It didn’t take much convincing at all to get the townspeople on board with the run. In fact, as soon as he told them that he would be doing his final run here in town, they nearly lost their damn minds – for once, they’d all have something exciting to not only hear about, but actively participate in, and Adam knew right then and there that this was going to be a very special run. Win or lose, he would be able to accept the results because he was going to give it his all and if he lost, then he lost at his best in the place he loved the most.

To meet the distance requirements of the run, having his home as one point and the station being the other would work, but it would be too risky for him to go and try and run from one to the other. The town was largely dead center between the two points, but the area between the town and Adam’s home and the town and the station was pretty much grassy fields and gentle hills – places where Vas-Tin would have the overwhelming advantage and Adam would be fucked.

So if he was going to have a chance at surviving the run, it was here in town where he could hide until the clock ran out.

After a few days of discussion, the best idea he and the locals came up with was to make the town reek of Adam so it would throw Vas-Tin off long enough for Adam to keep himself on the opposite side of the town, with the locals having a way to signal wherever Vas-Tin was.

Most of the local time and effort outside of work was getting the town in shape for the run, making it especially difficult for a blind person to navigate while ensuring Adam could still clear it in a hurry.

Every day as he worked in the field, he gave it his usual all, sweating through his clothes – and when he was ready to sleep, he’d take off everything and then put it into a bag for that day. By the time the hunt came, he’d have enough for the locals and even a few animals to wear so there would be several moving objects with his scent. Not only that, but he devoted a good amount of time each day to rolling around and rubbing against things to get his scent on pretty much everything he could access. Walls. Floors. Countertops. Sinks. His goal had been to pretty much rub his skin against every surface in the entire fucking town and he came pretty damn close to achieving that.

It might not completely distract the hunter, but the hope was that it would throw him off enough for long enough that Adam could burn through the twelve hours. Maybe not all twelve, but he was really hoping eight of them would be spent with a good distance between them.

As the day of the hunt drew closer and closer, Adam grew increasingly on edge – he wasn’t so much nervous as he was anxious to just get it over with, but sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. He was confident in his abilities. He was in the best shape he’d ever been in and was very much sure that he was going to give Vas-Tin the best hunt of his life, but whether or not that would be enough, he wasn’t sure.

Adam just wanted to know which of two fates would be his.

Would he remain here in his home?

A continued cycle of back-breaking work and then long periods of rest, where he’d live out his days on his comfortable home among the people that considered him to be their hometown legend on their sleepy, beautiful moon...

Or a hunter’s pet down on planet Hell, existing only to please and excite his master?

He had come to peace with both futures, he really had, but he just wanted to know which one he was going to live, because both would have wildly different futures for him that both needed very different levels of emotional and mental preparedness.

And he kind of just wanted to know so he could start mourning the one he wouldn’t have.

Because Adam fucking loved his home – he loved the life he built here, he loved the work, work, work, and while the rest period was a bit boring, he liked getting on the radio and fooling around with the other locals to stave off boredom. He even liked how loopy everyone got toward the middle of the night cycle when they were all bored out of their minds, when they'd get so fucking bored they'd write plays and act them out for the amusement of others. He loved being just a short travel to visit his sister and her family whenever he wanted…

But fuck, Adam loved the excitement that had come with the hunt. He loved the thrill of being chased, of clenching that sweet victory and getting to rub the hunter’s face in it, well knowing that in any other scenario he’d be fucking dead. He loved the idea of someone desperate to get to him and knowing that for the rest of the year, or maybe even the rest of that hunter’s life, they were still going to think of him as the one that got away because he was just that good.

And if Adam won this time around...he’d never have to do the hunt – the run - again. He’d just...live out his life in his little town, doing his thing in the fields, repeating over and over again that never-ending cycle of frantic work and mind-numbing rest. There would be no more excitement of preparing for the run and going down to Zerric, just everyday life with everyday excitement.

And if he lost?

He’d have nothing but excitement. He knew that. Life as a pet of the Zerric was pretty much a nonstop thrill ride of getting fucked and recovering...so pretty much like life here, only instead of back-breaking work in the fields, he would be getting an entirely different sort of back-breaking work done against all sort of surfaces with all sorts of things, and then he’d be, you know, knocked out cold and trying to sleep it off or – more likely- playing dead until his master grew bored and let him fucking sleep. He'd be a the whim of his master and have to live however the other wanted him to live, the permanent companion for the beast of a male that had wanted him so bad he even came to the fucking moon to ensure they'd met again.

And that sounded like a lot of fucking fun! Adam could do a lot with that, and fuck knows he’d have to get extra creative if he wanted something done the way he wanted it done. He could even imagine hiding somewhere and letting the other hunt him down, since Vas-Tin seemed like a good enough sport. And Vas-Tin was someone Adam could absolutely see himself enjoying, the other not just easy on the eye but stone cold beautiful. Adam liked it a little rough and after a lot of self-reflection, he decided that being completely dominated was something he could enjoy, especially considering the wild stories he heard about the Zerric and how they played with their pets.

So they both fates sounded like a good time, but independently, they would be…

Well.

He just wanted to know which one to grieve.

When the day of the hunt came, one of the locals came and picked up his bags of clothes while he went over the route that he and the locals had purposefully put together that would give him the max advantage just in case Vas-Tin did catch his actual scent. It was a much more grueling route that would ensure the hunter met continuously punishing obstacles that existed just to buy Adam more and more time.

