ok, but feel free to go back into the main hall. By the way, the paths you can go down have been selected and will be read out to you in the next part of the ceremony." Next part? Ed was tired out already. The rest of the people had already completed the trials and had been placed in their paths section. Shanon and Sasha had been placed in the Information path, Joey in the Reconnaissance path and William and Natasha in the Support path, while the assassination path was empty, besides the group master.

"Ah! Edgaras Marara! You've finally arrived! I assume the simulation went well?" Ed nodded slowly as he sat down. "No point sitting down, Huntee. You still have to select a path for yourself." As if on que someone ran up behind the Har'ay and handed him an envelope. Ed slowly walked up the aisle towards the Har'ay again and knelt down on his knees. "Edgaras Marara, your testing has been reviewed and you have been selected for only one path. Assassination. You have two options. Join this path, or leave the Hunters." Ed looked up at the Har'ay to tell if he were lying. The look on his face was complete truthfulness. He half expected someone to come up behind him and say: "Haha, we got you! Like you could get into the Assassin path!" but no one did.

He whispered "Thank you" towards the Har'ay and stood up to walk towards the Assassination section. He could see his parents looking at him in disbelief while his friends looked at him with obviously failed attempts to hide sniggers. The Assassination path wasn't very well respected, although one knew not to try and tell an assassin that. That would spell death. He looked at the group master sitting in the same section as him as he lifted his cap to see who he had to deal with. He was much taller than Ed and had a well cut face and hair, which seemed out of place on the face of this man. He was covered in scars and bruises, clearly times where he had fallen or been beaten. Ed shivered nervously.

The group master didn't say anything until they got back to the hut he lived in. Ed just followed him silently, with the man not even looking back to make sure Ed was following. When they arrived, Ed was the first to say something.

"Um, hey, I'm Edgaras Mar-"

"I know who you are. I see potential in you. Why else would I hijack your test? Yes, that was me. It was meant to creep you out. It was meant to scare you. It was meant to be the worst thing you have ever done. And there's no denying that it was. We were monitoring your vital signs through that machine. Feel free to ask any questions." Ed took a second to comprehend this information.

"You meant to force me though that? You meant to scare me that much? You meant to cause me that much fear yet you expect me to trust you?"

"I advise you trust me if you want to stay alive here." Ed shook his head in disbelief.

"How dare you. How dare you do that to someone and ask them to trust you?" Ed was getting angry now.

"Fine then. Go ahead. Go leave the Hunters and join the Scorpids or the Arachnids. I don't care. I was trying to help you get out of an endless spiral of support roles." Ed rolled his eyes.

"How would you know what it's like in Support?" The person glared at him.

"I know things. I said trust me if you like being here. Feel free to go get slaughtered somewhere in the world. I couldn't care less." This man was beginning to get on Ed's nerves.

"Fine, whatever. Just know I'm only staying because I have nowhere else to go, and I would've rather gone into a support path than this." Ed spat before storming back inside and looking for a room. He saw one but before he could enter the groupmaster shouted in: "The rooms mine, you will sleep on the floor." The floor was covered in dirt and whatnot.

"Where? There's no bed or anything!" The groupmaster walked in and pointed at a pile of clothes.

"You will sleep there." This man must be joking.

"Whatever..." Ed slumped over to the pile of clothes that he later found out were more scratchy than he originally thought. "Great. I'm not going to get any sleep and tomorrow I'm going to have to train."