Monsters
The lone Hunter looked up from its latest kill, and screamed in triumph. Anyone looking in on this would have seen a deceased, mutilated dog lying on the cold ground in a beam of moonlight. Standing over it, proclaiming its victory to the world, stood the Hunter. It appeared to be a human dressed in a hoodie and pants with the legs and arms taped down. However, on close examination, one would see that the hoodie was splattered with blood and bits
of gore. The tips of the fingers have elongated slightly, forming something similar to the tips of claws. But, what may be most startling about this "person" is the fact that the eye sockets are barren, replaced with pools of endless darkness.
For nearly a day and a half, the feral canine had avoided the Hunter and all of his brethren easily. But the Hunter refused to give up. Where most has simply ended the chase, he stubbornly continued. Even when other members of his kind gave up, he persevered. After a long chase, much longer than any involving the various monsters he had encountered, the dog was at last cornered in a warehouse whose roof had partially collapsed, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of the starry night sky.
The Hunter breathed rapidly, reveling in its new found joy. It had been so long since it had actually worked hard for a kill. Its lesser brothers, the ones who walked awkwardly on two legs, were loud and noisy and easy to find. And the Hunter had no desire to attack any of his fellow "special" brethren. In actuality, he felt a certain kinship with his brothers and sisters; something that, as far as he knew,they recuperated as far as returning the favor in not attacking him.
This feeling of victory, of a job well done, proved to be short-lived as it brought back a vague memory; dashing across a line of tape, narrowly beating another racer, all the while the thunderous roar of fans in the background. This memory brought with it a feeling of sorrow, of loss, perhaps some anger, but he couldn't understand the reasons behind any of the feelings.
Or even the feelings themselves. He hadn't had them in so long.
Shaking his head, trying to clear away the feelings he could no longer comprehend, he knelt down next to the carcass, and began the process of reaping the rewards of his "hunt".
Midway into his meal,midway into the process of shoveling another bloody piece of flesh into his mouth, he faintly heard a sound almost forgotten- but a sound that would always be embedded in his memory, even if it was from another life.
Running, his reserves nearly gone, a horde chased a mere thirty seconds behind him. Salvation lay ahead in the form of a Black Hawk helicopter, blades spinning, nearly ready to lift off. He didn't even notice that these soldiers were dressed oddly compared to the others he'd seen, wearing midnight black military fatigues and gas masks with red eye plates covering their faces, with the only sign of rank or organization being a red and white striped umbrella insignia printed on the shoulder, or that the helicopter failed to possessed branch markers anywhere on it.
He ran harder, if that was even possible, waving his arms frantically at the soldiers. Feeling joy at escaping the nightmare, he was confused when a single soldier looked his way, pulled out his pistol, and,even while his fellows quickly filed into the helicopter, walked towards him. It didn't register in his head that the man was raising the gun towards him, not until it was too late. The muzzle flashed, thunder erupted in his ears, and suddenly he was falling forward, darkness rapidly closing in. The last thing he ever saw, the last thing he ever heard,was the helicopter lifting up, its blades cutting the air in its assent.
Shaking his head violently to break out of the all too vivid memory, and to prevent the onslaught of emotions he would have felt, he tilted his head to the side, and listened. The helicopter was definitely closer, but he still couldn't pinpoint its location. Deciding on the best course of action to confirm his surroundings, he let out what could be considered to be a small scream, and the warehouse around him came into view
He saw the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, the shattered windows, and the neatly stacked crates in the corner of the warehouse. He saw every little detail, noticing and seeing more than most humans ever would, but most of it was meaningless, and so he tuned them out. What caught his attention was the collapsed end of the roof, which temporarily became the center of his world, and nothing else mattered.
Tensing his legs, he leaped for the opening, briefly in the air, sailing towards his target. Midway into his jump, he saw that he had misjudged the distance, and was going to come up too short to smoothly land on the edge of the still intact roof. In fact, he was more likely to get impaled on one of the many steel bars sticking out of the damaged section of the roof. Before crashing or impaled himself, he reached out with both hands, grabbed hold of a solitary bar in his flight trajectory, and, using the bar to lose some of his momentum, swung himself in a full arc, letting go once he reached the the top of the arc, briefly flying through the air and deftly landing in a crouched position on the stable portion of the warehouse's roof.
He started growling quietly, almost inaudible in the cool night. The immediate area around him came into view, and he clearly saw the edge of the building, as well as the corner he had come precariously close to missing. Tilting his head to the side, he listened for the sound of the helicopter, and heard a tiny rumble in the distance. Deciding to get into the best vantage point possible under the circumstances, he walked to the corner, and let out the loudest scream he could possible make, actually causing several of his lesser brothers nearby to drop to the ground, clenching their ears.
Mere seconds after his inhuman screech, his mind was assaulted by a barrage of images, and
suddenly a picture of the current world formed in his head. He saw dozens of his lesser brothers in mid-step, seemingly frozen in time, although this was merely an illusion he instinctively knew to be false. In the nearby buildings, a few were clutching their heads, but most simply were in the process of aimlessly wandering. One of his deadly sisters sat crying nearby, and after hearing his screech, she momentarily stopped her sorrowful cry to look up and glance out the apartment window towards the corner of the warehouse on which he stood.
One of his own kind was nearby, and stopped to respond with a different, but unique screech of his own. Several blocks away, he saw the barely decipherable image of an owl silently sailing through the night. But, what caught his attention was the reseeding profile of something large in the night sky. He couldn't form a complete picture with what little he was able to get, but it was enough. A helicopter was approaching, and, based on past experiences, that meant more monsters would soon appear. When they came, he would be ready. All that was left to do was to wait for the helicopter to come, and when it did, he would kill all of the monsters that would come flocking after it.
Author's note: Well, this is the first time I've ever tried writing,well, anything. Got the idea from... you know what, I have absolutely no idea where it came from. This just popped into my head as a result of admiration for the hunter, I suppose. I wonder if anyone will see the reference I made to another game Any non flaming reviews wanted and are more than welcome here. And for any flamers, I thank you for taking the time to review my story.