Dawn filtered through the branches like a golden blade. The torches planted all around the vast suspended platform were going out one by one with a damp crackle, letting the sun take their place. The canopy burst with green and red glow, filtered through the dewy leaves. The air itself vibrated with a humid tension, saturated with sweat and incense.
There were seven of us. Seven thin men, miraculously rescued from a world that no longer needed us. Some were already trembling, their faces lined with hunger and terror, their eyes fixed on the ground as if to avoid seeing what was about to happen. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, their thin shoulders, their bodies stained with scars. They looked like corpses just waiting for their final burial. My throat was dry, but my legs held. I knew. I knew the rule even before it was announced.
Behind us, them.
Dozens of women lined up, their bodies tense, heavy breasts swollen beneath translucent veils. Their breaths panted in unison, forming an animal breath, almost a suppressed roar. Some had drawn spirals of paint on their thighs, others displayed white tattoos etched into their flesh like stigmata. Their eyes shone with fever, their parted lips let out indistinct murmurs. It was like a pack on the verge of a trance, ready to pounce, to devour.
And then Elandra appeared.
The leader ascended the steps of her ivory throne like a priestess ascending the altar. Her imposing stature silenced the crowd with a single shudder. Her enormous, half-bare chest rested on a necklace of teeth and stones. Her clammy stomach glistened with sweat in the morning light. But even more than her body, she saw her eyes: cold, implacable, capable of silencing even the most hysterical of her daughters.
She raised a hand, and her voice boomed, hoarse and slow, hammering out each word like a war drum.
— "This day is sacred."
A shudder ran through the crowd of women. Some were already moaning, rubbing their thighs together.
— "The Goddess demands her offering. You males..." Her gaze fell on us, heavy, contemptuous. "You run. You flee. An hour's head start to save your bones."
To my right, one of the men nearly collapsed, his lips moving a voiceless prayer.
Elandra smiled. A smile that was not human.
"But when my daughters catch up with you... then you'll be theirs. Entirely."
A lascivious murmur erupted behind her. The women shifted, their veils slipping from their hips, revealing sweaty stomachs and heavy breasts already slamming together in an unconscious dance. Some caressed themselves shamelessly, fingers slipping between their thighs, others bit their lips, staring at our emaciated bodies like ready-made prey.
Elandra continued, implacable:
"They can do whatever they want with you. Drain you. Mark you. Exhaust you until your last breath."
Laughter erupted, deep, hysterical. One woman licked the blade of her dagger like a child's tongue on a candy bar. Another tugged at her neighbor's veil, ripping it to reveal her breasts and pinching her nipples under the amused gaze of the entire circle. The murmurs swelled, becoming almost a trance, a sexual clamor.
"But..." Elandra added, her voice cracking like a whip. Silence fell immediately. "No death will be tolerated. The blood belongs to the Goddess, not to you. If you want a man, you will take him alive against your sisters. Fight for him, bite, scratch, twist your thighs around his... but do not kill him. The Goddess wants their seed, not their corpse."
The women burst into feverish laughter, as if drunk on this command. Some began to wrestle with each other, simulating holds, rubbing their hips in a mock fight. Their hair flew, their breasts swayed, their mouths opened in cries of ecstasy that were only a rehearsal for what was to come.
I felt the seal on my chest vibrate. A dry pulse, like an impatient heart. They laughed, they screamed, but deep down I saw something else: the fear of missing out. The fear of being left without prey. Behind their cruelty, there was a hunger. An endless hunger.
Elandra held up a carved wooden chalice. The dark liquid that shone in it was neither wine nor water: it was thick, almost black, the iron-like smell permeated the entire platform. Menstrual blood mixed with wine, symbol of the Hunt.
— "May the Goddess look upon us!"
Her voice swelled, and they all repeated hysterically:
— "May the Goddess look upon us!"
She tipped the chalice over. The liquid splashed to the floor, splashing his bare feet.
— "Let the Hunt Begin!"
A roar of women tore through the canopy, so powerful that the birds took flight in panic. The men beside me trembled, one fell to his knees, and I... I gritted my teeth. This wasn't a celebration. Not a ritual. This was a massacre foretold.
And yet, my heart beat with icy clarity.
I know the rules. I know the game.
