The Poison in our Veins, Part IV

"St—Stay away from me!!! Don't—Don't you fucking dare try and come up! I'll cut you in half!" yells the target from the branch while taking out a very large saw. Meanwhile, Xess notices the branches on the ground — quickly confirming his theory.

"I am not moving from here I don't give a damn what you tell me!" the target continues to yell, "I am getting out of this monstrosity of a place".

"She seemed to be lower, but on closer look..." says Dora with an irritated look.

"I don't know how she did it without anybody noticing it to be honest," replies Xess, "it feels like at least one of the clusters would have found her, albeit the larger target zone on this hunt."

"This is the moment when I wish they'd give us some weapons," says Dora as she starts to walk around the tree without taking her eyes away from the target, "yet, every time we find these criminals they are always somehow armed."

"Hunt 2 was the same?" asks Xess.

"Yeah... they all had knives like in the first one," replies Dora, "curious, to say the least."

All of a sudden, the target starts to scream, "Who are you calling a criminal!!? I have not done anything to deserve to be here!!" Still in her sitting position, she turns to Dora and continues to yell at her from the branch, "The only maniacs who kill people here are you and I don't care what you tell me I am not believing a word you say!"

Dora ignores her as she examines the situation while Xess does respond to her, "If you are not a criminal then why are you here?" he says aggressively.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no, no... I am not falling for your manipulation," says the target, "they've told us how you've killed others."

"What...?" asks a confused Xess.

"Don't give me that! You know what I'm talking about! Playing all friendly and innocent, asking for their names and background," says the target as she turns her attention to Xess, "all so that you can get their trust and kill them easier! You must be enjoying this madness!!!"

Xess does not answer. Dora approaches and whispers to his his ear, "If we don't get her down, there is no shot". However, Xess ignores her and seems to be focused on the target.

"What do you know about us? What we've been through!?" asks Xess with a very serious tone.

"SHUT UP YOU MURDERER!! YOU SHOULD BE THE ONES IN MY PLACE INSTEAD OF ME, YOU HEAR ME?!!!" the target continues to scream. Xess glares at the target with a very sinister look.

"Xess, don't listen to her she is clearly trying to get under your —" says Dora as she is interrupted by the targets continuous rant.

"MUST BE NICE FOR ALL OF YOU PSYCHOPATHS TO JUST RUN AROUND AND KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN!! YOU REALLY DON'T FEEL ANYTHING AT ALL DO YOU!!?" the target continues to yell directly at Xess. Dora notices his right hand bleeding from the tightness of the grip in a clear sign of rage.

"I WISH YOU ALL TO ROT IN THIS SHITHOLE FOR TAKING THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE TO BE IN —"

Suddenly, the target stops talking.

She feels the tree vibrating enough for her to lose balance. Scared, she grabs on to the branch while also guarding the saw with all her life. Xess, out of frustration, has just hit the tree with his right hand with all his strength. This is when Dora notices a new crack on the side of the tree.

"What the...?" a confused Dora sees the crack increasing throughout the tree, "Did he just...?"

Xess steps away from the tree and looks over to the target.

Although they are far apart, the target gets internally shaken by Xess's now murderous look. As a sign of response, she shows him the saw and says, "Get close to me and I will slice you in half" however, her voice is shivering and her eyes show clear signs of fear.

While this goes on, Dora sees how the crack has spread to most of the trunk, causing irreversible damage. Absolutely shocked, she looks back at Xess and says, "Do you have any idea what you just did?!"

Nevertheless, he pays no attention to this.

"Shit... Oh shit, she's going to come down... This is it!" Dora whispers to herself in the middle of her shock.

Suddenly, the trunk starts to break.

"Wh--, what is happening? Wait," says the target as she notices the tree sloping down, "no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please, no, NO, NO, NO, PLEASE!!!!" the target immediately cries in desperation as she realizes the tree is falling down. As the tree is about to hit the floor, she holds on to the trunk and rotates away from the side that eventually hits the ground. The trunk causes a tremendous tremor across the area, as birds fly away rapidly.

With hunter's eyes, Xess's tracked the target as she fell. Although Dora has already realized it would happen, seeing the tree knocked down has caused her to become incredulous, "He... he... stroke the tree down. What is happening? What kind of surreal strength is this?" she asks herself. Frozen, Dora witnesses Xess move swiftly towards the landing site of the target. This, too, causes her a certain degree of shock, as his movements are starring to feel strange. The target — attempting to recover herself — struggles on the ground as she notices she had let go of her saw, now sitting a couple of feet away from her.

"The saw!!!" the target cries.

