When he was escorted to the compound he would be staying at – a hotel of sorts inside one of the massive domes all over Zerric that provided shelter from the ongoing storms - he got a couple looks as he checked into his small quarters, having to use his name to do so. People knew who he was. This was run number four for him and gave his pretty much the legendary status of difficulty among runners. By the sort of looks he got- well, their expression, not their actual looks because of, you know, the blind thing - this both peeved and excited most of them. 

He was a hard challenge, and it would take some serious skills to catch him. 

Unfortunately, with every passing run he successfully finished, it got harder.

His first time he was pursued by just one male – he liked to call him Number One because he was really the first Zerric that had been the one, or the one that was focused on him enough to smack others away when they tried to go after Adam themselves. That’s how you knew one of them was interested in you here in The Hunt. He’d be willing to beat the shit out of anyone that so much as glanced your way. Number One was pretty typical of the Zerric. Strong. Fast. The location Adam had him in had been a rocky area that was pretty slippery and made it pretty easy to get the other to slip and fall, enabling Adam to wait out the clock in a hiding spot. Last Adam saw of him, Number One was trying to punch to death the last rock he slipped on, which had been both hilarious and frightening for Adam to watch because he just keep hitting and hitting and hitting, even after his fist was clearly broken.

The second hunt had been in a desert - a sandy area with cliffs where there had been little places to hide, but the Zerric – with their superior sense of smell - had had a real bitch of a time scenting out anyone due to the strongly scented shrubs that dotted the area, which had been hilarious to witness. Being blind and unable to scent out anything pretty much meant they were stumble fucking around. A lot of humans that time were caught because they couldn’t stop laughing, which gave their location away instantly. Adam’s Number Two was a talker and had even given Adam his name, but Adam just referred to him as Number Two whenever he responded, which had annoyed the hell out of the hunter.

Adam had gotten away from Number Two when he taunted him up into a hissy fit and he was to busy stomping around in the sand to catch up while Adam was running like hell to point B. Number Two almost caught up to him, but Adam was able to run around a deep sandy pit and trick him into falling into it, effectively knocking him out of the game because the hunter couldn’t climb back out. Adam only had to walk the rest of the way after that. He could hear Number Two’s furious screaming the entire way to the finish line.

The third time was vastly different – it was in a jungle and Adam was sweating like crazy, struggling to breathe from the suffocating humidity. Number Three was a tricky bastard, real clever. He was especially good at tracking and had made it very difficult to outrun him, so Adam had to both hide and run with that one. He ended up being more fun than Adam had anticipated because the hunter would go to bizarre lengths to try and capture him, hopping from tree to tree and hanging upside down from the limbs to try and grab him.

Number Three wasn’t as big as the others – instead built for agility, and boy did he give Adam a run for his money. Adam had run out the clock on that one as well – but that time he had been lucky. Number Three would have caught him, having been right on his heel up until Adam got to the top of the highest tree with the hunter right on his heels – the tree limb snapped and they both fell, but while Adam hit the next branch several feet down and was able to hold onto it, the hunter crashed through the next two before he found one that could support his weight.

Number Three had tried to climb up to him but the wood was too slippery and none of the branches would support any of his weight. Adam broke a rib when he fell and cracked two others, which had been really painful when he had started laughing hysterically. Watching Number Three trying to get to him made up for, you know, the broken bones thing. Sometimes when Adam was sad, he thought back to Number Three jumping up and down with his arms flailing, trying to reach him with increasing frustration and desperation. Never failed to put a smile on his face.

This time Adam knew would be harder because he was no longer just a faceless – or, uh, unknown - human-like the first or second time he did this. The infamy he cherished back in town was something that attracted the harder players on the run because his successes made him a proper trophy, and the Zerric folk loooooved their trophies. While he had never personally seen the residence of one, he heard that their homes would be full of things they conquered, their human trophy being the centerpiece if they had one.

Adam didn’t know how he felt about the prospect of being a trophy. What he didn’t like, what really kept him running, was the prospect of leaving home. He couldn’t imagine living down here, so far from the life he had built in town. 

That was what he focused on.

It wasn’t like it wasn’t nice down here – in fact, the places where they had you stay were exceptionally nice. The rooms were small but very comfy, there were big windows facing the best sights, Adam’s own looking over a shopping plaza with blown glass decoration on display. You could eat whatever the hell you wanted to eat, bath in a massive bathtub and enjoy all the amenities you could ever imagine. They really tried to sell it to you, and a naïve human could easily fall for it, especially if you came from a town that had very little other than the bare minimum. Some might not even put up too much of a fight during the run. And, hey! Maybe being down here was an upgrade for some of these humans. Some people really didn’t like life back in the colony, and that was fine.

