The Hunted

There are six of us. All beautiful. All being hunted.

We run into the forest. The path is steep. Pale brown leaves cover the forest floor. Bare trees offer little coverage.

They started hunting us like animals. It was not not shortly after the carnival. The vanilla scent of cotton candy lingered in my hair. We were driving back in my old sedan, singing, being girls, tired from dancing all night. I just wanted to fit in with the cool, effortlessly beautiful ones. We stopped at the road and they got out of the car. The way our music stopped when I turned off the car. And the sound of life stopping. I could hear myself breathe. We just knew then. If you were there you’d understand. We didn’t have time to ask why. 

We called them simply ‘the company.’ They seemed to have endless resources, agents dressed in black hunting us relentlessly. Ruthlessly, without emotion, without stakes. They track our every move like the twitching head of an owl locked in its prey. 

The others have protection. Some know how to fight. Some have rich parents. Some have loyal friends who would die for them.

Except me.

I’m alone. I’m sure I’m going to die.

I’m wearing a long, wide yellow dress. I’m painfully plain, bare, my face, my hair, everything. The thin straps of the dress barely stay up on my plump shoulders.

I see it everywhere—visions of my own death.

I see myself caught in more than one way. Every way I can imagine this playing out, I will get caught. 

My friend finds me. She covers for me, teaches me how to shoot. You need a second person to cover you, she says. If you’re the target, they never see the second angle.

There are rules to survival:

Never stop shooting.

Even if they’re firing at you, never stop.

They expect to get hit once or twice, but they expect you to flinch. Don’t.

I listen. I learn. There’s only one thought in my entire body: I can not die.

⸻

My car is still at the bottom of the quarry, and I need to get it back. There’s no other way out of this town.

But I’m surrounded. The company has summoned me to a restaurant. I must comply. “Don’t flinch” I repeat her advice to myself while walking to my death. They’ve offered a final meal before execution. They’ve sent a waitress to keep me company—cheerful, sweet, naive. Useless.

The table in front of me is neatly arranged, a perfectly organized display of Korean food. Everything is cold. Stainless steel chopsticks rest on the edge of a lacquered tray, next to small porcelain dishes—each containing something precise, measured, indifferent. A dish of kimchi. A stack of pale, translucent radish slices. A bowl of rice, sculpted into a perfect mound. Cold beef. Cold noodles. Cold banchan.

A meal for someone about to die.

I pick up the chopsticks and force myself to eat, though my stomach is twisted. I could be eating plastic.

The waitress sits across from me, watching, swinging her legs slightly. She’s young, maybe 20, annoyingly cheerful, painfully unaware of the moral implications of her task. She’s never done this before. It’s probably her first job. She’s been brainwashed well. Her round face unremarkable in every way, and she just will not shut up.

She knows the agents will take me. She knows I’m some kind of prisoner.

But she does nothing.

She takes out her phone to show me pictures of her boyfriend, that’s all she wants to talk about, boys. She mistakes my silence for caring.

Some women approach, pretending to teach me kung fu. It’s pointless. I chew and swallow mechanically, nodding as if I’m listening, though I hear nothing.

The waitress asks if I have a boyfriend.

I say yes.

She asks if I want to send him a telegraph.

I say yes.

I call my high school boyfriend—unreliable, careless, but the only one I can think of. Come get me.

I can’t, he says. I’m working. But I love you.

The waitress sighs. That’s so sweet. That’s a good reason.

I nod. Of course.

Outside, the agent cars pull up. It’s time.

In my bag: a black jacket, black aviator sunglasses. Without makeup, in a plain dress, I look young, unremarkable. But once I put them on, I am someone else.

I look sleek, like a well-seasoned agent—black suit jacket, hair pinned up in a neat chignon, black-rimmed aviators contrasting against my pale white skin.

I transform my demeanour. I sit up straight. I turn to the waitress, my voice lower, sharper, unrecognizable. “You’re Britney.”

She stares at me, dumbfounded. She’s trying to figure out if I’m even the same person. But then, slowly, she starts calculating—starts realizing.

She’s catching on. She understands what accusation I’m making, what I’ve just put in motion. And worst of all—she understands what she’s gotten herself into.

Only she knows what the target looks like. Only she knows my real name. It’s a blind spot in the system designed to maximize confidentiality.

She stammers, struggling to defend herself, struggling to process too much at once. “I’m not Bethany…” she corrects me.

Too late, that was exactly what I needed her to say. The agents are within earshot. They’ve heard the exchange. I needed the agents to believe she’s Bethany because she was the only person here that was able to correct me. Not even me.

I don’t hesitate. I tilt my head slightly, adjusting my tone, as if correcting an honest mistake, feigning ignorance. “Yes, of course. You’re Bethany.”

“No, no! I’m not Bethany!” Panic flares in her voice. She waves her hands, frantic.

Outside, the agents lock eyes on the situation. The waitress looks at me, then at them, her gaze darting back and forth in horror.

She pleads, her voice breaking. “No, no, there’s been a misunderstanding. I work here! I’m not Bethany!”

I raise my hand smoothly, signaling to the agents. I’ve got this under control.

They hesitate. Then they back off.

They’re wearing the same uniform as me, but my shirt has the black collar—the mark of seniority over their grey. That’s all they need to see.

They nod in approval and step away.

I reach into my bag. The cold weight of the gun fits perfectly in my grip. It’s empty, but no one knows that but me.

I press the barrel firmly into the waitress’s back.

Her face is wet with tears, but she raises her hands in the air in compliance.

The agents are watching. They won’t stop until Beth is dead.

I need to kill her.

⸻

The old Beth would never do this.

But I am not the old Beth.

I lead her away. A thick plastic bag. A wrench pole—the only weapon I have. I twist it inside. She gasps, struggles. I cry as I kill her.

I don’t want to take an innocent life.

But survival drowns out everything else.

A car follows me slowly on the road. Her boyfriend. A young taxi driver. He watches me, then his gaze drops to the plastic container. He realizes.

His eyes go blank. His body slumps forward, collapsing into himself.

But he doesn’t chase me. He doesn’t know who I am.

In the distance the agents nod in approval and drive off. I open a jar of bleach and pour its entire contents into the bag. Her body will be unrecognizable. Out of respect, I leave the body on the road for the boyfriend to take. I have no desire to hide my crime. This is between me and the agents, not with God. All that matters is that they believe Beth is dead. Beth has no rights, there was no murder. Conveniently for me, I am a free woman.

I make my way back to my car and I can finally escape from this hell in the middle of nowhere. For the first time in weeks, I feel the relief of not being hunted anymore. I fall to the dusty ground. The reality of what I’ve done takes all the firmness out of my body. 

Was it worth it? Surviving, just to take another life?

Yes, absolutely yes.

Action, the real kind, pure act kind, requires sacrifice. Even taking a step means trampling on ants and grass beneath your feet. Every act of existing requires a choice about who is going to get hurt.

If I weren’t being hunted, maybe I could stop. Maybe I could make logical choices, weigh the cost of life and death. Maybe I could die a hero.

But the problem isn’t the choice, it’s that I’m being hunted.

And I will not die without control, even if my choice is the worst one,

maybe even the wrong one.