S(l)ay Your Preyers

Could you do a prompt where the antagonist is hunting the protagonist for sport? No preference on pronouns! Mood-creepy, horror

There were always six players at the start of any of game of ‘S(l)ay your Preyers’.

Three Predators. Three Preyers.

The Preyers were released on the edge of the arena – a different one each year – and told to run when the buzzer beeped.

If they made it to the exit on the other side of the arena then they would be free to leave with a truly astonishing amount of money for their troubles. If they didn’t…well, suffice to say nobody willingly entered themselves up for the games for the money, however much it meant a life of comfort afterwards. It wasn’t worth it. Hell, people rarely willingly entered themselves at all. The protagonist certainly hadn’t!

“Little rabbit,” called the Predator – their predator – “I can hear your rabbit heart beating. Are you excited to see me?”

Their voice was a beautiful, velvet croon.

The protagonist clamped a hand over their mouth to muffle their breathing, as if that could possibly help, feeling stupidly exposed behind the fragile cover of the door. Their gaze darted around desperately for something better that they could use to defend themselves. The candlestick clutched in their clammy hand didn’t really feel up to the job.

The Predators were never forced to participate, but given they had created the games entirely with their own whims and aims and amusements in mind, they always had willing players.

For the Predators, the sport was to catch their assigned Preyer before they escaped or were killed by the arena, competing against each other to give the most impressive show. If they did, then got to keep their prize and do whatever they wanted with them. What they specifically wanted varied; some Predators were career predators for enjoying the game so, but the protagonist had never seen their Predator on the recordings of any previous games to guess if they were simply a killer or had something else in mind.

None of the options meant anything good for the Preyer being hunted for sport anyway.

The Predator’s footsteps echoed across the cold marble floor towards them.

That year’s arena had been designed to look like the inside of a fancy mansion, lit up for a party, only much more dangerous. It wasn’t the worst set-up the protagonist had witnessed; it at least had hiding places. One time, all the Preyers had to do was sprint across a field to get to the door but, despite the comparatively short distance, without any cover they’d all been dead before they reached the halfway mark.

One Predator had run, catching up with a horrifying speed. Another had smiled, plucked up a pebble from the lush grass and given it their best deadly shot. The third had merely talked, convincing their Preyer to be a dear and come back to them or the Predator would perform a live dissection for the cameras.

The protagonist didn’t know what had happened to the other two in their game – the three of them had quickly split up. The girl had made a dash in search for a kitchen, because it was likely to have the best weapons, and she figured that was the best tool to survive the trip from one side of the arena to another. She’d spent her whole life training. She was going to make it, she said.

Predators weren’t allowed to kill each other’s prizes, but everything else was still on the table, and stashing a Preyer in a really good hiding place where they’d die was one way to beat out the competition for top marks.

The boy had simply started hurtling forward, to try and get as close to the exit as he could before the Predators were let into the arena through their door.

The protagonist squeezed their eyes shut, dizzy with adrenaline, trying to think.

They had met their Predator once before.

***

There were three days between being selected as a Preyer and the start of the games.

Day one was mostly administrative, logistical, at least for Preyers. Say goodbye to your loved ones, tie up your affairs, get transported to where the game was being held. Get introduced to the viewers.

Day two was so that Preyers and Predators alike could familiarise themselves with the arena, maybe show a bit of what they could do to hype up the audience of would-be-Predators frothing at the mouth. That year’s Predators then got to make a bid for which Preyer they wanted.

On day three, the night before the hunt started, the game committee hosted interviews with each matched set, thus announcing the pairings for the year. The Preyer got to ask one question. They got to ask for one thing to be placed into the arena for them – if they dared to waste time to try and find it. Some asked for special weapons. Some for water when their arena was a desert. Others, simply, for some last quiet wish before they died.

Did the rabbit escape the wolf? Sometimes. After all, if there was absolutely no chance that one’s prey got away, it wasn’t so much a sport as a slaughter and where was the thrill in that? But, mostly, the Predators won and everyone knew it.

The protagonist had sweated beneath the hot studio lights, only to go cold all over as their Predator stepped on the stage. They were young and beautiful, around the protagonist’s age, brimming with the wicked enthusiasm of all new contenders. They hadn’t even turned to the audience though, or the interviewer, gaze fixing unerringly on the protagonist. In a few strides they’d crossed the stage, caught the protagonist by the throat, and kissed them hard and sharp enough that the protagonist tasted blood.

