There was an original beginning of this story. It’s a long story, so I’ll start at the beginning of this night. I realized this night was the hunt when I saw the robot, but I didn’t flee. Instead, I kept going. 

Ah, let me start a little further back. 

This started because I went into a Walmart to get some sweatpants and a few other things. My heart was pounding. The robot had taken my keys from me. Not forcibly, I willingly gave them. My worst fears were realized then. And I wandered around Walmart, my guard up throughout the store. 

There.

I heard them. 

Then I saw them. 

I ran and I jumped into my car, but I didn’t have the keys. 

The keys that lay with the robot. That damned robot. 

They must’ve seen me because soon, they hounded my car, but my car was rolling. 

I must’ve left it in neutral. 

I managed to get it to roll down the highway and someways into town. Somehow, they were gone. 

I ran again. I wasted no time, I ran as fast as I could towards town. I went up some stairs, I’m not even sure why I’m not even sure what the building was but there! 

There was a girl, and she wasn’t playing this game between me and my… “friends”. 

“Where’s the police station?” I asked, panting. She seemed to take no notice. 

She pointed, telling me it was across the way and she could even see it from there. 

I nodded and took a hesitant step towards her and saw the building. I saw police officers. 

I ran the opposite direction and back the way I came. I kept running until I noticed the church. 

I could probably cut through there and it’d be easier. 

“Please, help me!” I screamed through the church as I burst through the doors. 

“Please, God, help me!” I raced into the room with the most people and no one dared to even talk to me, not even the priest. 

They found me. 

I stepped closer to the innocents. 

We threw insults at each other as I tried to find my escape. 

Soon, there was infighting along with fighting with me. 

Soon, a boy from the group was off to the side and telling me to follow. 

I did. 

I escaped the church with him and ran as far to the police station as I could. 

Somehow, it was further than before and I took refuge in an empty home. 

It was dark and empty and instead of keeping going, I ran inside an empty room with the boy.

I turned to the boy, suddenly suspicious of him. I should’ve been suspicious before. But I was cocky. I knew I could win this game, I won it every year, they never got a piece of me. 

This really all this was. It was a game, forged years before. 

I don’t have the memories of how this game came to be, but it was a game and more often than not, I wasn’t scared, I was happy and cocky. 

The only time I was scared was when they were close. 

“Do you really want to help me?” I asked the boy, keeping my distance. 

The worry slipped from his face and instead, a grin appeared. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Eh.” 

I stood and ran to the back of the room. They had me cornered.

The window was much too high up to jump from. 

They were here and inside the room and my heart pounded - how was I supposed to get out of this now?

We threw insults at each other. 

One of them slashed me with a knife a few times and I managed to take it from her grip and threw it out the window.

Another did the same.

The same result ensued. 

My mind shut down with rage and fear, and the next thing I knew, I was out of the room and I was running. Why did they let me leave? 

I ran to the police station, but I got to a back room of sorts. 

There was a name on a door and a desk.

It was dark. I was further from the main entrance than I had been. I screamed and I’d been cornered once more. 

They debated how to kill me but one of their members can eat me whole and still keep me alive in its stomach. 

So they chose that option.

I was swallowed whole and I could view the world while I died slowly from the acid. 

I was able to see that the boy that helped me was punished. 

He now has a vacant expression. 

While I wallowed on where I went wrong. 

Where did I go wrong? 

First mistake? I didn’t have the keys to my car. 

Second mistake, I asked for help and I ran into the church.

Third mistake? I trusted one of them too easily. They said they loved me and I somehow trusted him. I was too late to question his actions. 

Fourth mistake. Running into a home

Fifth mistake.  Running to the police. They cannot stop crime. 

5.2 mistake. I ran into an entrance into seemingly a private’s office. 

I really thought I’d win. Like I had every year previously. 

Being swallowed whole was my fate. Surrounded around those who I knew.