But Adam wasn’t like that. He had built a life up on the colony, and he wasn’t ready to lose it after all the blood, sweat, and tears he had put into it. His life back home was everything to him, and if he didn’t return to it, he would have nothing.

He thought about that when they were en route to the destination. Once the transport stopped, he put my game face on.

Once you got to the location you had about an hour to get your shit together before they released the hounds and all hell broke loose. The area between point A and point B was pretty massive, almost sixty miles. The Zerric could cross in three hours. Adam could cross it in about eleven, not counting the time he had to stop for a breath or hide. Most of the humans broke apart after the first ten minutes, talked and got an idea of the environment. After Adam’s first run, he learned to break away from the other humans quicker. You didn’t want to think about the others being hunted – trying to help someone else could get you caught, as Adam witnessed that first run.

There was a lot of crying.

There was always a lot of crying and panic.

And once someone started it, it spread like crazy until everyone was misty-eyed and then you were sniffling, which meant they could hear you easier, and the longer you stayed in one spot, the easier it was for them to pick up your scent, so you had to move pretty much as soon as they dropped you off.

Adam steeled himself for the rest of the ride and focused on trying to get himself into the right frame of mind. Last time he tried to give some tips, but no one had wanted to listen. Someone had even yelled at him, but he didn’t hold that against them. Stress made people kind of crazy. This time he minded his own business.

As soon as the shuttle stopped he went off on his own to stretch and get a good idea of where they were.

He had been through a misty jungle, sandy desert, and a valley of slippery rocks. This time it was a forest with massive trees, thousands of feet high and dripping in chilly water droplets. 

The key was to determine the environment and then figure out which would work better for you – running, hiding, or a mixture of both. Once that was determined, you again had to assess the type of hunter that had taken interest in you, as some were far better trackers or far faster than others. This was a pretty good environment though and would likely work in the runner's benefit – plenty of places to outwit a hunter, but, downside, it was also easier to get lost.

And god forbid you tripped on a root and hurt yourself. You bleed? They’ll be able to find you in a heartbeat. Sweating was bad as well, so it was good to pace yourself, keep yourself from putting off too much scent – and if you can’t help it, you better rub sweat all over the place and hope that throws them off.

Given the environment, Adam figured he would have a better chance at hiding than running. He was swift and agile, but this looked like somewhere that encouraged tripping, that was for sure. That was a bad habit of his – he never looked down. He hated hiding, though, much preferring to take his chances with his speed, but he would have to hide at least for a short while until the hunters dwindled down to something more manageable. Having just one or two on his ass left him with far better chances than seven or eight sniffing around.

Adam hurried into the woods, staying within earshot of the others. If he stayed close, he would have a window of opportunity to slip away while the hunters were focused on the other humans. Last time he had stupidly run off and had been surrounded by ten hunters who got to him before they saw the rest of the humans and had only avoided them because he vaulted over a couple of fell trees – which was how he caught the attention of Number Three and that shit-eating grin of his. The fucker might not have been able to see Adam, but he heard how light-footed he was and it was game on between them.

This time Adam went to where there were large flowering bushes and pushed into them to wait with his back against a tree, checking to see he had another way out for when a hunter found him. When the time came, he would slip around the tree and go toward the heavier growth nearby – there were plenty of places for him to squeeze through and make a quick escape, plenty of places to hide. 

And then he waited. 

As long as he kept his breathing even and stayed calm, they couldn’t hear him. The strong fragrance of the flowers he hid in was likely enough to keep the hunters from easily picking up on his scent, Adam knowing that strong fragrances threw them off after the fiasco in the desert during run two. This was a good place to start. He would have to leave once they figured his scent led to a bush and didn’t leave it, but once the coast was clear he’d creep off to another location, hopefully with the same flowers, since he would reek of their scent.

Adam’s nemesis, or the hunter who set his special attention on him, would manifest within the first two hours and then it would just be him and Adam for the rest of the go while the others found their own prey.

There was always a mad struggle within the first hour as hunters fought each other to decide who got which runner, which was when most all the humans were caught. That was when there was enough chaos to weed out the stronger hunters from the rest – and the ones that were looking for a challenge versus the ones just looking to get a trophy to take home and fuck.

Both, frankly, were forces to be reckoned with.

A woman’s scream broke the air and Adam tensed, holding his breath for a beat before he let it out slowly to listen to chaos ensuring back toward the drop-off point, steeling himself against the panicked noises.

So it begins.