Part 1: Hunter and Hunted
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The sun rose over the ancient forest, its warm, dappled light revealing a small herd of deer gathered in a clearing. Quietly they grazed in the midst of the towering trees of their subtropical home.
Quiet they were, but not off guard. Their ears were ever raised, alert for the slightest abnormal sound, their eyes scanning, and their nostrils twitching.
Yet even they did not detect the predator approaching downwind from beyond the tree-line, her stealthy steps avoiding every twig and dry leaf. She crept ever forward, crouched low, making barely a sound.
She could only get so close though, once she got to the clearing she would be out of adequate cover. It would come down to a chase. With that in mind, she leaped into a sprint.
The deer took notice at once, stampeding away from the flash of green that sped into the clearing. As the herd ran, in the confusion and panic, a buck found himself separated and thus singled out by the predator. The chase began.
The buck ran with all he had, his excellent peripheral vision keeping tabs on the predator as it pursued him, matching his every movement, ever turn and leap, and gaining, only to vanish as it leaped into the canopy above. The buck panicked further and skidded to change direction.
Then, suddenly, the streak of green landed beside him, and the buck knew no more. In a near instant his neck had been sliced cleanly through, his body crashing to the forest floor, blood flowing freely from the neck and severed head that had moments before been a single live animal.
The creature who inflicted the fatal blow, its form clearly humanoid and feminine, stood up from where she had landed in a crouch and turned to her slain prey. Its meat would provide her with food to last her a good week at least. She extended the blades attached to her hands, and prepared to carve up the carcass. A successful hunt gave her a sense of purpose and fulfillment, although not quite the same as the emotions others experienced.
Food meant survival, and obtaining food meant this was as good a day as any she had experienced before. Day in and day out, survival was what mattered most, and yet she knew there was more to life that she had yet to experience or comprehend. The proof was in the longing she at times felt inside, an ache of an emptiness that called to her to be filled. It was an ache that she could not truly comprehend as she was, but one she had been assured since childhood would one day turn into something wonderful.
Emotions, both pleasurable and painful, and once she had them she would not know how she did without them. Yet until then, she could only follow her instincts.
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Run.
Run and don't stop.
Run or you will be caught.
Those thoughts had been his constant companion for days now. Running, getting as far away from his former home as he could, was all he had. It was his only chance, even if it meant going into the unknown depths of the forest.
All things considered he had done surprisingly well so far. Stopping only long enough to eat and sleep, he had managed to escape oppressors and avoid the many monsters that inhabited the vast woods he had entered.
But it could not last. He was out of food, starving and utterly exhausted. He only just managed to stumble to the edge of a river, collapsing there. Throwing his face in the water he refreshed himself with what little energy he had left, then rolled over and lay upon the shore. His empty stomach cried out for sustenance he had no strength to provide.
A tree full of fruit on the other side of the river seemed to mock him, but he would never be able to swim there in his current state, even after resting. All he could do was close his eyes, reflect on the events that led to this and, hope for a miracle.
He sighed to himself. "You should have expected this Carter..."
Carter. No last name. He'd never been given one, and the name he had was simply a mock title for his job, carting goods, illegal and otherwise, from one place to another.
That life of servitude was all he'd ever known. He'd been born into it, his mother (he'd never even been told her name) a prostitute working in a brothel run by the city's organized crime boss, an imposing and charismatic man named Jiro Alva. Or at least that was what he had been told, he truly didn't remember his mother. Addicted to drugs Jiro provided her, she spent all her time working in the brothel to pay him back. Carter had barely been weaned when she died of an overdose, having never even bothered to name him. According to Jiro he was only even kept alive to pay for his mother's debt, a debt that seemed to never go down.
In a situation like this most children would have grown up with stunted personalities, ignorant of how their lives were supposed to be. Yet Jiro had made a critical error in Carter, as he did not keep him ignorant. In order for him to tell packages apart and deliver them to the right places he had been taught to read, and this had opened up the world to Carter.
