Maggie ran.

Her bare feet slipped and slid on the rain-slick cobbles of Yharnam, sending her flat to the ground more than once, but she never hesitated even for a moment, launching herself back forward even when her legs tangled in the flimsy wet cotton of her petticoat and she heard the fabric rip. Her feet and knees were torn and bleeding, but it was nothing to the wounds on her face, and she could barely feel those either. Panic was dominating, and pain would have to wait its turn.

There was no point hammering on any doors to beg for help. In this district, anyone who answered was likely to send her straight back to where she had come from, and tonight nobody would answer at all. To open a door would invite the outside in, and everyone knew it was suicide to be outside on the night of the Hunt. She was trapped out here, and not alone. She had never laid eyes on the beasts that roamed on the nights when the Cathedral bell tolled, but she had heard the roars, shrieks and screeches, and she had heard the stories. She had nowhere to go to, nothing to defend herself with, not even shoes on her feet, and nightmare beasts prowled the night ripping any human they met to shreds.

So, Maggie ran.

As she whipped past one dark alley, something in the shadows began to growl.

It was a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Henryk and Gascoigne had walked it together for many years, one prodding the other back into place whenever he began to veer off course. Not many hunters survived to old age, but these two had made a good start. They strode through the district with confidence, but also with caution, weapons ready in hand, looking hard into every shadow. Blood already marked their clothes and blades, but it was clear from their calm steadiness that none of it was theirs. It had only been an hour since full dark descended. The Hunt had barely begun.

If anything, it was going too slowly. This was the easiest part of the night, with the poor doomed souls just beginning to transform. Many of them would spend the next part of the night staggering about unsteadily, not used to their new forms, some perhaps still clinging on to the last scraps of humanity in their heads, but it wouldn't last. By midnight, everything that was going to turn would be long turned, and they would be moving with more confidence. At that point, they tended to seek each other out and form packs. They became much more dangerous, much harder to kill. Taking out as many as possible during these first hours would make things easier later on, in so far as the Hunt was ever easy.

That was why, when they heard the unmistakable snarling barks, they both felt a moment of relief. Scourge beasts were large, fast moving and powerful creatures, tough enough prey on their own and one of the worst threats in Yharnam as a pack. This early in the night, there was a good chance it was on its own. They started to run.

The snarls were close by – a street away, two at most. Yharnam was a maze of a city, but they knew it well. A narrow alley lined with crates provided a shortcut, and then they were only a corner away. They were nearly there when a hand swung suddenly out from between the stacks of crates and caught at Gascoigne's coat. He spun around, axe already cutting silvery notes through the air. Henryk didn't wait for him. The partnership would never have worked if either of them had lacked faith in the other's abilities, and so it was Henryk who first rounded the corner into the wider street, pistol raised and ready.

This one had turned early and completely. A huge hulking monstrosity of gleaming white teeth and claws and shaggy black hair squatted with its back to him facing a glass shop front, a low growl carrying through the air. It hadn't seen him. Taking careful aim, Henryk raised his pistol. With any luck, he could take it out in one shot.

Luck was in short supply in Yharnam. Just as he pulled the trigger, the beast reared up suddenly, arms spread wide, ready to snatch. The same motion granted Henryk a glimpse at what it was the beast had cornered – a form in white and red. That was all he saw before his bullet sailed past the creature's outstretched arm and shattered the glass. The beast whipped around with that deceptive speed that a less experienced hunter would not have expected in a creature so large. Opening its razor-lined jaws wide, it let out a bellow of rage, then sank into a low crouch and pounced.

From the sounds in the alley behind him, Gascoigne must still have been busy with whatever had grabbed at him. Henryk fired off another shot, which caught the beast in the shoulder and didn't slow it down, and then it was too close for a pistol, so he instead took his cleaver in a two-handed grip and swung with all his force, a brutal blow to the side that cut it off mid pounce and sent it skidding to the ground – back towards the girl who was just pulling herself to her feet against the side of the building.

It landed badly, but these things didn't seem to feel pain in the human way, and its feet were back beneath it in an instant. Its head whipped wildly around, its glowing eyes refocussed, and it raised an arm, claws splayed.

As Henryk lunged across the street, the girl flung herself forward, taking a wild flail at the beast's muzzle. When her fist connected, to Henryk's astonishment, the creature yelped and jerked back. It was only for a moment, but it was enough. With a powerful swing, Henryk embedded his cleaver in its back, severing its spine. It fell to its knees, bringing it low enough for him to press his pistol to the top of its head and end it.

Something glistening against the black and red caught his attention when the beast dropped. A shard of broken glass, bigger than a hand, embedded deeply in its eye.

After throwing a cautious look up and down the street, he turned his attention to the girl, who had sunk back down to the floor. Her dress, he realised, was not white and red, and could barely be called a dress. It was just a corset and tattered petticoat, white cotton stained with blood. It coated her bare feet, splattered on her legs and oozed from between the fingers of her right hand where she had gripped the makeshift weapon, but the worst of it was coming from her face. Dark hair was plastered wetly against her skin, and the red dripped down from her chin. Only one eye was visible, wide and bloodshot as she stared wildly up at him, shaking like a leaf in the wind.

"Henryk?"

Gascoigne had appeared at his shoulder. Silence in the air. The night was still. Henryk leaned over the girl, who made a small, high noise and tensed, and for a moment Henryk was braced to catch her arm if she tried to make a stab at him with one of the other pieces of broken glass that surrounded her like confetti, but she seemed to be frozen in fear. "Can you speak?" He demanded gruffly. Her one visible eye widened, and then she nodded mutely. Gascoigne gave a sound that was half sigh, half growl. Henryk fixed her with his sternest look, scanning her eye for the tell-tale eerie glow, and tried again. "What are you doing out here?" He demanded.

