The Hunter's Curse

Hallucinations AND Pain

Sage’s POV

I would have smiled if I could have after seeing a familiar face. But my face felt tight, my eyes heavy and sunken.

I struggled to say his name. Taking a deep breath and clenching my fists, I managed, "Ad..." I coughed, voice scraping my throat. The sound made my ears ring.

Adrian turned, one brow raised, pen still in hand. The overhead light caught in his hair, a messy shade somewhere between brown and gold. He looked more like someone who’d been awake for three days straight than a man running a lab—shirt untucked, sleeves rolled up, collar loose. The stubble on his jaw shadowed the faint scar that cut across it.

He didn’t even try to hide the fatigue. His eye bags were obvious. The way I have seen and known him for years.

When he moved into town, we had met through fighting over a space in the conference room. And then we discussed the official's beard after the conference. That way we have become close.

I hardly let people be friends with me, but he…he was different.

And also, let's say he doesn't dislike my presence as much as half of the people in Silverpeak.

“What?” he asked, tone dry but not unkind.

“I need a smoke,” I said, half-whispering, half-testing how much my lungs could take.

He gave me a look that said Really? Before going back to his notes. “You can’t even lift your head, and you’re talking about cigarettes?”

“I just—need something…I…don't feel like myself…I…” My fingers twitched uselessly against the blanket. “The smell of this place. Ugh. Just…give me something that doesn’t smell like blood and antiseptic.”

“Try air,” he said, scribbling something. “It’s cheaper and won’t reopen your stitches.”

I rolled my eyes, or at least tried to. “You were always this charming, or is it just for me?”

He finally looked at me again, mouth twitching slightly. “For you, I make an exception. But seriously, don’t strain yourself. You’re just getting started.”

“Started?”

He leaned his hip against the table. “Recovery. Adaptation. Call it whatever helps you sleep at night. Your system’s been through hell. It took a lot for me to bring you back.”

I lowered my eyes. But just that movement made my shoulder pulse, a dull, heavy ache spreading to my neck. I sucked in a sharp breath. “Adrian…”

“Hmm?”

“My neck. It... burns.”

He set the pen down immediately, eyes flicking toward the bandage. “Yeah. It will. The painkillers are wearing off.”

“I... can’t move.” My words trembled more than I wanted them to.

“I know.” His voice softened, but only slightly. “It’s expected, considering you were just mauled by a two-meter-tall canine.”

I tried to swallow, but the motion sent fire down my throat. A cough tore through me before I could stop it, it moved like a snake from deep within my chest.

I coughed harder into my palm until something wet hit my palm.

Hands shaking I brought my hand back from my mouth to look.

Blood.

Adrian sighed, grabbed a cloth from the counter, and pressed it gently to my mouth. “I told you to be careful.”

“I—” I coughed again, weaker this time. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t answer right away, just reached for a metal tray, wiping the blood off my chin with calmness.

I smiled weakly at him. “Thank you.”

“Please don't.”

I rolled my eyes as he stepped back. “Who brought me back?”

“Ivy. She had an intuition. The lycan had made sure to do the killings away from the cameras. Ivy knew something wasn't right. She found you after a few minutes. And brought you here. She was angry and ready to go fight the Council. You were overworked. Stressed and now everyone around you is…dead.”

The tears were coming, filling the dim of my eyes. But I didn’t let it fall.

“I see.” I sighed. The council did nothing wrong. I was just…over myself mentally and this is where you end up when you are an overachiever and a perfectionist. “I wonder how I survived,” I whispered.

“You’re stubborn. I’ve seen corpses with less fight.”

I almost smiled, but the ache in my chest made it impossible.

The silence between us stretched, broken only by the steady beep of the monitor.

The constant beep felt like a countdown. At each moment my team was mauled.

My eyes burned, my heart rate spiked up rapidly, fingers twitching.

Faces. Voices. Diana’s laugh. Mason’s stupid grin.

All were gone. All I could hear was the sound of their screams. They blood. The look of fear and yet…I had put them in that situation.

Now they were dead.

They were gone. All of them.

The room blurred, and before I knew it, tears were sliding down the sides of my face. “They’re all dead,” I said quietly. “Every single one of them.”

Adrian didn’t say anything. He never did when it mattered most. He just checked the IV line, eyes fixed on the slow drip of clear liquid.

