Page 12 of Scent Of Obsession
“For the welcomers, here are the rules. Twelve of you have been offered a ribbon, the different colors representing the twelve strikes of midnight. You’ll be the lucky players of tonight. The chosen ones. Please step out, don’t be shy,” the strange man announced with enthusiasm.
The eleven chosen giggled with delirium. They stood proudly near the man acting as host, their eyes beaming at the guests with vainglory. I untied the black satin ribbon on my wrist, trying to fist it inside my palm, having no desire to take part in this circus.
But he saw me. “You. Come here.”
The extroverted man pointed his finger at me, a malicious smile stretching on his face. He took another sip of his flask, leaning backward like a drunken pirate. He winked at me before he dipped into a curtsy and offered me his hand. Reluctantly, I cursed him inside when I let myself get taken next to the rest of the chosen.
“We have our hunted for the night. Now, all we need are our hunters.”
The howling wind whipped through the tree branches of the maze, a frozen breath coming out of the entrance. The squall came over us, delivering its menacing threat.
I glared around me. Who were those people? They whistled impatiently. I couldn’t possibly understand the appeal of this game. I was probably one of the youngest people here. The rare women who could have been my age wore so much makeup and looked so seductive that it was impossible to tell they were barely legal. How could a chase be attractive for grown-ups?
“Excuse me—hunted?” I asked with a sudden confidence that vanished the second those words came through my mouth, giving way to a shrieking panic. Irritation rushed through my veins. I hadn’t signed up to be part of a vicious game.
“Yes, darling.” His eyes flickered with a salacious expression that meantup to no good, a devilish smile on his face. He stepped toward me, waltzing his hands to the tempo of the background music of Parov Stelar like a drunken magician—a poor imitation of Jack Sparrow, if you asked me. “If you survive your hunter by protecting your ribbon until the horn thunders and escaping the maze, you win. But if you don’t succeed either of them… you’ll experience the rest of the night with extreme pleasure or… suffering.”
I swallowed. The crowd cackled with macabre laughter. This was far from the games you played as kids. It was a game of cat and mouse crossed with a twisted version of spin the bottle. Because here, I’d have to stay locked down with a bigger monster and with someone wanting to steal more than a kiss from me.
“Should I add, many players remain stuck inside the maze. It is almost impossible to get out of it, and no one will help you out,” the host continued, his gaze fixed on mine. “You’re on your own. Hunters, take place in front of your matching ribbon.”
In an instant, boyfriends and girlfriends started to kiss heavily, while some duos screamed of a kinky imbalance of power. I stood alone under the stars, waiting for Adonis to appear—after all, he was my date and the only person I trusted here.
I entangled my fingers together, a bad feeling invading me. I felt the heavy, judging gazes of the guests on me and their whispers sending me venom. They wanted to play, and I was slowing them down. I screamed silently, a countless number of times, calling out for Adonis.
But he never came.
I wanted to leave. I could have left. I didn’t. Instead, I let the adrenaline, the apprehension of what came next, consume my cells.
The crowd parted unexpectedly, as the water did in front of their prophet. My throat dried, and I ran out of air, experiencing this moment in slow motion. All I could see was the shadow of a man ambling like an elegant panther in my direction. The smoke was hiding his face, but each of his steps was determined, leaving an imprint on the grass.
He had the scariest confidence, a magnetism that was unlike any other. But what gave him away was that musky, dangerous scent that magnified his darkness. He wore it like a smokey wood wedged into the depths of hell. A burning coal that froze your veins if you got closer. A fatal breath he’d take from you at nightfall inside a forest of scars.
Radcliff, the Devil, was my hunter.
Ikept my head down, praying that my lips wouldn’t shake.
Everything became a tormenting silence as if Radcliff had sucked the life out of the garden, stealing all the oxygen.
His somber aura melted mine to the point each of my fibers wanted to take root underneath the earth. He stopped near me, and the hair on my skin raised alert, reacting to him like a magnet. He hid the moonlight by his imposing size, his shadow sinking me into the obscurity.
This had to be a nightmare. At any moment, I would wake up. This theory crumbled to ashes when I pinched myself, and a shout of pain pierced me. It was a nightmare. A real one. The kind I wouldn’t wake up from.
I exhaled, the mist from my mouth vaporizing into the wintry air, dancing toward the road of freedom. Carefully and slowly, I looked heavenward to Radcliff. The smoke was long gone, and our gazes were firmly set on each other. His eyes held magic and mystery, reminding me of a gothic flower. A purple calla lily.
“Oh, sweet virgin is gonna be eaten by the big bad wolf,” the woman next to me whispered to her hunter, interrupting my thoughts.
I turned to face her, and through her black lace mask, she raised an eyebrow at me before chortling. I interpreted this gesture as a way to let me know it was her intention that I listened. Her emerald eyes gleamed with… jealousy? Her hair, dark and curly, reminded me of the snakes of Medusa. She eyed my hunter with an interrogative look, but I could still feel Radcliff’s cold stare on me.
“Thirty minutes in hell or in heaven. At the horn, hunted… run. May you escape your fate!” The eccentric speaker blew into the horn, making it thunder for the other eleven hunted to race, bolt, and gallop in the direction of the maze.
But the Devil and I remained like stones at the witching hour.
The hunters started their chase, but the guests’ elation was contained, waiting eagerly for Radcliff to make his move, to deliver them the spectacle they had been craving.
“If I were you, I’d run,” Radcliff dropped from his mouth, hard and thin, with no vestige of sympathy.
There was no escape. The wind whistled a dark melody at the entrance to the maze, as if the ghosts had taken over the party. Sometimes, distant shrieks resurfaced. My heart pounded; I was surrounded on each side. I opted for the lesser evil and gathered my courage in a shaky exhale.
