Chapter 1

First chapter of a book I've been working on. Hoping to finish the book within a couple months.

I am the Hunter. Well, the only one I know of. I’m writing this so that someday, someone out there may be able to tell me who I am. I have no parents, friends, or siblings. In fact, I don’t know anyone on any kind of personal level. As for my age, the best I can guess is around fifteen. My earliest memory was about a year ago when I woke up in a one-room, run-down cottage wearing a beat-up tunic and pants. The cottage was just outside Hartell, the kingdom I live in now. The only thing in the room was the bed I was laying on. Etched in the headboard was what I assumed was my name, Luke. I needed a weapon. I didn’t know why, but I could somehow just... feel... that I would need something to fight with. I went to the market in the courtyard and bought a bow and a handful of arrows with some silver I had found in my pocket.
As I walked past the booths full of people selling “everything you’ve ever wanted” or “things you just certainly must have,” I suddenly became aware of someone around me. Of course, there were people everywhere, but this was different. I felt the presence of one particular person. Jonah Grey; charged with murder; to be captured I thought. I was surprised by this sudden knowledge. I had never heard of anyone named Jonah Grey. At first I paid no attention to finding him. I had no idea what this guy looked like, so I started wandering around instead. As I looked around, I laid eyes on a man walking through the crowd. He didn’t exactly stand out, but I knew it was him. This was the guy I was supposed to capture. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I had to.
When I thought about leaving him alone and trying to find some food, I almost doubled over in pain. You don’t want to do that, I thought, only, it wasn’t my thought. As my mind drifted back to the name, the pain faded. I guessed that this was some sort of mission, so I scanned the crowd for him again. Once I found him, I started in his direction, weaving through the mass of people between us. As I worked my way to him, I grabbed a loose rope off of a booth selling cattle. He wasn’t very far away, and in ten seconds I had closed the distance.
When I was about a foot away, I reached out and grabbed his arm, pinning it behind his back. He jolted in surprise, and the people around us backed up as to avoid getting involved. As he struggled against my iron grip, I pulled his other hand behind him and tied it to its twin with the rope I had picked up along the way. I pushed in on his right knee, forcing him to kneel, and then proceeded to repeat the process on his left knee. with his feet now behind him, and his arms behind his back, he was totally defenseless. While many people watched, no one dared protest. I grabbed a rope that had been dropped in the initial chaos and tied his feet together.Once I was sure he couldn’t escape, I left him on the side of the cobblestone street for someone to find and take to whoever wanted him.
As I walked away, I realized I didn’t feel his presence anymore, and the pain didn’t show up when I thought about food. When I returned to the cottage, I found a sack of gold coins on the doorstep.
But this sort of thing happened again and again. I started to learn and adapt. People started to recognize me, and they tended to keep their distance, fear creating a empty area around me. I bought a cloak that covered my face so I could blend in without everyone avoiding me and drawing unnecessary attention to myself. After a particularly painful fist-fight with some brute, I got myself a dagger to handle anyone that overpowered me. That wasn’t a lot of people since somewhere in my probably-fifteen years someone had taught me to fight. And every successful hunt, I return to my payment of gold.
After a few months I started to get used to the job. I still had no idea who I was working for, but I didn’t really care. I was doing what I was supposed to. At least I knew that. I started to live for the hunts. They were my only source of entertainment. When I wasn’t hunting I was practicing with my weapons.
Over the months, my natural abilities seemed to heighten, perhaps beyond normal human capabilities. It started to seem, however, that I was no mere man, that maybe I was enhanced by some sort of magic, touched by darkness, condemned to apprehend others so that the Royal Guard need not to get their hands dirty. I was a henchman, it seemed. At first, this realization shocked me, and I decided I wasn’t going to do something someone else can do just as easily. But as soon as the first sign of rebellion crept up in my brain, The unbearable pain and anonymous voice put it in its place. Besides, after everything, I was probably better at catching these guys than anyone else in the kingdom. I seemed to develop better agility and better hearing than most. I got pretty good at tracking and uncanny with my bow as well. It comes in handy sometimes, especially when someone decides they would rather run than be tied to a post.
