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Summer nights mean that occasionally, just occasionally, it is too damned hot for three people in the bed. Look, you'd think with one of them being a Winter, that'd help, but Mearc woke up earlier and found himself schvitzing up a storm, so he meandered off to the couch to curl up there where there's not two hot partners pressing up against him. He's wearing nothing but his boxers, and is hugging a throw pillow like a stuffed animal.
Sleep slowly descends upon the tired Hunterheart. Sensations fade further from the darkness behind their eyelids, until there's nothing but blissful rest.
It's from this deep, dark slumber that he rouses slowly. Sensation returns first, and shapes slowly bloom in the darkness; faint points of white light, like far-off stars. He cannot tell where he is, but it feels familiar. Lived in. Natural.
He looks up at the stars, breathing in the night air and trying to seek a familiar constellation in the #000000 sky, trying to make what he's seeing fit in against distant, faded memories of scout camp back in the early 1970s.
The stars defy pattern and recognition. They are faint dots of light, spread too far apart to draw any constellation or figure. But soon the flickering lines of other shapes and structures come into view, far in the distance, and Mearc becomes aware of the ground he stands on. Stretching out in front of him is what appears to be a forest, but the trees stretch downwards. Everything seems dizzily inverted, but he can feel the solidity of the surface beneath his feet, in front and in back.
He begins to try to walk forward, stumbling slightly as he comes to where there's a tree planted, unsure what to make of it. The way the landscape defies the rules brings a sick feeling to the pit of his stomach. "Wh..." Crouching, he reaches out, trying to touch the tree.
There's a deep bass tone that ripples through the air, seeming to come from inside his head and vibrating through his body, down the tip of his spine far past his hindquarters. As he looks downwards, to follow the disorienting tree, two jet black paws sit touching the distorted ground. They're large and powerful, the pads of a predator, swimming with faint white dots like the simulated sky. Each toe is capped in a vicious bright-white claw.
The ground defies explanation at first, seeming to be glass or mirror, the earth and tree moving like a reflection or illusion. After a moment of staring, everything seems to click into place. The forest is upside down. Mearc stands atop the bottom of the ground, inverted trees stretching downwards and creating a thick canopy further below. Vines dangle back up from their branches, the tips swaying impossibly in the air.
The stage stretches out beyond view in some directions, and ends abruptly in the void in others.
As the world clarifies around him, he begins to move, to run, patrolling that space where the stage meets the void. Walking the boundary, stalking the marches. It is what it was made to do, its form four-legged and powerful, eyes flashing across the empty air where trees ought to be, looking for something. Someone. Waiting to do what it was made for doing.
The protocol takes hold as he fully activates. He lives in this moment to work, to function. Prey is afoot. He doesn't have to wait long for it to arrive.
Beneath the border of the world, within the inverted forest, someone is running. Their figure is glimpsed in bits and pieces through pixels of mud and stone as they hurtle through the level. So far, everything is as it should be. The Player is in the Stage, navigating its obstacles at high speed. No more alarming to the Bound-Stalker than tourists staring into a tiger's cage in the zoo. They may pass on and leave the stalker alone once more, waiting for sleep to dissipate them once more.
Tonight will not be so disappointing. The Player takes a huge leap straight into a thick bush of thorns, in what seems like a terrible mistake. They're violently thrown backwards along a different trajectory, their entire body flashing and flickering from the damage dealt. As they make contact with the wall, they contort, swinging their body around at the very last moment, arm outstretched to strike the ground itself with their sword.
Mearc sees the Player fall upwards through the world, erupting through the glassy ground with a terrible noise. They slide to a stop on their heels, one hand touching the ground, sword held behind them. A face, hidden by a simple visored helmet, lifts to stares straight into the Stalker's face.
And the Stalker knows his purpose, knows what it is here to do. To wait for the Player to attempt to cross the boundary of the stage...and then to kill. So it always goes. There's anticipation gleaming in the Bound-Stalker's golden eyes, muscles tensing, tail flicking in a repeated animation.
This is how it ought to be, even if the world makes no sense. The protocol is clear. The boundary is clear. The rules are clear. What happens next is on the Player's head.
The Player stares. Their gloved hand grips the abstract bar of a sword they wield, barely rendered but thrumming with light and power. They tense in place, about to spring...and then turn on their heel, breaking into a dead spring directly away from Mearc. The prey runs. The chase begins.