“I blame him.” My fingers clenched the sheet weakly. “I hate him.”

“Who?”

“The lycan.” My voice cracked. “He killed them. All of them. And he—” I stopped myself, biting down hard on my lip. “He should’ve killed me too.”

Adrian hummed, low and thoughtful. “Indeed.”

That word stung more than sympathy would’ve.

He leaned over me, adjusting the flow of the drip. The needle tugged against my arm, a small, grounding pain. “You’re lucky, you know,” he said softly. “A bite like that should’ve killed you in seconds. But it didn’t.”

I turned my head toward him. “You call that luck?”

He gave a slight shrug. “Depends on how you look at it.”

My throat tightened again. “Adrian… are there any side effects?”

He glanced at me. “From what?”

“Being bitten by a lycan.” I forced the words out slowly. “I… survived, whereas everyone else didn’t.”

He didn’t answer right away. The pause was long enough for my heartbeat to sound too loud in my ears.

Finally, he exhaled. “Side effects, yes. But I’d rather not list them while you’re still bleeding on my sheets.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out broken like a record. “That bad?”

He met my gaze for a second—steady, unreadable. “Let’s just say survival isn’t always the lucky outcome.”

I stared at him, waiting for a hint of sarcasm. There was none. Just the soft hum of the monitors and the faint scratch of his pen.

“Well,” I said after a moment, my voice thin, “if I start growing fur, you have permission to put me down.”

Adrian didn’t even look up. “You’re not my type.”

A weak chuckle slipped out, but it died halfway. My chest hurt. Everything did. I closed my eyes, tried to breathe past it, but the air felt wrong—too heavy, too thick.

The light overhead flickered.

At first, I thought it was the power. Then I realized the sound in the room had changed. The hum of the machines grew louder, sharper, like the world itself was tightening around me.

“Adrian?” My voice wavered. “Something’s wrong.”

He glanced up from the tablet. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I—” My pulse spiked. The monitor beside me beeped erratically. The walls seemed to ripple, warping like heat haze.

I blinked hard, but the distortion didn’t fade. Adrian’s face shifted, blurred, then split—one version standing by the counter, another by the bed.

I gasped, clutching at my neck. “What… what’s happening?”

He dropped the pen immediately and came closer. “Sage. Look at me.”

But there were two of him. One calm, one smiling

The smiling one leaned closer, his eyes molten gold. “You thought you could kill me, didn’t you?”

I froze. That voice. That smirk.

“No…” My breath hitched. “You’re gone. Leave me alone. Please.”

He grinned wider, blood glinting on his teeth. “You sure about that?”

I blinked again, shaking my head, but the image didn’t fade. The scent of iron hit the air, heavy and choking. I could hear my heartbeat, fast and unsteady.

Adrian—the real one—grabbed my shoulder. “Sage! Look at me. You’re hallucinating. Focus on my voice.”

“I can’t,” I gasped. My hands trembled violently. The world wouldn’t stop moving. Shadows crawled along the walls like living things.

The phantom stepped closer, his shape half-solid, half-smoke. “You’re mine now, little hunter,” it whispered. “You feel it, don’t you? My blood in yours.”

“Stop it—” I pressed my palms to my ears. “Get out of my head!”

Adrian’s grip tightened. “Sage!”

The lights above us burst with a pop. Glass rained down, clattering on the floor. I screamed, curling in on myself as the air thickened, pressing down like invisible hands. My body convulsed; every muscle felt like it was on fire.

“Make it stop!”

“Your body’s rejecting the venom,” Adrian shouted, voice distant through the ringing in my ears. “Breathe, Sage! Focus—”

But his words dissolved into static.

I saw the forest again—the blood, the torn bodies, the lycan’s grin under the moonlight. My own voice echoed back at me, distant and desperate. I’ll kill you.

The phantom smiled again. “You’ll try.”

Pain ripped through me. My body burned like fire. I screamed, louder this time, until my throat stitches tore open. Blood dripping down my neck but I didn't care.

I just kept on screaming. My vision filled with my team.

“You did this to us.”

“You killed us.”

“Your pride killed us!!!!”

“No. No. No. I…no. Make it stop. Please. PLEASE!”

The room tilted. My vision split open, light and darkness colliding in violent flashes.

Then everything went quiet.

And the last thing I heard was Adrian’s voice, panicked, calling my name.