The Hunter Becomes The Hunted

Chapter 1

You sat down on the rickety old bench outside of the tavern with a sigh, your aching shoulders deflating and falling loose as your posture slouched over. Exhaustion clung to your eyes, yet you kept them open somehow. It may have been the cold autumn air nipping at whatever exposed skin you may have left bare to this cold night or maybe it could have been the drunken banter from inside of the tavern just behind you... Or maybe it was that buzzing feeling deep in your stomach that you knew something was wrong.

You slowly lifted your head to peer around the empty village, noting that nobody was outside beside yourself. You swallowed when you spotted nothing but rats scuttering across the cobblestone paths, spiders crawl up walls and into the homes of the people missing from the once lively streets. A cold shudder ran down your spine, you tugged the cotton cloak further across your now shaking shoulders.

You were alone here in the outside world, and yet you could feel thousands of eyes on you. You sat forward on the wooden bench, hunching in on yourself just a bit in an attempt to make yourself look smaller just in case something was looking right at you.

It was dark out here. The lanterns were not lit by the guards who were nowhere to be seen... It was odd to not see the village guards out and about, it was rare, only happening on holidays or on days with bad storms gracing your village and the farm around it. But with no lights blazing, you could barely make out anything in this village without the light, everything so haunting and ugly and wicked without light to... lighten it up.

Trees looked to be monsters, shadows seemed to be demons twisting in smoke and taunting you with promises of wishes come true for a price, stray cats seeming to be goblins sure to drag you down the village's well if you even look at them wrong.

Everything in this village looked so damned evil without light.

Owls cooed and ravens cawed, the sounds of the insects coming alive around you were enough to make you want to gag. But the distant sound of a howling wolf caught you ears quick enough for you to look at its direction: The mountains. The place where monsters are known to come from whether it's up top in the harsh snows spikes or down below in the cold and dark stony caves.

The feeling of uneasiness inside of you did not go away at all. Dread had started to hang over your head now, your stomach twisting into tight knots until you couldn't take it anymore.

You pushed yourself up from the old bench, allowing it to creak loudly at your missing weight before you quickly climbed the brick stairs and tossed open the heavy door and slamming it closed behind you.

"Be careful with that thing!" one of the old hags chided, waving around her gnarled wooden cane. "You can do so much damage with such a heavy thing! There is no need to go slamming it closed! You can break it off of its hinges!" she squwaked as she smacked the end of her cane on the wooden plank floors.

"Sorry," you murmured.

You doubted she could hear you over the music the bards played and the loud chatter of the other tavern patrons let alone the two men wrestling in their drunken states. With a sigh, you stayed along the wall and scurried to one of the back rooms where you sat down on top of one of the wooden barrels. You slouched against the moist stone walls and peered over at the flickering lantern sitting on top of a barrel not too far away from you. Dead moths laid on the bottom of the metal panel, burnt by the near-dead flame. You placed the back of your skull against the stone, your hair sticking to your head and to the wall, but you couldn't care at all right now.

Your ears pounded from the chanting in the other room, your head starting to throb in pain and your eyes burning from being awake for so long. The moist, cool room threatened you, tempting you with a small nap on top of the dry barrels full of potatoes that will probably go bad in a few days and heads of cabbage that are most likely stale.