Clawed feet thunder over the forest floor, the tail used as a rudder as the Stalking Beast hunts, loping behind the Player, expecting to have no problem catching up. This, too, is protocol. It is part of the rules of the game. That which hits the boundary of the play area is the Stalker's to destroy. Always.
The Stalker has no problems keeping pace, even catching up, the distance closed in moments. The Player runs as fast as they can, but the Stalker has never lost its prey. Nobody has ever escaped.
It should be a mere matter of moments to run this one down. The Stalker's claws nearly touch their heels. Other Stages hang in the void, like huge corridors stretching parallel to this plane. Without warning, the Player breaks away to the side, changing their direction and momentum. They run straight for the edge of the ground and leap out into the void, carrying them forward and down into the darkness, only to land with a loud thud atop the bounds of another Stage. Like hopping from train to train.
The Stalker has never seen a Player do this before. But if the Player could make the leap, even at great effort, it should prove no problem for the ultimate hunter. They know every angle, every moment, needed to chase and close once more.
And so the Stalker turns and makes an attempt at that leap as well, even though this may take it out of the forest that has been Its Stage for as long as he can remember. The Player is breaking the rules, they must be punished, and the Stalker is a tool for that punishment. It runs for the edge and leaps...
It's a leap of faith. The Stalker lands atop the next stage, its inverted interior full of huge moving machinery and hissing steam. The Player hesitates, stopping to look behind themselves. Should there be any doubt in the Stalker's mind, a voice booms out from everywhere and nowhere, deep, powerful, and dispassionate.
"PLAYER OUT OF BOUNDS," the Game Master declares, and the Player's head lifts to stare upwards. They heard it too. The Stalker knows he is still theirs. They see no other hunter in this territory, no new spawn coming forth to join the chase. This Player is theirs, to chase to the ends of the world.
The Player starts running again.
And the Stalker pursues, despite the fact that this mechanical territory is unfamiliar, the grinding of gears strange to its ears after the eerie night sounds of his forest. Its claws make harsh sounds on the diamond-plate floor.
The Player has few places to run. They're just as lost. They're fast, and agile, leaping away from the Stalker's claws when it seems they've been caught, but there is nowhere to lose their pursuer, nowhere to hide.
They run through the void, both straining at the limits of their capacity. Up ahead, a shape comes into view, the towering wall of another stage's boundary. Currents flow and roar through pipes and canals, draining into massive pools whose depths cannot be seen even from this outside vantage point. The Player runs straight for it, and leaps, as if to carry themselves clear through the boundary once more...
But it is not to be. They slam into the invisible wall separating this realm from the next, knocked prone on the ground. Turning around, they scramble away from the Stalker, back up against the wall. Sword gripped in their hand even as they lay there, exposed and vulnerable, unable to get to their feet quick enough.
And so the Stalker makes its own leap, its perfect white teeth and claws standing out against the rust-red and grey that make up the color palette of this level. It is ready to kill the nuisance Player, and then it can return to the forest, where its code belongs.
The Player manages to bring their arm up. Their powerful weapon flashes out in front of them in a brilliant swath, smashing into the side of the Stalker mid leap.
With a distorted THUD, the sword bounces straight off the panther's inky hide. The Stalker is invulnerable to the Player's attacks. There is no escape.
The Stalker lands on their chest, pinning the prey to the ground easily. As the Player's body flickers once more from the impact, pieces of their ephemeral armor fly off, leaving nothing to keep the Stalker from its prize and purpose.
Nothing at all. And yet, there is the slightest hesitation, those yellow eyes staring a moment longer before the Stalking Beast moves to bite the Player's neck, to claim the victory it has earned.
The Player's head jerks away from the deadly jaws. Their helmet crumbles away into square-edged dust. Their pixellated face is revealed, a young man with smooth unblemished features and dark hair. The last thing Mearc sees before biting down is Glitch's face, eyes wide with fear and helplessness.
There is a deep crunch, and the taste of hot blood. It feels incredible. Glitch's screams ring in Mearc's ears, and the dream abruptly ends.
Mearc quite literally falls off the couch as he jolts awake, and it takes a moment for him to catch his bearings. As he does, he moves to the bedroom to go grab his phone. But even as he does, he seems to realize how fucked up that text would probably sound. And so...he doesn't send anything yet. Checks his email, his messages, trying to find a moment of normalcy to ground himself on.
There's nothing. No messages from Glitch. No ominous threats, no midnight wishes. Mearc sits alone in the darkness, once more staring into an illuminated screen.
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