The antagonist had pulled back, as the protagonist stared at them with a defiant sort of terror, and grinned.

“Delicious,” the Predator declared, into the silence.

And their stupid crowd had gone wild.

***

The room the protagonist was hiding in was the dining room and no they absolutely did not miss the irony of that. At least they could circle a dining table, right? Keep it between them and the Predator. It would buy them time. Their heart lurched ever faster.

It was one of the rooms at the back of the mansion, with one wall shimmering entirely with glass looking out on a lovely patio. It glittered with fairy lights and the canned sounds of a dinner party conversation and music and laughter just out of proper earshot. It might muffle the sound of their breathing. Their heart. Their useless screaming for someone, anyone, to help them.

Beyond the patio was the garden. Beyond the gardens – vast but not impossible, no shifting labyrinth like the arena had been the previous year – was the exit.

At a full sprint, without interruptions, the protagonist could be out and free in maybe fifteen minutes. Except there were always interruptions. Man eating flowers, perhaps? Or vines that tripped and hung and quartered. Maybe the path would crumble beneath them and drop them into previously hidden catacombs. Maybe they’d encounter a robotic party-goer who shoved a champagne glass through their belly. The best-worst game-makers were a creative bunch.

Their Predator was worse. They were worse, and they were getting closer, lazily, in the way that made it perfectly clear they knew exactly where their prey was.

So what was the point in hiding?

Some people did that. They curled up and waited for the end. It at least robbed the Predator of an easy victory, because it was difficult to put on an entertaining show when the other side of the act was refusing to play the part.

The protagonist couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Everything in them still roared at them to survive. Run. Fight. Do something.

They braced, blinking the panicked tears away from their eyes. They slammed the heavy, made to look old-fashioned door shut as the Predator reached it – hoping to knock them back hard enough to hurt. Then they staggered for the patio door, praying it wouldn’t be locked or that the key wasn’t slicked with a corrosive Preyer-snuffing toxin to even touch.

They got three steps past the patio before the Predator was on them, seizing their hand, yanking them back with a twirl as if the two of them were going to dance. They spun beneath the lights, shifting twinkling gold and red and midnight blue, casting new shadows and transforming the Predator’s face.

They faced each other again, the protagonist’s breath ragged and choked, as the Predator dipped them low. Their lips were inches from each other.

The game-makers, laughing perhaps in their room, changed the audio track to a funeral march.

“Hello, little rabbit,” the Predator said. “Perhaps you’d like a moment to say your prayers?”

***

Preyers could fish for information, for some frantic advantage, throughout the interview but they only got one official question.

The two of them sat opposite each other, faced each other. The Predator was a picture of rapt grace, head tilted, chin resting on one elegant hand as they leaned in towards the protagonist a little. The protagonist was hyperaware of every inch of distance between them and how it wasn’t anywhere near enough. They leaned back in their own chair, the material more comfortable than anything they had ever touched before.

Their mouth felt dry. Their tongue felt poison.

The boy had been on before them, and he’d snarled at his Predator, demanding where the hell they got off on it all.

The Predator smiled at the protagonist; eyes gleaming.

Lots of Preyers asked for their Predator’s weak point. Some refused to ask anything, not wanting to contribute to the entertainment of anyone who would hunt a human for sport.

The protagonist looked down at their hands, nails chewed down to stumps, fingers twisting nervously in their lap however much they wanted to be indignant rather than afraid.

“What,” the protagonist asked, “are you going to do to me?”

***

The protagonist remembered the candle stick in their hand the same time they unfroze, flailed and swung it at the predator’s head. The Predator dodged back, letting go of the protagonist’s wrist in surprise.

The protagonist was scrambling before they’d even hit the ground – back on their feet, backing away, putting distance between the two of them.

When asked what their intentions were the previous night, the Predator had looked amused. They’d given a careless little shrug, that didn’t quite reach their eyes, and said, “I think I’ll poll my followers what to do with you.” They’d turned to one of the cameras and whooped. “#SYP 200-22!”

There was a matching chorus from the audience. Hungry.

The protagonist’s gut churned even thinking about it. They could only imagine the suggestions and recommendations that would arise in a community poll. There was no point running though. Predators were quick; creatures born for the hunt, one way or another. So they hefted the candlestick up again and wished they’d found matches to set it alight.