She took a deep breath and swallowed, still staring back up at him. He was about to give up when her lips moved in a whisper too low even for this lull in the night. "Speak up, girl!" He snapped.

She jumped, but the change in tone seemed to pull her a little way out of shock. "Nowhere to go," she gasped, and her breathing began to slow.

Henryk reached for her, and this time she was almost limp as he caught her chin, vice-like, in one gloved hand. "Teeth," he ordered. She seemed too stunned to disobey, and opened her mouth. The teeth were perfectly human, no sharper than they ought to be. The skin, and he could see most of it, was not discoloured, misshapen or beginning to sprout shaggy fur. The fingernails were not black or sharp.

"Does the girl need taking somewhere safe?" Gascoigne asked softly behind him.

Somewhere safe. It was a code among the hunters, which had started almost as a bad joke. We'll take you somewhere safe. You'll soon be somewhere safe. Let's go somewhere safe. Not everyone they met during the Hunt had lost their wits. Some of them were only just beginning to turn. Some of them didn't even know they were turning. Then, of course, there were the victims they reached too late, bones crushed or blood and organs pouring out, but still alive and terrified. Somewhere safe meant a person was beyond saving, and the only mercy left to them was a bullet. They used the phrase so that the last thing the victim felt was hope. Some of the older hunters called it the last gift.

No fangs, no claws, no fur, no glowing eyes, and as far as Henryk could see, not mortally wounded. "Can you stand?" He asked her, letting go of her chin. Shakily at first, using the side of the building for support, she managed to pull herself to her feet. Her eyes were downcast as she shifted carefully sideways out of the scattering of glass, wincing a little. Once she was free of it, she looked up again at the two hunters. Gascoigne was scanning her as intently as Henryk. Misunderstanding, she seemed for the first time to realise how scantly she was dressed, and crossed her hands over her chest. "Please," she whispered.

Henryk turned to Gascoigne. "I'm taking her to Iosefka's," he said. "She needs a healer and somewhere… she can rest." He turned back to the girl. "I can't carry you. You'll have to manage."

The girl nodded, suddenly avoiding eye contact. A sudden leathery sound made Henryk whip round, ready to spring into action, but it was only Gascoigne unfastening his coat. As he swung it over the girl's shoulders, he addressed her directly for the first time. "Where have you come from, girl?"

With only a vague notion of the reason, Henryk was nevertheless totally unsurprised at the mute head shake that was her only reply, though she pulled the coat around herself gratefully, and said so quietly that he almost missed it, "It's better out here than in there."

Gascoigne was a firm man, and rarely tolerated a question left unanswered, but he accepted it. I'm taking her, Henryk had said. There was no point asking Gascoigne to come, or making assumptions. He would join them, or he wouldn't. The two were partners in the Hunt, but that didn't mean they were tied together, or that they had to discuss every decision. Nevertheless, Henryk was pleased that they went together, even if only because having a companion who couldn't fight was more dangerous than having no companion at all. They made it the whole way with no trouble at all, walking one on each side of the girl like a pair of escorts.

The healer Iosefka was one of the few people in all of Yharnam who would open her door on the night of the Hunt, and so she was immensely valuable and very well protected. No fewer than three hunters stayed at her clinic on every Hunt, one at an upper window leaning over the courtyard with a rifle ready and two just inside the door when they got inside; Gascoigne went immediately over to a cabinet and started rummaging for supplies, while the other two went upstairs. Iosefka herself, wearing the white Church clothes she had refused to let go of despite her rocky relationship with the people who had trained her, was in an upper room, carefully cleaning her equipment. The beds were empty now, but by morning the place would be a hub of activity. Hunters tended to have very high pain thresholds and a sometimes very unwise drive to see the night through. A handful might make it here during the night, too injured to carry on, but a dozen or more would limp through those gates once the sun came up, carrying all the wounds of the night.

The injured girl had made it the whole way without another word, tripping once or twice, but uncomplainingly keeping up with the two men's stride despite her torn feet. The bleeding in her face seemed to have slowed, and was no longer dripping when she followed Henryk into the examination room.

"Found her on the street," Henryk told Iosefka. "Human, but hurt. Face is worst. Hand and knees too."

Iosefka already had the girl on the table before Henryk had finished speaking. "What did this?" She asked as well-practiced hands moved over the whole table of gleaming instruments, selecting tools. Henryk shrugged.

"There was a beast, but she was already hurt."

"My name is Iosefka." She was speaking to the girl now. Thoroughly in healer mode, she probably wouldn't spare another glance for anyone but her patient. Henryk had never cared much for manners, and went for the door, when a sharp change in Iosefka's tone made him turn back. "What's this?"

She was holding the girl's hand in hers, a cloth at the ready. The girl's fist was tight, but she gave a little jerk as though she hadn't realised, and slowly unclenched her hand. Another shard of jagged glass, long and sharp as any knife, fell from her blood-slick fingers and smashed to pieces on the floor.

"I…" The girl's voice was cracked and quiet. "I didn't have a weapon."

Henryk let the door swing shut behind him as he went back down the stairs. "Let's go," he said to Gascoigne, and the two stepped back into the courtyard without a backward glance. For a moment Henryk realised his mind was still with that piece of glass on the floor of the examination room, and he found himself impressed. Then, he gave his head a little shake and brought himself back into the here and now, where he needed to be.

Somewhere off in the night, over the jagged rooftops, something gave a long, pained shriek. The two hunters wordlessly broke into a run, heading straight for the sound of prey. The night was young, and the Hunt was only just beginning.

Author's note: I'm taking a few liberties with lore and world to create a working setting. Constructive feedback welcome.