I didn't wait. My legs tensed of their own accord, and I leaped out of the circle. The wooden planks vibrated beneath my bare feet, and already the mud from the slope was splashing my calves. My breath burned my throat. I didn't think, I knew. Staying together meant death. In the game, the latecomers were always the first to be slaughtered. The women never pounced on the fastest, but on the one who hesitated. And the hesitation here reeked of fresh blood.
"Hey! Wait!" someone shouted behind me, but his voice broke into a sob.
I didn't turn my head. The sounds of panic erupted immediately behind me. Uncoordinated, heavy footsteps clattering together. The men all started running at once, some slipping, others clinging to roots like nooses. Their short breaths rose in a pitiful chorus, punctuated by cries of pain as one fell, dragging the others down with him.
The forest opened up before me like a maw. Roots clawed at my ankles, branches whipped at my bare skin. Each impact sent a spark of pain through me, but I felt my body growing accustomed to it. Adrenaline was hardening my muscles, and beneath my sternum, the seal was already vibrating, a dry heat beating with every breath.
Never stay in a straight line. Cut the trajectory. Erase the tracks. Like in the game.
I gritted my teeth and turned off, diving into a tangle of vines. Behind me, the sounds of running continued, disordered, almost ridiculous. I could already imagine the women, an hour from now, sniffing at their sweat like bitches in heat, following the moans like a chalked trail. Their thin bodies, their ragged breaths... they weren't runners, but victims.
I slowed down for a second to catch my breath, my back pressed against the bark of an enormous tree. My hands were shaking, but it wasn't from fear. It was from lucidity. I alone understood that the hour wasn't a gift, but a selection. The weak would be marked in their flight; the strong would already spot the traps.
A crack made me turn my head. One of the men, a tall man with empty eyes, was following me. His thin chest heaved in convulsive arcs. He fell to his knees a few steps away from me, his fingers digging into the mud. His lips parted:
"Wait... take me with you... I... I don't want to die..."
His breath reeked of panic. I didn't need to reply. Another man appeared behind him, bumped into his shoulder, and both collapsed in the damp earth, one screaming, the other sobbing. They clung to each other like two drowning men.
I turned away. Their confusion would spell their downfall, not mine.
So I resumed my run, taking in the forest in long strides. My heart pounded, but my mind remained frozen: this world has no place for the hesitant.
I wasn't moving forward haphazardly.
Each step was measured, thought out, inscribed in a logic the others would never have understood. Their panic was already betraying them. They ran in a straight line, panting like animals destined for the slaughterhouse, unaware that here every trace left in the mud was an invitation, a call. The women would only have to follow the trail, smell the sweat, listen to the sound of their sobs.
I zigzagged between the trunks. I deliberately bumped into the low branches to drop shards of leaves in my path, blurring my path. My feet plunged into the icy streams to drown out my scent, my legs sank up to their thighs in the dark water. Each immersion wrenched a spasm from my body, but I felt the seal on my chest vibrate more strongly, as if savoring the effort, as if reminding me that survival exacted this price.
Under a root, I pressed my back against the damp bark and lay motionless, breathless, until my heartbeat calmed. The smell of sap and moss filled my throat, sticky, nauseating. I knew these hiding places weren't foolproof. In the game, this was where most fell: frozen for too long, unable to move when the pack approached. The screen would go dark, a pair of hands would appear, and it would all end with a scream.
A memory came flooding back, brutal. How many times had I watched my avatar get sucked into the bushes, pinned to the ground by laughing figures, torn apart by arms stronger than his own? In the game, it was just a red screen, a simulation. Here, it was my throat, my lungs, my damned body.
I forced myself to start again, to run again. The ground gave way beneath my feet, every root threatened to make me fall, but I had learned. Always move at an angle, never in a straight line. Leave behind me a labyrinth of smells, footprints, and contradictory traces.
The hour passed wasn't announced by a bell or a clear signal, but by a sudden vibration in the air. A breath. As if the forest itself were holding its breath. Then there was the explosion.
A high-pitched, guttural female howl erupted from the canopy. It echoed from tree to tree, tearing through the sky like a wild explosion. The birds scattered, the branches trembled, and in a single movement, the horde took off.
They leaped on all fours, some completely naked, their wild hair beating against their sweaty faces, others clad in necklaces of bone and chains that clinked with every step. Their glistening bodies, veils torn or glued together by the humidity, writhed in an animal rhythm. In their hands were fiber nets, knotted ropes, hunting hooks. It was a pack—not a disciplined army, but a collective drive, made of flesh, panting, and rage.
