The man's screaming continued to go on and on with no end in sight. It was so loud and piercing that you couldn't help but notice. He was supposed to be a strong man that wanted to take the hunters exam, but instead, he was acting like a small child. He should have stopped his screaming and sought medical attention for his missing arms.
'Pathetic' I thought to myself.
I was trying to control my temper, but every sound that came from the man-child irritated me more with every passing second. I had taken my eyes off of Hisoka to watch the man-child on the ground wallowing in the misery of his lost arms. His head and body were bowed like one was asking for forgiveness and held my gaze longer than it should have. When I realized that I had moved my attention from Hisoka I tried to look for him again through the crowd, but no matter where I looked I couldn't find the redhead anywhere.
With the irritating sounds coming from the man-child and having lost sight of Hisoka because of him my temper had reached its boiling point. I was about to use my shadows to look for Hisoka's shadow and get away from this pathetic man-child when my stomach growled. 'When was the last time I ate' I thought to myself?
Forgetting about Hisoka and the man-child, I held a hand to my stomach as I thought about when my last meal was. It could have been last week or it could have been last month. My memory was a bit scattered because eating wasn't very important to me and I only ate when my body demands it. The question now was where am I going to get my food. As I was thinking the man-child let out his loudest wail of despair yet and drew my attention back to him. It had already been around five minutes since the man-child had lost his arms and he still hadn't sawt medical attention for his missing arms. It also looked like no one was going to help him either.
Because he had drawn my attention back to him I could examine his body. I took note that besides his arms being missing he was still fit and healthy. This is just what I was looking for. No one seemed to have noticed me so I blended into the shadow of the closest applicant and shadow traveled to the man-child's shadow. While I was in his shadow I looked up at the man-child and saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. His face expressed all the despair and rage he had for the man that stole his arms, however, his eyes showed his true emotions. His eyes showed such defeat and sadness that it looked as though the man-child wasn't even alive.
"What beautiful face and eyes you have" I whispered.
As I made my way closer to the man-child I used my ability Shadow Mirror to make his shadow into a two-way mirror. As clearly as I could see him before, he could now see me. Once he finally noticed that something was wrong with his shadow, he looked at his shadow and me with confusion. When I was close enough to touch him I moved my left arm out of his shadow and placed my hand onto his cheek. I moved most of my upper body out of the shadow and placed my mask covered mouth next to his ear.
"I want to thank you for your sacrifice. Trust me. It will help me pass this exam and become a better hunter than you ever would have" I whispered.
The man-child's face that was once confused changed to shock as I placed my right hand onto his chest. Then without warning, I moved my right arm back and plunged my hand into his chest and wrapped it around his heart. As I held the heart in my hand, I could feel every beat as it pumped blood throughout his body. I gave the man-child one final smirk and ripped his heart out of his chest. His face went from shock to expressionless as what little life he had left his eyes and showed nothing. As I sank back into the shadow I looked to the dead heart in my hand and marveled at its beauty. So fresh, so warm, and once so full of life.
"To think I decided to take the Hunter Exam by chance and found a few treasures before the exam even started. I hope the rest of the exam will be just as exciting" I giggled.
As I used the shadows to travel back to my spot along the pipes, with heart in hand, I had forgotten about Hisoka and all my attention was reaching my destination. It looked as though someone finally decided to check on the man-child and decided to help him. Too bad, it was already too late and no one could help him.
"Hey man. You alright" a random man asked?
Once the random man reached out and touched the dead man-child's shoulder, the body fell on its right side and showed his blank lifeless face. The random man stumbled backward and fell on his butt with a scared look on his face. It, however, wasn't the man-child's face that was so frightening, it was the gaping hole in his chest that showed his missing heart. The random man came back to his senses and let out a startled scream that had my applicants look his way.
"Hey! This guy's dead! What's going on?"
