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To Anna, the rules of the world are quite simple: Hunt, eat, survive. The fact that things that look and move like her exist is just a matter of fact that is not worth thinking about. It also means that there are more things to hunt and kill in the forest other than the creatures that walk on four legs.
So nothing really changed when one day, some existence that she cannot comprehend have dragged her from her forest towards another place. For her, it only means that she’s in a new unfamiliar hunting ground with new unfamiliar faces to track down and kill.
When days turned to months and months turned to years, she didn’t even notice. She continued to hunt and kill, unquestioning of the purpose behind all the hatchets she had thrown and the bodies that she had sacrificed to the thing between the shadows. Even as her memories eroded and she forgot her name, she moved and kill with only one certainty: that the hunt would never stop.
And that’s the truth, until one certain day.
It started as a normal day? night? She can’t really tell how time works in this place shrouded in a perpetual fog of darkness. She was stalking the campfire where 4 preys sit and talked in whispers. To her already clouded mind, their forms and faces are familiar. People that she had already hunted and killed countless times already, and people that she would continue to hunt for whoever long she existed.
She sharpened her hatchets, a simple preparation for the upcoming hunt. They know her already, an uncountable time they screamed her name as they begged and crawled. They would try to dodge her hatchets, and many times they did already. Only to escape and find themselves back to the campfire, where a new hunt would begin anew.
As the fog that would lead them to one of the many hunting grounds begin to encroach, the huntress closed her eyes. When the darkness finally receded, she looked around, noticing how the entity have thrown them into a new unfamiliar place.
Concrete towers that rise towards the skylines. Empty roads where the wheeled metal boxes are supposed to be. And a clear blue sky that she had already forgotten stretched through the horizon where the perpetual fog should be.
The place looks like those ‘cities’ that she heard her preys whisper when they don’t know that she is listening. During the times where they break down crying begging to be sent home before she buried her hatchet on their flesh.
A new place. But for the huntress, it does not matter. It’s just another new hunting ground.
She begins scanning the area, her eyes looking around barricaded windows and boarded doors, looking out for the shadows of her skittering prey while trying to find where the noisy machines and the hooks are placed.
In her curiosity, she did not find anything. All the buildings are blocked, the footsteps and sound of machinery being fixed is non-existent, and the hooks where the entity's claws lie in wait are nowhere to be found.
She only found one place of interest.
She looked at the small rectangular building, dwarfed by all the tall towers that surround it. Its glass doors are open, a huge sign that reads ‘Coffee Shop’ inviting people to go inside the structure like how a piece of meat invites prey towards a bear trap.
The huntress tightens her hold on her hatchet, walking towards the place while humming a familiar lullaby that she always sang during her hunts. She stopped inside the building, ignoring how the door on her back suddenly closed as she found a prey lying motionless in one of the tables.
She moved confidently, brandishing her weapon as she looked at the sleeping girl. Silver hair with three hairpins shaped like a feather, an apron similar to one of her prey called ‘Claudette’, and a face of complete bliss as if nothing is wrong in the world. An unfamiliar expression to the huntress which only saw fear and desperation from the prey on every hunt.
More importantly, she doesn’t remember the face of the girl. She is not part of the four in the campfire, and the huntress remembers all 20 plus of all the prey trapped by the entity in the eternal hunt. She’s also definitely not one of the others who stalks the shadow, for as even she does not know what the other hunters look like, she knows the familiar scent of blood that is not present on the sleeping girl.
But it does not matter. A prey is still a prey.
Raising her hatchet as she approached the girl, she prepared to swing, only stopping when she felt an unfamiliar emotion. It’s unlike the feeling that she had every time she remembers her dead mother, or the feeling every single time she looks at the people that she had abducted and killed before the entity has brought her to its hunting grounds. It’s a new emotion, but still enough for her to stop her attempted attack.
Instead, she caresses the sleeping girls’ silver hair, noticing how she slowly opened her eyes as she felt the huntress’ rough hand touch her. She also noticed how the girl smiled when she looked at the huntress’ arms, before flinching as her blue eyes locked on her masked face.
She already expected the reaction, the same fear as everyone else reflected on the girls’ eyes.
What she did not expect is instead of running away, the girl muttered a loud almost shout of “I’m sorry for slacking!” before bowing her head slightly. When the girl looked at her again, the look of fear is replaced by one of shock.
Still baffled by the girl’s weird antics, the huntress did not react at all when the girl grabbed her by her shoulder.
“Please ma’am, don’t report me to my manager”.
Reine’s day started as every other day; which is to wake up early, get dressed for work early, leave home early, and still get late because of the traffic. So typically, instead of a smiling face, she was greeted at the door by her manager with a frown.
After being scolded for several minutes, which only made her even more late, Reine run through the busy shop before entering the backdoor behind the cashier.
“You know the ‘it’s the car's fault, not mine’ excuse would only work several times before it begins to sound like an actual excuse, right?” Moona said jokingly, throwing Reine her apron before going back to arrange the supplies in the backroom.
Reine caught the cloth, tying a part of it on her back as she observed Moona, definitely not ogling the other girl’s muscular arms as she lifted a box to the highest part of the supply drawer. She only stopped looking when Moona noticed her, smiling playfully as Reine looked away in embarrassment.
“What, want to touch them?” Moona said, which only made Reine blush even harder. Before the other girl can continue, which Reine is sure would only make her blush worse, she runs towards the exit of the supply room and into the busy shop.
But instead of the familiar noise of the shop, Reine was met with silence instead. She looked around, noticing how both the cash register and the tables are abandoned, the people that were there only several minutes ago are no longer there anymore. Weirded out by the lack of people, Reine stepped back, returning into the backroom to tell Moona about what happened.
When she opened the door, Moona is also not there.
Thinking that it’s some kind of prank from the manager as a punishment for her late attendance, Reine brushed off the weirdness. Instead, she looked outside, watching the people in the city go on with their normal business. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to enter or even look at the shop, all of them ignoring her even when she followed their movements in a very obvious way through the glass windows.
After getting bored on waiting for her manager and her fellow employees to pop out from somewhere to surprise her, Reine sat on one of the tables on the corner.
With nothing to do, Reine began daydreaming of Moona’s abs, wondering how they feel if she ever manages to touch them. The daydream started to become an actual dream when Reine began to fall asleep, thinking about what it would feel like if she was ever caressed by the purple-haired girl’s beautiful muscles.
An hour? A day? When Reine woke up from her dream where she married Moona, it’s not to her manager’s angry face. What greeted her instead is the sight of a woman’s muscular arms, barely hidden by a dirty ragged shirt. She smiled at first, thinking that it is still a dream until she looked at the woman.
She jumped in panic. She’s not dreaming anymore. Because if this is a dream, then she would be dreaming of Moona instead of the weirdly dressed woman. Brushing the woman’s cloth aside as some sort of cosplay that is part of her manager’s prank, she begins spouting her already memorized excuse on how she’s not slacking off to the person in front of her.
She looked at the woman, noticing how the rabbit mask conceals her face, preventing Reine from seeing the other woman’s expression. With no idea of what the person in front of her is thinking, Reine began panicking again.
If this continues, she would be fired.
So, deciding on the best thing to do, Reine decided to do her plan b in the case where her master plan of explaining does not work.
Bargaining.
“Please ma’am, don’t report me to my manager."