The One ||Neteyam Sully||

6. {~The Game of Hunt~}

We all ate our food and then the adults sat by the fire and chatted as the little kids ran around the village and us teens played a game of hunt that we taught to Kiri, Lo'ak and Neteyam, but Kiri decided to not play.

Hunt is a game in which some of us would be hunting the others who are called the hiders. The hiders would try and not be found/hunted and if you were found you would return to the 'capture house' also known as the teen table in which all the teens ate at. To start the game we spun a stick twice on a flat but smooth and wide rock with a slight roundness to its top and whoever the 2 people were that it had landed on were the starting hunters and wore red blanket like material that would be tied around their waist to show that they were hunters. There's about 20 plus teens through out the whole village meaning that there's around 18 hiders (20 now because Lo'ak and Neteyam joined) and 2 hunters. The game lasted pretty long because our boundaries extended a little bit farther than the village perimeter so that we could hide in the forest and it's also why the kids couldn't play because it was dangerous for them to be out there on their own. The game is kinda like the game I learnt back at my old village but this one was to train our hiding, sneaking, and tracking abilities and also our senses.

In the first round Aonung and one of his friends M'ayat were the hunters. They began counting to 100 and right as they spoke the number 1 we all sprinted in search of a hiding spot. After about 3 minutes I was wandering in the forest in search of a good spot knowing that the hunters were on their way. It was quite hard to find a spot that was good but wasn't already taken I thought to myself, and that's when I was grabbed and my back was pushed against a tree and a hand was pressed against my mouth so that I couldn't scream.

"Shhh, it's okay Key," my heart rate slowed down as I heard Neteyam's soothing voice as our eyes met.

He removed his hand from my mouth and rested it on my hip and kept his other around my waist to my back, "Neteyam? What the hell! You scared the shit out of me." I whispered as I didn't want to be heard by the hunters.

"I'm sorry Key but I didn't want you to rat us out and when I saw you wandering around I knew that I couldn't let you get caught by Aonung or M'ayat."

"It's ok but where are we gonna hide, the hunters could spot us at any moment?"

"Follow me," Neteyam began climbing a tall tree and with the blink of an eye he was at the top and motioned for me to follow. I attempted to do what he did but slipped and fell onto my back and Neteyam rushed down and helped me up, "sorry I forgot that you guys aren't great climbers like me," he flexed his muscles and gave me a joking smile in which I gave a little smack to his abs with the back of my hand.

"Well I'm sorry but I've only learnt the ice ways and water ways, please teach me your ways oh great forest master."

"Master? Call me that again and see what happens," I smacked him on the arm because of the comment that caused my face to flush with heat, "owww, what the heck. Anyways, I guess I do owe it to you because you did teach me the way of the water," (little joke here hehe)

Neteyam grabbed my hand and guided it to the tree and showed me how to climb. It took me a few tries until I was able to at least climb the tree but definitely not as quick as Neteyam and because as Neteyam told me 'I'm too slow' he gave my a piggy back as he climbed with speed and it kinda reminded me of when my brother would give me piggy backs all the time. Once we reached the top we sat there for quite a while until the others came calling into the forest, announcing that we had won in which me and Neteyam cheered and hugged each other. Once we made our way off of the tree and played a couple more rounds of hunt, everyone headed to their own homes to get a good nights rest but before I left Neteyam gave me a peck on my forehead and spoke a soft but quick 'goodnight'.

"Goodnight Neteyam and thank you, I really had a lot of fun tonight," I ended it with returning a quick peck to his cheek and walked off into the village and back to my home.