silence answers him. not reverent silence. not waiting silence. but the frost‑sharp stillness of a world that wants you dead. his breath tastes like grit. his bones feel like iron. the mask clings, unforgiving — exactly the way he prefers it. it presses against every scar, every old fracture, asserting itself as another layer of armor over something that shouldn’t be soft but is. something that still bleeds when you strike it hard enough. he should be calm. rational. predictable. but the memories swirl like dust storms in his head — echoes of his own voice repeating a mantra that’s become too loud: worthy, worthy, worthy. and there, under the mask, something begins to twist. he thinks of the hunt as art. as sacred. as the crucible that burns away weakness. but there is art in destruction too. in the freshly carved gouges along the dorm walls. in the blackened stains across his fur. in the slow drip of blood that doesn’t feel like mistake — but like intention. survival in district one was brutal, they said. creatures there didn’t just hunt you. they laughed as they disassembled you. they consumed your guts and spat your mask into the dust. others told tales of the president — the unbeatable monster — the apex that devoured predators like nothing. none of this meant literal of course, but power and status is everything. anyone will rip you to shreds for an ounce of power, even your own blood. yautja does not fear monsters. yet here, in silence, something inside him whispers that maybe he should. his claws tap once, twice, three times against the floor — deliberate, rhythmic, and cold. he watches the red bead on each talon, shining like promise and threat at once. “worthy,” he murmurs. the word claws through his throat like a blade through flesh. but the silence does not answer. the walls do not bow. the darkness does not yield. and for the first time — not in battle, not in challenge, not in ritual — he wonders: am i the hunter… or the hunted? he does not ask because he fears the answer. he asks because something deep in his marrow knows that if he cannot answer it truthfully… then everything he has believed — every code of honor, every ritual, every trophy earned through slaughter — might be nothing but a lie. his claws retract, leaving more marks behind. those marks are not art. they are not honor. they are the raw, unfiltered scratches of something that no longer knows whether it hunts the world… or hunts him. and in that moment, the silence feels heavy like a storm waiting to break. i am the predator, i will not be the hunted.
boo. here is part two.
