Page 4 of The Hunt: Emerald

Focus… do not give them fanfare…

The Administrator lifts her staff and her voice rings out on all four livestreams.

“Alphas! Take your Oath!”

Deafening roars answer her as thousands of Alphas shout in savage unison.

“I am Alpha. I enter this Hunt for blood, for dominance, for the right of the strong. I shall kill as I will. I shall take what is mine. No law binds me, but the law of the Hunt. I shall not flee the grounds. I shall not cry mercy. Let the weak fall! Let the strong feast! And the wild decide!”

The sound shakes the very stones beneath us. The crowd surges to its feet again, wild with cheers. I grit my teeth harder, jaw aching. This is fucking madness. A spectacle of slaughter. This isn’t a contest.It’s a fucking culling!

Then the Administrator turns to us, her smile thin and sinister…

“Omegas,” she grins. “Speak your rules.”

The guards prod us. Together, the forty of us recite the words we were forced to learn in dull unison, almost as if ghosts fill the arena instead of people.

“We enter by choice or chain. We are prey. We may run, fight, or die. If claimed, we are no longer our own. If we cross the boundary, we die. If we reach the checkpoint alive on the seventh day, we may earn freedom. There is no mercy. No savior. This is the Hunt.”

The crowd cheers again, as if we’ve promised them a fine hunt.

Fucking monsters.

Without ceremony, the guards begin herd us off the stage down the narrow steps and one by one we are handed tiny yellow and blue pills with a GG carved on them… and one by one before we are shoved into a single iron and wood box on wheels, they force us to place them on our tongues as the crowd watches them dissolve.Pheromone inducers…

I’d heard about these pills… apparently King Greed and King Gluttony love being bathed in phenomes and had harems thatalmostrivaled King Lust’s, but they were short a few hundred people. They created these pills to keep the pheromones going nonstop and they even get stronger over a seven-day period…I just thank the Source it’s not King Lust’s pill… it drives one mad for sex…

When it’s my turn, I do as I’m told, and I’m shoved in as well, where I see there are no seats. No comfort. Just a cage on wheels.Forty of us. In onebox.Packed like sheep to slaughter.

As I, the last one, step inside, I don’t even have time to see the inside before the door slams shut behind me with a deafening clang, cutting off the cheering crowd outside like a snuffed flame.

Inside, we are silent, but I feel around and find a corner, where I lean my head back against it, heart now hammering.

Don’t panic Emerald…I practiced a bit before joining… I have strength! I am not a victim… you will win…

I will win!

Chapter 1

The Start

EMERALD

The carriage rattles beneath me on the uneven ground. Every jolt shakes through my bones and muscles, jolting me awake.Shit… how could I sleep at a time like this?

But hell, it’s better to do it now since I doubt I’ll get a lick of fucking sleep later. I rest my head on the chipped walls, listening to the groaning and creaking of the wood and iron, loud in the otherwise suffocating silence.

No windows. No light. Just a square box with magic pulsing faintly beneath the floorboards, humming cold and unnatural like a warning that states our fates are sealed… but I think this is an unnecessary ass warning, heavy on the overkill. I mean, if being herded like sheep into a cold dank box isn’t warning enough, then shit…I don’t know what is…

I don’t know about the others, but just seeing those big ass, carnivorous midnight horses with sharp, shark-like teeth that draw this box was enough to keep my ass quiet.

Not to mention , there are death reapers that guide them to make sure none of the Omegas try to run away.Shit… fuck… damn, I must be out of my fucking mind… for agreeing to do this Hunt!

But I know I’m not. I’m completely fucking sane, and I’m tired. Although there are no seats, only thin, worn cushions scattered across the wooden floor like an afterthought, I sit my ass cross-legged on the hard planks, waiting just like the other Omegas that occupy the small space.

Nobody says anything to one another… what’s the point? This ain’t no kumbaya moment to be bonding with bitches when the next minute they, or hell,Imight be dead. So we all just sit quiet and stoic in the respective corners we’d taken up, heads bowed, jaws clenched. The air reeks of fear, determination, worry, and more than anything… pheromones.

We were rushed down into the box and forced to take pheromone inducers. All of us seem to have very thick and cloying scents that counteract each other. I can’t speak for the others, but the shit is giving me a headache. However, I’m not going to complain when we all have no control over it.

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