Page 45 of Primal

Get up. Now.

A distant crack splits the sky. For one blinding second, the forest flares white—

The hunter’s shadow stretches toward me, knife glinting.

Then darkness swallows us again.

Thunder. Closer this time.

I skid around a massive oak—

And freeze.

A clearing. Empty. Too empty.

Shit. Where the hell is he?

Another flash.

The hunter. Standing a few feet away.

Something dangles from his fist. Not the knife.

Dog tag.

He twirls the chain lazily, the tag striking his blade with each turn.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The sound drills into my skull. My hand flies to my own player tag digging into my collarbone.

Lightning forks again. The mask leers. The knife drips. The number 19—smeared in blood.

I’m running again before I even know it.

Fuckfuckfuck.

Not real. Not real.

But the tag.

The blood.

Her eyes.

That wheezing as she breathed her last—

Keep going. Just keep going.

The cameras.

I stagger forward, waving at the nearest black dome mounted on a pine.

“Help!”

They can see and hear me. Right?

They have to.