The Predator threw their head back and laughed, like self-defence was a cute and hilarious notion, coming from a Preyer. They wiped blood from their lip with the back of their hand.

“Oh now,” the Predator advanced, with a dreamy sigh, “now we’re having fun.”

Prey animals, in the wild, developed many techniques in an effort to save themselves. Camouflage and mimicry, speed and flight, honed senses, travelling in groups, poison. Humans had been not-prey long enough that the protagonist felt rather clumsy and domesticated by comparison to the wild things, with no ability to turn invisible or sprout wings, however much they might like to.

Maybe they could see why the Predator was laughing. They looked human enough, if more well taken care of, but a Predator would never be prey in the arena.

The candlestick shook in the protagonist’s grip.

Was it defiance or foolishness to go down swinging?

They imagined everyone at home watching them, forced to watch them, and didn’t want to break down and cry. Even sport should have some dignity.

The Predator feinted, lunged, and the protagonist batted at them with the candlestick again – once, twice, three times – before the Predator plucked it out their hand and tossed it aside like nothing.

The protagonist swallowed.

The Predator spread their arms, giving them a ‘what now?’ sort of look.

The protagonist edged back; their Predator wanted a show, which meant for better or worse (god so much worse) they weren’t going to kill the protagonist quick. Maybe that would give them a chance. They felt the ground beneath their feet turn soft as they stepped off the patio again and onto the manicured lawn, torn between craning around for traps and keeping an unblinking stare locked on the Predator, as if blinking would mean it was all over.

The Predator followed after them, matching them slowly for each step, and – the protagonist tripped back over something, gasping in winded pain as they smacked against something, against –

They fumbled behind themselves blindly, only to come out with –

The protagonist stared, in sheer miraculous disbelief, at their request.

***

“Now tell us,” the interviewer asked, with a broad smile and too many teeth, “what is that you want to have placed in the arena for you?”

The boy before them had asked for a camouflage suit; something that, when put on, would render them nearly invisible to even the keen perception of a Predator. It was a popular choice, ever since someone managed to escape with one three years ago, the last time anyone made it out.

The protagonist asked for a music system.

“Perhaps,” the Predator said, holding out a hand, “we will be able to dance. A waltz to the death!”

The audience had laughed again. The protagonist had known it was a long shot, known it was something that everyone would consider ridiculous, but they still felt their face go hot and prickly with embarrassment.

They forced themselves not to look away, indeed to reach out and catch the flicker of absolute shock on the Predator’s face, when the protagonist took their hand and dipped their head, pressing a kiss to the Predator’s knuckles.

“Perhaps,” the protagonist said. “We will.”

And the crowd loved that even more.

***

“Ah,” the Predator began, “your quaint, wasted wish. What song shall we-“

The protagonist put the sound up to max and blasted.

The Predator cringed, hands flying up to cover their ears, backing up as if the sound waves were a physical tide to wash them away.

Such a skilled hunter that could hear their prey’s heartbeat from across the room…of course they couldn’t bear the screeching white noise of the static.

The protagonist legged it for the door out.

Miraculously, impossibly, no man-eating flowers emerged. No nothing. It was as if, despite the crashing of the protagonist’s feet and the howl of their lungs and heart and every inch of them desperate to survive, to actually make it, because – their theory –

It had been a source of debate for potential Preyer’s for years (along with what a Predator’s real weakness was) how exactly the game-makers made sure that the arena only ever went after the Preyer and not the Predator. Especially when they didn’t know who the players would be in advance, or at least claimed they didn’t.

Heartbeat.

Preyer’s had heartbeats. Frightened, rabbit quick heartbeats.

Heartbeats that could be drowned out.

They reached the door with every muscle in their body tight with adrenaline, trembling, vision tunnelled – sure that there would be some final trick that meant they wouldn’t actually get out.

They heard the Predator behind them, no longer laughing, gaining on them with a grim and single-minded determination. Hunting. No longer toying. Hunting.

The protagonist fumbled over the door and stumbled through, legs giving out beneath them.

The Predator stopped, on the invisible border between them, the lifeline.

They were so close, and yet…

The protagonist grinned up at them, wild-eyed and manic as the music sputtered out.

“The look on your face,” they said, voice raspy, “is delicious.”