Page 70 of Make Me Hunt
“What do you think?” The same annoyed voice bites back. “We’re all in this for survival. But maybe I should make it easier and start killing your asses right now.”
“I’ll make you swallow your words along with your tongue,” another male voice growls, and it quickly devolves into a blind fight where everyone is randomly kicking and screaming, until one of the guards starts yelling for everyone to calm down or get shot.
Strangely enough, we continue to drive for another half-hour, and I can’t figure out why it takes so long to reach the opera.
Butfinally, I can hear a van door slide open, and someone hauls me to my feet.
We’re all lined up—I can tell from the guards' commands. And I can’t help but notice a familiar scent—like mold, vomit, and rancid cheese, all mixed together.
I know that smell.
But before I can piece my thoughts together, someone yanks the hood off my head. And I realize we’re not at the opera.
The place is something out of my nightmares. Something born out of my greatest fears.
Elmbrook Sanatorium.
twenty-six
-Brynn-
My blood freezes. My eyes, blinking rapidly like I’m trying to process what I’m seeing.
This can’t be fucking real.
Everything is too familiar here, too terrifying, like it’s not even happening to me.
But one thing I know for sure—we’re all here because ofme.A last twisted opportunity for fate to make fun of me. Ares has chosen this place to save me from my monsters. And I chose it to kill the only monster who could save me from my past.
I try to process what’s going on, but my emotions are battling to break free while I’m doing my best to keep them at bay. I can’t afford a meltdown—not now. Not when I’m finally in the game.
The guards line us up and take us inside to the day room. I recognize it from my past. As I look around me, I realize not much has changed.
There’s a nervous twitch in my fingers, and I don’t know how I find the strength I need to stop shaking. The white plastered walls haven’t been painted since I was here. The tiles are worn down from years of metal chairs scraping across them. The smell of medicine and sanitizer is still thick in the air. For the first time, I’m beginning to think I can’t do this. It’s all too close. Too personal. Like a dark claw from my past, reaching up to grab me and drag me under until I suffocate.
I’m living my worst nightmare, and at this point, no one except me can help me wake up from it. And I can’t give up. Not now. So, I’ll do my best and man up.
My head turns so I can scan the room and size up the competition.
There are fifty of us, evenly split between men and women, different nationalities, all shapes and sizes. A couple of the men are probably easily pushing six-five.
They’ll just fall harder.
I tell myself, trying to man up.
I take a deep breath, still assessing my opponents, when static crackles from the three TVs, normally used to keep patients distracted.
Welcome to a special edition of KHARON—the ultimate game of survival.
As you know from the instructions you’ve been given, this is an extreme competition where the last one standing walks away with fifty million.
The voice cuts off as a low buzz vibrates through the room. Everyone seems so ecstatic with the sum that they seem to have forgotten the part mentioningthelast one standing. I know fifty million is a lot of money, but no amount is worth getting killed over.
By agreeing to take the pill, you signed away your right to opt out.
From this moment on, backing out is no longer an option. Anyone who tries to abandon the game before it ends will be executed.
The goal of the game is simple: be the last ONE standing.
