It was a summer evening like any other, the fire flys were illuminating the dusk filled sky. The sound of little one’s mothers shouting their name for them to come home before the dark hit the parking lot. We were teenagers now though, none of our parents called for us, they had given up on trying. Our nocturnal ritual had commenced as the last of the younger kids had left. It’s time for a game of “Manhunt”. If you are unfamiliar with that term, did you not have a childhood? It’s simple terms, it’s an ‘adult’ version of tag and hide and seek. There’s usually a home base, lots of running, scraping of knees on the tarmac and tons of animalistic fornicating in the shadows from the elder teens. It was our chance to unwind, where nobody was pulling on our pants to let them play or parents asking us how our day was. That question alone to drive the very eyes of each teenager on this planet into their skull with rolling of them so much. The game was our escape, we had no idea how little time we had together. Nobody could have predicted that was our last time all out at the last time, no relationships courting us away( some were building up to that), no college whisking away our friendships, and most importantly silence, silence filled the parking lot as Lance counted to 100 while everybody ran for different hiding spots. It wasn’t until he was to 80 that everybody had arrived in their spot. Bernice was the first to be found and that was typical being that they were star crossed lovers. Those 100 seconds must have felt like a life time. Others were rounded up after many pecks of affection between the two. There’s a moment where you all realize there isn’t many more survivors and people start disclosing others hiding areas. “ Hunt down the traitor, and bring them back to me alive” one of the boys shouted as he hurtled towards his former ally. Alliances were shattered as everybody grew more tired and in that moment, it felt like nothing else mattered. It was a Friday night and our last one out as a group.

Others would try to form a guild of likeness to ours but none stood worthy of our rapport. Soon enough one of us would say to ourselves in a whisper “ Hunt down the traitor, and bring them back to me alive.” In hopes that a familiar face would poke out of our bleak, depressing bedrooms. The thing about treachery is that it’s hard to point fingers at anybody because time was the only one betraying us.