The ground vibrated beneath their feet. I didn't need to turn around: I felt their clamor pursue me, hot and suffocating, as if each scream was already clawing at the back of my neck.
A muffled rattle to my right forced a glance from me. One of the slower men had just been caught. A figure emerged from the foliage above him—a slender, naked nymph, who crashed onto his back with the brutality of a wild beast. Her scream broke into a moan as her arms were pressed against the mud. She turned him over, and already two other women were descending upon him.
The sight was obscene. Their bodies overlapped, panting masses, thighs wrapped around his hips, heavy breasts bouncing against his chest. He was suffocating, his mouth open, smothered by the moist heat of their bellies, their thighs pressed against his face, their cries of warlike pleasure bursting out like thunderclaps. He struggled, but his movements were lost in the shackles of flesh, his arms engulfed, his legs crushed.
"Mine!" yelled a hoarse voice.
"No, he's mine!" growled another, clawing at her rival's back.
They fought over him, not for his life but for his body, biting their lips, pulling their hair, all the while keeping their thighs pressed against him. Each moan, each gasp resonated like a parody of pleasure and violence combined.
I looked away, panting. It wasn't desire that twisted my insides, but fear. The fear of ending up like him, suffocated under a mass of sweat and screams, reduced to a mere trophy. Yet the seal on my chest throbbed with new violence. Every cry, every convulsion of their bodies seemed to excite it, as if the Goddess were laughing through their throats.
I gritted my teeth, ran faster. My heart pounded in my throat, my muscles burned, but it wasn't fatigue that pursued me. It was their hunger. Their madness.
Behind me, their voices rose again, a hysterical chorus that mingled with the drums, the splashed mud, the muffled moans of the first to be captured. The entire forest had become an arena.
And I knew I wasn't a spectator. I was the next name on their list.
~
Wait.
An entire hour of stamping my feet on that platform, my thighs tense, my fingers clenched.
Waiting, when my whole body was already burning. The others were breathing heavily, caressing themselves while laughing, excited like teenagers at the thought of the Hunt.
I was grinding my teeth. An hour. Slow torture.
My eyes hadn't left the spot where he'd leapt. That man. The one who hadn't hesitated. All the others had remained frozen, trembling, but he... he'd leapt as if he already knew the rules, as if he'd played this game a thousand times. Not a second of doubt. Not a second of apparent fear.
I bit my lip. Even after centuries of participating in these Hunts, I'd never seen anything like it. Not a single man had fled like that. And the worst part... was that just thinking about it made my throat tighten. The image of his cold gaze, of his hands that had knocked me down yesterday, of his voice that had forced me to give up that infamous word — master…
A shiver rose between my thighs. I hated him. But my traitorous body blushed at the mere memory of the burning in his loins, his harsh breathing in my ear. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms until they bled.
—Enough.
I shook my head, furious with myself. No. It wasn't desire. It wasn't fever. It was a wound, a humiliation. My honor was nothing more than a trampled puddle. And I would only find peace by capturing him, by erasing this memory with another—his, screaming at my feet.
The sound of the horn tore through the square.
A collective howl answered it, monstrous, hysterical. The women leaped, some on all fours, others brandishing their nets like war flags. The ground shook beneath their weight. I threw myself after them, my muscles screaming with brutal joy, my lungs filling with the heavy forest air.
The first man was captured almost immediately. Three nymphs jumped on him, crushing him in the mud. Their bare thighs gripped him, their hands fought for his arms, their mouths screamed with laughter and fever. Their sweaty stomachs crushed his, and their heavy breasts leaped against his face as if to suffocate him. Others arrived, clawing, biting, fighting among themselves for him, their cries of pleasure and rage merging.
I slowed down for a second, watching them. Their struggle smelled of sweat, sex, and fear—the usual scent of first captures. But I felt nothing. No excitement. No desire. This man wasn't mine. He could scream, suffocate under the mass of flesh and claws, but I didn't care.
My gaze rose beyond the trees. Over there, far away, in the dark depths of the forest, he was still running. I knew it. I felt it. My whole body vibrated with this certainty.
I let out a hoarse cry and resumed my run, leaving behind the women fighting over their toys. I had one target. Only one.
Yesterday's man.
The one who had dared to break me.