A few of the applicants jumped in alarm to the random man's scream and wondered what was going on, while others just looked on to see what would happen next. The more frightened applicants whispered to one another about who could have done it, when it could have happened, and if anyone had seen anything? With no answers and more questions being brought to attention, the applicants became tense and frightened of the unknown. Many of them wondered if this is how the Hunter's Exam would be when the exam officially began.
While some of the applicants whispered to one another, some Hunter Exam staff took the body away and the whispering died down. With the tension still high, everyone waited for the exam to officially begin where anything could happen. Even with all the commotion over the dead body going on, no one noticed someone sitting in the shadows of the pipes marveling at the heart of the dead man.
'I wonder if it will taste as good as it looks' I thought to myself?
While the madness was going on around me, I took the time to examine the heart in my hand. I could tell from the smell of the heart that it was healthy and didn't have any defects or diseases. It made the perfect meal for me to sate my hunger and give me a boost for the Hunter Exam. With a quick thought, my mask opened its sharp grinning teeth and allowed my long tongue to come out and maneuver my tongue to wrap around the heart. Once I brought my tongue and the heart both past my mask, it slowly closed and became a regular mask again. After everything was back where it was before, I began to chew the heart with my actual sharp teeth. It tasted so good that I had to close my eyes and savor every second of it. The metallic taste from the blood, to the chewiness of the flesh melting in my mouth, made me want more.
'It had been a long time. Oh, how I have missed this feeling.'
It must seem strange that I just ate a human heart, but that is all I have ever known and is normal for me. My diet mainly consists of eating human hearts and sometimes other body parts, however, I can eat normal human food. Human food doesn't sustain me as much as a human heart does and can make me sick, so I try to stay away from human food as much as possible. This is one of the reasons why I decided to get a Hunter Liseans so that it won't matter anymore if I kill people. Who's going to question a hunter?
After swallowing the last piece of the heart I slipped my tongue back out from under my mask and licked the blood clean from my fingers. The heart should last me a few months if I don't exert too much energy during this exam. It would seem that the man-child was healthier than I had anticipated and would last me much longer than a normal heart would. As I was cleaning myself, I heard a loud ringing sound and looked to the far wall and saw someone new holding a weird-looking alarm that was making the ringing sound. He stopped the alarm and asked if there where any of us that didn't want to participate in the exam, then they should turn back now. When he received no answer, and no one moved to leave, the wall behind him slid up to reveal a dimly lit tunnel. The man, Satotz, introduced himself and asked that everyone follow him down the tunnel. I jumped from my spot among the pipes and followed the strange man along with the other applicants.
As everyone was following Satotz kept picking up the pace and had every applicant behind him jogging to keep up with him. Satotz explained that he was the examiner for the first phase and that the Hunter Exam had begun. All we had to do was follow him to the second phase to move on to the next exam phase. While I was running I examined Satotz closer to see if he would be a worthy opponent in the future. He was a very tall male, pale white skin, bright blue eyes, short pale lavender hair, and a curly mustache, same color as his hair, that covered his mouth and moved when he spoke. His clothing consists of a normal looking suite and from my quick examination, it didn't look as if he had any weapons on his person. However, just because I couldn't see any doesn't mean he doesn't have any hidden somewhere on him. All in all, he was a strange-looking human.
Once I realized that we had been following Satotz for over an hour I finally understood what the purpose of the first exam phase was supposed to be. An endurance test. Not only that, he didn't tell us how long or how far we would have to run. This was an easy but difficult test all in one. As a hunter, it would be expected that you had high stamina and great mental discipline, otherwise you weren't cut out to be a hunter. This phase was to help weed out the weak applicants that shouldn't be here in the first place. I personally could run all day if I had to, so only an hour in I wasn't even breaking a sweat yet. Everyone else, however, wasn't fairing to good. Besides me, only a few people were not having a difficult time following Satotz.
'This exam just got a bit interesting. I wonder how many will make it to the second phase?'