Even after a year I’m still alone, though. I can’t take the risk of trusting someone as they could be working with whoever turned me into the freak I am. I’m still hunting. They happen about once a week now, more often than when I started, but I guess I’m a professional at this point. All of my hunts have been for capture targets. I hardly even listen to the information anymore. I find my target and capture them. It’s all I do. I live in the cottage I woke up in as it was already built and didn’t seem to be occupied by anything but mice and the occasional sparrow. It’s not very big, but it’s cozy. Of course, I’ve filled it up a bit more with things other than a bed, not that I ever get much time to relax.
Today I went into the village and found my usual “nest” where I can overlook the courtyard to check out the new carnival the king was hosting. Every year the king hosts a carnival to celebrate the end of the harvest season. There’s food, games, and people able to doing extraordinary things. It gives me a chance to see others push themselves to the limit for the sake of other’s entertainment. It also gives me something to do other than the hunts and practicing.
After about an hour of watching from a distance, I got bored and deemed it safe to go look up-close. As I walked around, I saw people swallowing swords, juggling knives, and I even saw one guy swallowing fire. I really only stayed to watch to man juggling knives and the man swallowing fire. While I was watching the latter, I felt it. The presence. The craving that accompanies the hunt. After sweeping my gaze over the crowd of people, I finally laid eyes on my target. She was a small woman, wearing a light brown cloak that was much too big for her and a typical peasant’s outfit. She looked like she was about my age, but I couldn’t tell exactly because of her hood. I started towards her. Because of the fair, there more people crowding the courtyard than usual. As a result, I had to wade through the more crowd than I was used to. As I neared, I could see the sack of stolen jewels at her side. She looked around suspiciously, but she didn’t seem to notice me. Now I was right behind her, my shadow merging with hers.
She looked down at the enlarging shadow, and ran. She was fast, but a year of this sort of thing makes a guy pretty fast too. I weaved through people while she pushed them out of the way. I could tell by the sloppy way she was running that she was terrified. Without slowing, I jumped up, using a short bridge-side wall to get me above the crowd and shot an arrow. It stuck into a crack between the stones of the street, pinning her cloak with it. After trying unsuccessfully to free it, she removed the cloak and continued on. I continued the chase. I had to admit, I was getting tired, but the craving and adrenaline kept me going.
After what seemed like miles, she ducked into a stable. I followed, but she had vanished. There were no horses, nor any other kind of animal. In fact, the only thing in the seemingly abandoned stable was a small, deep-red snake, slithering into a mouse-sized hole. I left feeling very confused, but the craving was gone. It was as if she had vanished from existence completely. I went back to my cottage to rest after the long, hard chase.
As I was nearing the inside of the kingdom’s gates, I remembered the cloak she had worn. I stopped, thought for a second, then went back to retrieve it. I didn’t know why exactly, but the idea of having a trophy for this particular chase seemed to put me at peace, or perhaps it made me very, very scared. As I approached the spot where it lay, I saw through the crowd an arrow, like a tower, guarding the piece of clothing against any who might try to take it. And at its base, lay the cloak, a tattered cloth. It seemed dead it comparison to when I first spotted it through the sea of people. But then, perhaps it was. Perhaps it was lifeless, just a piece of cloth without a face to conceal behind its shadow. I picked it up and stared at it. I didn’t move for a while, I just... stood. I thought about the girl, and how she had seemingly vanished from existence. I thought about who would miss her if she did disappear.
Of course, that lead me to my darkest thought, and my greatest fear. Not heights, not spiders, not even being killed on a hunt. This fear ran deeper than anything else I had known. The fact that if I disappeared, or got killed, no one would miss me. No one would mourn for me. No one would even notice I was gone. This was the loneliness that comes with who I am. This feeling has been my only companion through the year I can remember. And maybe someone would mourn for me, or already has been, fearing the worst, but I would never know.
Finally someone came up to me and tapped my shoulder, dragging my out of my thoughts.
“Are you alright, kid?” He asked in a gruff voice. He looked like he had about fifty years behind him. At first I dismissed the question, assuming it was forced upon him out of politeness, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw something I hadn’t seen before. Genuine care. More than I saw in anyone else, at least. Though I may have been imagining it. These days the line between fantasy and reality seem to get a bit blurry.
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” I replied shakily. He huffed, not looking very convinced, but he walked back to his booth seeming satisfied, where I watched him greet a family and offer them a game.
“I’m fine,” I quietly repeated to myself.