For Jiro could not keep him under his eye at all times, nor did he try to. Carter was utterly dependant on him after all for food and shelter. Thus in his time off Carter was able to exercise his childhood curiosity by spending time in the city's library. Very quiet by nature, the brown haired, brown-eyed child was rarely noticed, and the library, despite being in a city run by a crime lord, was in fact one of the best around thanks to wealthy donors in its earlier history.
In this way Carter learned about the world, and the injustices of his own situation. It was not an easy or quick thing, indeed a whole book could be written about the trials he had growing up without proper guidance, love or role models. Well not completely without, some of the people in Jiro's employ were decent enough and victims of circumstance like him, but they could only contribute so much to raising him. Regardless, somehow Carter reached his teens wise for his age and not utterly mentally damaged. He'd even avoided getting hooked on Jiro's drugs. Carter figured it was the one way his life had not been completely unlucky.
By his late teens Carter had realized his mother's debt was nothing but an excuse to keep him under Jiro's thumb, and that he would be the crime boss's errand boy for life if he didn't do something. Yet going to the authorities was not an option, he didn't know which ones were on Jiro's payroll or simply too afraid to stand up to him.
Running away to a better life seemed like the only answer. It certainly seemed to be something characters in many books he read did when faced with problems. Yet it was not so simple. Jiro had a notorious reputation, regarding all those he employed as his possessions. Loyalty, at least to those who weren't his slaves, was rewarded with power and wealth, but disloyalty resulted in humiliation, torture, or death. No one was exempt, from the highest to the lowest in rank. To simply leave his employ was met with dogged search parties by experienced mercenaries who seemed to never fail to eventually find their target and drag them back for punishment. It was said no one had ever left his employ without permission and gone uncaptured.
The open secret behind this were phylacteries, amulets containing a small amount of blood. Supposedly there was one for everyone in Jiro's employ, having one's blood taken and sealed in an amulet being part of the initiation. Yet Jiro was the only one who knew where the amulets were stored. Each amulet was enchanted so that the spirit energy in the blood would not dissipate, and due to the nature of magic, the energy would react and resonate when anywhere near the soul the energy had been taken from. Anyone at all sensitive to magic could sense this reaction and use it to track down their target. Jiro himself was said to have a bit of sensitivity to magic, but he mainly employed specialized mercenaries for the job of tracking.
He had once read that the technique had been invented by wizards studying the senses of monster girls. It was said that once she had fed on a man's energy a monster could track him to anywhere in the world. The phylacteries were not quite so infallible, having a range of ten miles or so, but they still amounted to a very successful tracking device.
With all this in mind, escape seemed hopeless, until changes in the world around him revealed a potential opportunity. There had always been monsters in the great forests beyond the city, but in recent years their numbers had been increasing. Perhaps it was due to populations in other areas being displaced by war, or perhaps it was preparation for an eventual invasion of the city. Perhaps it was simply the monsters breeding.
Regardless the result was that people rarely ventured into the forest anymore, and a number of those who did never returned. Their fate depended on who you asked and perhaps the monster involved. Killed, eaten, kept as a breeding slave or, in the case of women, perhaps even transformed into one of the monster's own kind, it was enough to make most fear the forest. Carter observed that even Jiro and his men were hesitant when it came to crossing monsters. They were powerful, and did not care at all about the authority of the crime boss.
Thus Carter's plan was formed, one that was reckless at best. Flee to the forest, and try to cross through it, hopefully finding a city on the other side where he could build a real life, far enough away to avoid being detected by Jiro's tracking magic. Then hope that Jiro would either regard him as not worthwhile to pursue or decide he was doomed to die in the forest.
This plan also hinged on not getting caught by monsters. He knew as a lone male he was a prime target, yet he also knew it would be easier to escape notice alone than in a group. Further, muscles toned running around the city delivering packages his whole life meant Carter's lanky body had excellent endurance. He could run for miles without rest, and the faster he passed through any given area the less chance he would have of being noticed.