Shaken, she extends her hand but struggles to pick it up. However, the weapon is taken from from her.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" anyone could feel the despair of this cry. She looks up from the ground and sees the one who took it from her glaring back down to her. It is Xess.

"No... No... I was so close... I was so close... Damn it, damn it all!" the target cries heavily as she slams the ground with her fist in frustration. Xess, without any sort of hesitation, pulls her away by the arm— away from the tree rubble — across the ground and throws her to an open area. Dora arrives and Xess proceeds to grab the target by the end of both legs to prevent her from escaping, although she tries mightily.

"Dora" says Xess.

Dora looks back at him as he slides the saw towards her with his free hand. The target screams with absolute fear as she knows where this is going.

"NOO!! Please, you have got to let me go! I didn't mean anything I said!!! I promise, please!! I won't tell anyone! Please just let me go!!" the target screams in desperation and agony. Her fear has made her lose all control. The words spoken by her are reminiscing of those from Reese right before his death. Xess and Dora are both briefly taken back to that day. The tone was different, yet the fear and desperation were exactly the same. In the end, however, there is no choice for either of them. None they could consider, anyway.

Dora picks up the saw and — after a brief pause — slowly approaches the struggling target.

"Tells us" says Dora with a very uncomfortable expression.

Her body and mind seem to not be at sync at all. Her body does not hesitate, yet her mind struggles with the decision to take the target's life. No, at that instant, it ceased to be a target. The saw in hand has made Dora' eyes see the target as the woman she is. A woman who is full of life. This internal — yet abrupt — shift prompts her to ask the target about her past.

"What was the crime for which you are being punished?"

The target does not answer, as all her focus is on trying to escape Xesus' hold. Dora knows full well that will never happen. Not after witnessing Xess's strength. Although extremely hard to believe, it is a question to which the answer would come at another time. The current state of the hunt was 1 left out of 3 with the timer approaching its last hour. With the target laying on her chest, Dora stands close to the woman glaring her down with eyes of judgement.

"What did you do?" repeats Dora with saw in hand and a more serious tone.

"I... I..." the target struggles to speak, however, after finally understanding that she will not escape Xess's hold, she stops struggling. After a long silence, she cries out of sorrow.

"I... I... I cannot bear children," cries the target, "I was simply born this way, so no matter what I tried, I would never be able to have my own child. How can this be my fault? How can this be fair?"

With the weapon in hand and a timer on her Tracer that showed almost an hour left on the Hunt, Dora seems to struggle to understand where she is going with this.

"I had a friend — my best friend — she was sick, she didn't have much time left in this world and she had just given birth to a beautiful baby boy. She had a terrible, hideous husband; he would abuse her in ways you could not imagine... Yet...," cries the target as she struggles to keep her emotions in check enough to speak, "she... she had the power to choose the person who would take care of the baby" as the target says these words she starts to cry stronger, preventing her from finishing her story.

"She chose the husband" says Dora.

"And you stole the baby away..." says Xess who still grabs the target by both legs.

"IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!! IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!" the target cries screaming in painful agony, "The baby would have been better off with me!!! That man is a monster... a fucking MONSTER!!! And now... And now I am here... It's not fair" she continuous to cry on the ground.

It is in this moment when Dora's expression shows doubt. It is clear there is a contradiction of emotions growing inside of her, as there is no attempt to strike the target at any moment. She looks down to the ground with drops of sweat coming down from her forehead, as she seems to be fighting her own battle inside.

Then, she hears it.

"DORA!" screams Xess.

Dora turns to Xess and sees him glaring back at her.

"If I could do it..." says Xess in a slow whispering tone so that Dora could read his lips. After a few moments of silence, she whispers to herself.

"... then so can I."

She opens her Tracer, noticing the timer: 59 minutes.

A brief moment of uncertainty is created. Xess does not plan to move. He promised to Dora that he would allow her to take the target. He is one of the very few participants who understands the meaning of taking a life.

As everything starts to move in slow motion for Xess, he carefully examines Dora's next movements while he speaks to himself.

(("I know what it feels like... I know what it takes to cross that line")) thinks Xess as he watches Dora grab the target by the head and prepping the saw.

(("Life is the one gift of nature that we can never give back, and when you take that away from someone — for your own sake, for your own future — you end up killing a part of you that, also, will never, ever come back."))

Xess continues his inner monologue while Dora is about to hit the target on the neck with the saw.

(("Instants later, you shiver to a very ominous sensation. One that makes you feel that you have always been something else — one that makes you realize..."))

As he carefully witnesses every detail of Dora decapitating the target with a single shot, Xess concludes his internal monologue.

...

...

...

(("...that the poison has always been inside."))

Chapter 08 – The Poison in our Veins, Part IV: END

to be continued...