Mine To Hunt (Behind the Mask #1)

Chapter 1

Him

This is the moment I feel most awake. As I stand in the dim light, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and sweat, it's not the room that holds me.

It's him. Slumped against the chair, his chest heaving in shallow, desperate bursts.

His eyes, wide and glassy, lock onto mine, and in them, I see it again.

That flicker, that raw, electric terror that courses through him like a current he can't shut off.

I don't speak. Words would dilute this, make it ordinary.

Instead, I watch, I feel, and I remember how we got here, because every step to this moment is etched into me, a map of the only sensations I've ever truly owned.

I remember the moment I first saw him, in the fluorescent-lit aisles of the supermarket. I was there for the cooking basics. Nothing special, just restocking after a long stretch of takeout and neglect. He was behind the register, scanning items for a line of impatient shoppers.

His name tag caught my eye first. Ethan.

Simple, unremarkable. But it was his face that stuck.

Slumped shoulders, eyes darting like he was counting the seconds until his shift ended.

He moved through the motions of beep, bag, thank you, with the mechanical drag of someone who'd long ago stopped caring.

Fed up, that's what it was. Not just with the job, but with everything. The way his fingers fumbled the change, the sigh he let out when a coupon didn't scan right. He looked like life had worn him down to a dull edge, ready to snap but too tired to even try.

I didn't decide right then. Decisions like that don't come in a flash for me.

I paid for my things and left. But I came back the next day, pretending to browse the produce section.

Watch him from the end of aisle seven, how he rubbed his temples during a lull, staring at the conveyor belt like it held all his regrets.

That night, I followed him home. It was easy. He lived in a rundown flat complex on the edge of town, the kind with peeling paint and cars on blocks in the lot. I parked a block away, waited until he shuffled up the stairs, keys jingling like loose chains.

From there, it unfolded. I learned his routine effortlessly.

He worked six days a week at that same store, clocking in at seven a.m., out at three p.m. Grabbed fast food on the way home, ate in front of the TV watching reruns of old sitcoms, from what I could tell through the thin curtains.

No friends stopping by, no calls lighting up his phone that I could see.

Weekends, he slept late, then wandered to a corner bar for a couple of beers, nursing them until closing. Alone. Always alone.

He had no kids, no family nearby. He posted sporadically on social media, complaints about the weather, memes about hating Mondays, but nothing that screamed for attention.

Just echoes of a man drifting. Weak. That's what drew me in, I suppose. Not the details, but the essence. He carried it like a weight he couldn't shake, this quiet surrender. It made him visible in a way the others weren't. I could see the cracks before he even knew I was looking.

I can still remember the first time I realized something was… wrong with me. I was four, maybe. Old enough to understand that people were supposed to feel things.

A boy in my preschool fell off the swing and started crying. The teacher rushed over, the other children looked scared, some even began to cry with him. I remember standing there, watching their faces twist and tremble, trying to understand why.

I copied them, of course. I frowned the way they did. Tilted my head. Even patted the boy’s shoulder because that seemed like the correct response. But inside, there was nothing. No worries. No sadness. Just quiet observation.

As I grew older, I kept noticing the difference.

Happiness looked easy for others. Laughter spilling out of them in parks and classrooms. I learned to smile the same way, wide and convincing, but it felt like speaking a language I had memorized without ever understanding.

Nervousness never touched me. While others twisted their hands before exams or dates, my mind stayed smooth and undisturbed.

Sadness was another performance. At funerals, I watched people crumble beneath grief and wondered at the mechanics of tears.

And fear… fear was the strangest absence of all. I’ve stood at the edge of cliffs in violent storms, walked through dark alleys where most people would hesitate. Others would feel their hearts race. I only noticed the wind, the height, the mathematics of the ground waiting below.

I tried to understand it, spending hours with books in quiet libraries that smelled of dust and forgotten ambitions.

I memorized what I could. The amygdala, the part of the brain that senses danger, lights up when a threat appears.

It sends signals that push the body into survival mode.

Cortisol rises, the heart starts beating faster, and the pupils widen.

I mimicked it all. The wide eyes, the shallow breaths, because adaptation is survival, and fitting in kept the questions at bay. Why do they tremble in the shadows? Why does joy wrinkle their skin like paper in flame?

I watched couples embrace, their bodies fitting together like something natural and instinctive. People say it’s love, but I know there’s chemistry behind it. Little signals in the brain, quiet surges that make a touch feel warm, addictive, safe.

I understand the process. Hormones, neural sparks, the body rewarding closeness with a soft rush of pleasure. But whatever switch awakens that in others… never seemed to turn on in me.

That changed with the first one. I don't dwell on the how or why of that night. It was an impulse wrapped in curiosity, a test I didn't plan. But when I saw the fear bloom in his eyes, raw and unfiltered, something shifted. It wasn't pity or regret. No, it was a rush, sharp and electric.

My pulse quickened, not from effort, but from this flood inside. Adrenaline spiking, dopamine lighting up the voids I'd never known were there. His terror fed it, straight to my veins. Wide eyes, pleas twisting his voice, the way his body jerked against restraints. For the first time, I felt alive.

Not in the warm, fuzzy way they talk about in books. More like a machine humming to life, circuits firing without warning. I chased that feeling after. Tried everything.

Skydiving once. The drop was thrilling in body, but empty in soul. Arguments with strangers, pushing until they yelled. Anger thrown my way, but it bounced off. Even pain, self-inflicted cuts in the mirror, watching blood well up. Nothing matched it.

