The Living Game

(7) Get On Your Knees

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Hunting with Alek was weird. I’d never done any sort of ‘hunting’ before in my life, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

When I was younger, I’d seen my grandfather get ready to go hunting. He’d gotten all wrapped up in warm clothes and orange things, like hats or mittens. He’d worn big, heavy boots and acted like he was going to get all dirty. He never came home all that dirty, although he did look cold, even with the many articles of clothing he wore. I could clearly remember the camoflauge jacket he had that had a bright orange liner inside it. Once, he'd lost the jacket and hadn't gone hunting all hunting season. The next year, he hunted twice as much to make up for it.

I had momentarily considered changing my own clothes, before I remembered that vampires didn’t generally get cold. Except for me, because that was just my luck. And the fact that I was starving myself. But whatever.

Before we actually did any hunting, Alek made me hop around in trees. He made me jump from one to another for no purpose, other than to make sure I could catch a bird if I wanted too. Like I would ever, ever actually try to catch and kill a bird.

Alek told me that catching a bird was kind of an emergency thing. If you were absolutely starving and had very little time, you had to be able to jump up to a tree and catch a bird. Birds didn't have a lot of blood in them, and their blood was certainly not good but it would give a vampire enough energy to hunt something with more appealing blood.

After that, he decided that I needed to practice sneaking around in the woods while also running as fast as I could. It wasn’t difficult, as I made virtually no sound when I ran, thanks to my speed and grace.

Not that I looked graceful when I ran, because I somehow still managed to look uncoordinated. Maybe it was just because I was new.

After about an hour of messing around and Alek making me do things that weren’t pertinent to me finding some food, I stopped and walked over to him. “I’m hungry.” I stated. And tired, but I could keep that to myself.

He raised his eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t want to kill an animal?”

I shrugged. I didn’t. Inside I was freaking out. But I wasn’t about to risk dying or whatever vampires did. I couldn’t do that to Jace. Besides...killing an animal was better than killing a human, right? I could live with an animal death on my concious, even if I didn't like it. I couldn't live with the thought that I had killed an innocent person.

“Let’s just get this over with.” I muttered.

Funny, how I should be hunting for animals. It was ironic really. I, the Vegan who wrote a science essay about the logic of vampires being mythical, had been turned into a blood-thirsty vampire and was abount to kill a poor little deer.

A thought occurred to me and I voiced it before I could stop myself. “Did you turn me because you read my essay?” I asked Alekzander, coming up behind him.

He turned to look at me. His expression was weird, it was a mix between confusion and surprise. Like he expected me to know why he had turned me. How could I?

He shook his head, his expression apologetic. “I didn’t mean to turn you.” He sounded so sincere — almost sad. He paused and then his expression hardened and a smirk found its way onto his face. “We only meant to teach you a lesson, but now I’m stuck with you.”

I wasn’t sure why it bothered me that he hadn’t wanted to turn me, but it felt a little like being punched in the gut. I felt my own expression harden in response.

“Karma’s a bitch.”

With that, I took off running ahead, aware that I wasn’t going to be able to get much farther before he caught up. He didn’t try to. Because of my extra-special, awesome hearing — which was probably fairly impaired from starvation but still better than a humans — I could hear him running along behind me. He trailed behind me, making no attempt to get near me at all. This bothered me.

Another punch to the gut and I veered off sideways, making getting away from him my only goal for the moment. Screw hunting with him, I could figure out how to do it on my own. It couldn’t be that hard. In the books, wasn’t it always instinct anyway? The books all told how vampires were completely ruled by their bloodlust. There was no thinking necessary for hunting — they just did it. I was relatively independent, anyway, I could manage. My grandfather and his father and his father before him had all hunted. It was in blood or whatever.

He still didn’t try to catch me. Actually, I didn’t even think he’d bothered turning after me.

I wasn’t paying any attention to my surroundings so I didn’t notice at all when I had passed the heard of deer to my left. I also didn’t notice that Alekzander was right beside me until it was too late.

He slammed into me, knocking me to the ground. I gasped for air, winded. How was I winded? I was a vampire! Wasn’t I supposed to be invincible and never hurt and whatever?