~
It had been hours since the horn had sounded, and my legs still refused to give way. The forest had changed its appearance: the air was heavier, saturated with humidity, my lungs burned with every breath. The silence was never complete: there was always that rustling of leaves, that snapping of twigs, that distant laughter that you couldn't place.
I had stayed ahead, but not by luck. Every move was calculated. When I hit the river, I didn't hesitate. I dove. The icy water tore a silent scream from me, a stab in my chest. My teeth chattered, my throat tightened, but I stayed below the surface as long as possible, drifting slowly to erase my scent. The current carried me about ten meters before I dared to surface. My body trembled like a shivering carcass, but my mind congratulated itself. They will smell the void. Not me.
I crawled out of the water, my skin bristling, my dripping hair plastered to my forehead. The seal on my chest still vibrated, but weakly, as if numb from the cold. A respite. I clung to it.
A hollow trunk appeared on my left, collapsed for years, its interior blackened by insects and damp. Without thinking, I slipped in, crawling across the spongy moss. The sickening smell of rot filled my nostrils, but it was the only shelter. I curled up inside, holding my breath.
They arrived.
Three figures passed a few steps away. Their bodies dripped with sweat, their veils stuck to their thighs. Their laughter rose and fell, hysterical, as if the hunt itself intoxicated them more than the capture. I could almost feel the animal heat of their passage. A drop of sweat, falling from the canopy of vegetation, slid down my neck—I thought it was a hand.
I didn't dare breathe. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid it would echo outside the woods. One of them stopped for a moment, tilted her head, and sniffed the air. Her nostrils flared, her eyes shone with an animal glow. Her thighs rubbed together, impatient. I felt time stand still. Then she giggled, resumed her run south.
I remained frozen for a long time, my lungs burning, until silence fell again. Only then did I crawl out of the trunk, drenched in cold sweat.
The sun filtered through the canopy, red and slanted. I had held on. I walked more slowly, catching my breath, observing every trace, every root. The terrain was becoming familiar, almost docile. My steps were lightening. I began to believe I had gained a length.
A bitter smile crossed my lips. That's the mistake. That's where they get fooled. Thinking they're ahead.
I ran a hand over my chest. The seal was pulsing again, faint but stubborn, as if warning me. False hope is the most perfect trap.
After a few more hours, I thought for a moment that I was out of reach. The forest was calming down, my lungs were breathing more freely, my legs were regaining their flexibility.
I had zigzagged, dived into rivers, covered my tracks like a veteran. Everything inside me screamed that I had gained time, that the others behind me would serve as distractions.
Then the shadow fell.
A sharp crack, the breath of a body slicing through the air, and before I raised my head, she was upon me. Her powerful thighs encircled me, pressing me against the rough bark of a tree. My back crushed against it, the shock tearing a gasp from me. Her arms immediately encircled me, and her face came close to mine.
An elf-nymph. Not one of those hysterical silhouettes who ran in packs. No. An elite. Her slender body vibrated with strength, with feline grace. Her luminescent tattoos pulsed gently on her skin like living runes, outlining her hips, her throat, even her heavy breasts, which were already crushing against my heaving chest.
I wanted to struggle, but her thighs tightened around my waist. The pressure was so great that my ribs protested. Her hot breath caressed my throat, thick with sap and sweat. Her eyes, golden and bright, fixed on mine, left no escape.
She leaned closer, her mouth brushing my ear. Her voice sank deep into my insides, low, raspy, like an intimate bite:
"Found... you're mine."
Her words imprinted themselves on my skin like a mark. Her pelvis slid in a slow, calculated movement, pressing its curves against my body until my nerves snapped. My hand, which I wanted to keep clenched against the bark, was grabbed. She grasped it, with an almost gentle brutality, and guided it towards her.
My fingers sank, despite myself, into the heavy, burning mass of her chest. Her breast overflowed between my palms, swollen, vibrant, and a carnivorous smile twisted her lips. She squeezed my fingers against her, enclosing them in her throbbing heat, as if to remind me that even my resistance became a caress.
I gasped, my chest crushed, my breath trapped between her throat and her moist breasts. Her low laugh slid against my cheek, trembling with desire and victory.
She tightened her thighs around me and repeated in an even lower whisper, almost a moan:
"All mine."
And the darkness of the forest seemed to close in, suffocating, in time with her body against mine.