That pure, distilled fear in another person's gaze? It hooked me. One turned to two without me noticing the blur. Two to three, days bleeding into nights. Patterns form in the quiet moments, don't they? Weakness calls to weakness.

Now, here with this man, it builds again, inevitable. He's bound loosely on the floor, enough to restrain in his own home, not to bruise prematurely, his wrists raw from testing the ropes. But his face? That's the canvas. Weakness incarnate, mentally frail as wet paper.

He doesn't scream. Yet. That's for later.

Instead, he whimpers, a low keen from the back of his throat.

"Please... don't..." His voice cracks, words tumbling like stones down a well, but they slide off me.

I see the plea in his eyes, though the fear ignites rational thought, drowning in a primal flood.

I start slow, because haste dulls the edge. My knife traces his forearm, not cutting yet, just pressure enough to dimple skin. He flinches, a full-body shudder, and there it surges, adrenaline. Dopamine follows. It's euphoria. Pure, endogenous pain I don't feel, only pleasure.

The first cut is shallow, right along the soft inside of his arm, where the vein runs close to the skin.

A thin red line opens up, spreading like spilled paint across pale flesh.

He sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes squeezing tight for a second before popping wide, staring at the bright trail of blood trickling down. "No, no. Why? Tell me why!"

I ignore his plea and feel it bounce back into me, that terror wrapping around my own thoughts like smoke, turning everything sharp and alive. The blood pools slowly at first, thick and dark from all the iron inside it, his body already starting to weaken as it leaks out drop by drop.

I push the knife in harder, twisting it to rip through the tougher skin and the squishy layer of fat underneath.

It gives way with a soft tear, yellow bits jiggling like jelly in the wound.

His whole arm spasms, yanking against the ropes that bite into his wrists, and I know the pain is exploding through him.

Quick stabs at first, then a deep, grinding ache that won't let go.

He starts begging for real now, his voice breaking into pieces. "I'll do anything, just let me go..." But his eyes give him away, shining with pure, glassy horror that pulls me in deeper. Sweat pours off him, his skin going clammy and gray as his body fights to hold on.

I slide the blade down to his thigh, that big vein there calling to me like a promise, but I take my time. I drag light cuts across the meat of his leg first, carving shallow paths over the thick muscles that bunch and quiver under the steel.

Blood rushes out in warm sheets, sticky and hot, running down his skin in rivers that soak his pants. It tries to clot, small clumps forming where it pools, but the flow is too much, too fast. His body can't keep up, the red mess just keeps coming.

The rush hits me stronger, a wild heat flooding my veins, better than any drug I've ever chased.

No crash after, no numb fade. Just this clean, sharp high from his panic feeding straight into me.

Each slice pulls a fresh wave, his screams twisting the air until it feels thick enough to chew.

"It hurts! Fuck, it hurts. Stop, please, I'll do anything! "

I go deeper now, straight into his belly, where the skin stretches tight over softer things inside. The knife bites through easily, peeling back layers like ripping open a bag. Skin splitting wide, then the tough bands of muscle underneath, tearing apart in wet strips, red and raw.

He bucks up off the floor, his back arching like a bowstring, a deep groan clawing out of his throat.

"No more. Please, it hurts..." His guts tumble out in a slippery pile, long ropes of them coiled and gleaming, covered in a thin shine of their own juices.

They twitch and squirm for a bit, trying to push back in, but everything slows as the cold shock sets into his bones.

His heart stutters, slowing unevenly, but those eyes are locked on me. It's like staring into an open grave. No more kicking or twisting, just that final, broken giving in, his whole face crumpling around the terror.

The thrill roars through me now, unstoppable, making my skin buzz and my muscles lock tight with power. I feel like nothing can touch me, every part of me alive and roaring, blood singing in my ears.

He starts to fade, his breath coming in rough, wet gasps, his arms and legs going heavy and limp like they're filled with mud.

One last slice. Straight across his throat, deep enough to open the big vein there wide.

Blood sprays out in a hot arc, hitting my chest warm and coppery, then gushing steadily as the pressure behind it bursts free.

It floods the floor in seconds, his neck a ragged hole pulsing empty. His eyes roll slowly, the light in them flickering out, that wild fear draining away to nothing but a dull stare. His body jerks once, twice, then goes still, the last rattle of breath slipping out quiet.

The wave crashes over me, not in the mess or the red, but in the sudden drop after.

The air went thick and silent, wrapping me up tight.

Everything inside settles, smooth and full, like a thirst quenched after years of dryness.

No empty hole gnawing at me anymore. In this one held breath, this frozen beat, I'm complete.

The whole damn world squeezed down to the hush of his gone. It's calm, deep as the ocean bottom, soaking into my bones and holding on, the one real thing that's ever stuck. I lean back, my own breathing even and slow, and I let it stay, pulling me under gently.

I clean the knife on his shirt, methodically, then move to his arm. The bicep, left side. My mark. A light cut, blunt and shallow, just enough to etch without spilling more. No blood wells, it's a whisper on skin, a signature for the record.

I step back, survey the scene. Peace settles, not the empty quiet of before, but something fuller. The void is filled, if only for now, with the echo of his fear still thrumming in my veins. I feel... complete. For the first time, truly.

But it won't last. I know that already. The flatness waits, patient as ever. So I'll find the next one. Another shadow in the aisles, another plea in the dark. The cycle turns, and I turn with it. Alive, at last.