When the time came, good ol' Larry, his closest neighbor, drove him as close to the station as he could get before he shook Adam's hand, and then he and his dogs, all of which were wearing one of Adam’s used shirts with one of his handkerchiefs wrapped around their necks, and went to town to get into position.

Adam walked the rest of the way, and when he arrived at the platform that served as their town's rail station, he went over to where there was a red-painted pair of pillars that served as Point A, Point B being the gates in front of Adam’s homestead. Sitting on each of the pillars was a small device that Vas-Tin had mailed to him a few days before that would register he had arrived, and when Adam stood in front of them for the devices to register his face and made a positive identification, the devices beeped and the clock that sat on the bench nearby beeped as well, starting a countdown from ninety.

In ninety seconds, the run would begin.

His final hunt would begin.

If he was down on Zerric, right now the participants would be unloading off the transports. He’d be getting a good look at his surroundings and deciding what the best technique would be for this environment.

But he knew that already.

All around the front of the platform were large ditches he and the locals had dug for roughly a mile, with several wooden boards creating a single path for him to cross, boards that he would be kicking into the ditches so Vas-Tin would have to take the only other way around the ditches...by going down them, climbing out of them, and then going down the next, repeating on and on until he got to the end. Some ditches were much, much deeper than others, some were half filled with water, but they were all a bitch to get out of so his goal was to not fall off the wooden boards and lose like a dumbass right out of the gates.

What a fucking embarrassment that would be.

If he succeeded in clearing the ditches while they successfully stalled Vas-Tin, that would buy Adam enough time to run like crazy back to town and take the route to a hidden spot where he needed to really start the hunt, waiting there until Vas-Tin got to town. When that happened, he’d follow the plan of taking the paths created through town to stay the fuck away from Vas-Tin, the hunter's location signaled by the jingles being blared on the town speakers – certain jingles signaled Vash-Tin was in certain areas so Adam would know what route to take to keep away from him.

He heard the sound of a vehicle flying down the railing and he tensed, knowing that was Vas-Tin arriving. At the thought of the larger male being here in his town to hunt him, his adrenaline pumped into high gear as he felt his body kick into ‘fuck this is happening’ mode.

BEEP!

Adam leaped off the platform and went over to the first wooden board to swift cross it, balancing on the wall between ditches to kick the wooden board down into the ditch at an angle before he moved to the next one, kicking each of the boards down into the ditches to ensure Vas-Tin would have to figure his own way around them.

And then he ran.

He ran as fast as he could down the road, a path he had practiced on for years and years to prepare for all the hunts before. He tried to clear his mind and focus on just running, but all he could think about was Vas-Tin stepping off of the platform and falling right into a ditch. It was funny, but also he felt oddly bad, which he figured was because he had been thinking about the other male for a while now and likely had grown attached to the idea of him.

He didn’t feel bad enough to actually stop and listen out to hear if he was okay, but still. He felt kind of bad.
When he got to town he hurried past where people were standing outside their buildings, waiting. Once Vas-Tin caught on that everyone and everything pretty much drenched in Adam’s scent he’d have to switch his tactics, but the locals would be able to move around freely. Until then it was too risky – Vas-Tin might mistake one of them for Adam upon entering and tackle them, and everyone here was just too damn old to be getting roughed up like that. For their own safety, they were supposed to move around a minimal as possible and stay out of the way, but they insisted on trying to help so there wasn't much he could do other than hope Vas-Tin hesitated and waited until he was sure.

Adam ran through the general market and ran around the aisles to get his scent in the air while the speakers in the corner played a jazzy tune that signaled that Vas-Tin had yet to arrive in town and Adam was making good time. He dove over the meat counter and went through the back, going out the back door and through the small alley and into the backdoor of the next building, one of the dozen fake buildings the town had hastily built over the past few weeks to give Adam more places to run through.

In a town of twenty-nine, they have very few builds. A grocery store. A one-room theater. A town emergency shelter in case there was a dust storm. The bar. The salon. The restaurant. There was a trio of buildings that made up ‘the shops’ that regularly rotated what was sold there, the local that operated each rotating as well. And that was it. They might have pop-up stalls, but that was pretty much it for their little town. They didn’t even have a trading outpost anymore, not since they were deemed too small by the Zerric while Adam was in the city, so if they wanted to benefit from their overlords, they’d have to go to the station and rent a transport to go all the way to the next settlement.

Since it was decided Adam would run here, however, the town had gained roughly two dozen more buildings that were filled with hastily built boxes, mounds of dirt, and whatever obstacle could be put together to provide a bigger challenge for Vas-Tin. Two structures had ditches in them, painted bright pink so Adam would know not to run right into a freaking ditch when trying to evade Vash-Tin, but he was to avoid those unless he was desperate since the ditches were deep enough that Adam would very likely break a leg if he fell into one. Vas-Tin and his Zerric bones would be just fucking fine, but fragile human Adam would be out for the race.

He was walking briskly through the tenth pop-up structure when the jingle abruptly stopped and he froze, listening.

He pressed his back to the wall and strained his hearing to try and listen to what was going on, but it was no use. There was just a nerve-wracking silence.

All he would have to do is wait until the new jingle started up again, signaling which way Vash-Tin was heading.

He closed his eyes and focused on controlling his breathing, wiping away the sweat from his brow onto the walls next to him before he swallowed thickly and crossed his arms over his chest, forcing himself to calm down so his rapid heartbeat didn't give him away.

And then he waited.