In Search of Epsilon

Am I Prey?

Master stood several feet away.  

Concentrate.  

You can do this.  

I closed my eyes.  

I breathed in.  

I felt the g*n in my hands.  

Its weight.  

The feeling it transmits.  

The cold metal.  

I raise my hand.  

Here we go.  

And I shot.  

Master shot back, so fast I barely even saw him draw his g*n.  

I hear the two bullets clash with each other.  

Master had effectively shot, predicted where I would curve my bullet, and had curved his own to deflect mine.

“How can I do that?” I asked him.  

“You have to figure that for yourself. Until you do, we will keep doing it until you can hit me” 

And so, we kept going until dawn. 

I thought about it long and hard.  

I tried even harder.

“You are ready”  

Master took me to the town and said to go to the bartender once more and tell him that I am ready.  

And so, I went to the bar.

The people looked at me with dread still, even though I had lived with them for quite some time now.  

I reached the bar and started to talk to the bartender. He had, obviously, forgotten who I was.  

But apparently, he had not forgotten what ''I am ready'' meant.  

He stopped cleaning the glass that he had already cleaned, and forgotten, and reached out his hand.  

“What are you doing?” I asked.  

“Just, shake it,” he said.  

And I took it.  

Nothing really changed at the beginning. The bartender kept cleaning the glass cup.

I decided to turn around and tell Master that the bartender had probably forgotten what he was supposed to do until I turned around.  

The dogs playing poker were gone.  

There was no one inside the bar.  

Strange.  

“Welcome, to your first ever dungeon kid”  

I decided to keep going.  

I went outside and almost vomited. 

The landscape was hell.  

Bullets were flying everywhere, some of them curving into any direction possible. 

Blood and corpses were everywhere, and not just cowboys, but charros and Indians as well.  

It was a three-front war between the different factions.  

I was stuck, watching the landscape that made no sense defying gravity to be transformed into a western battlefield.  

I was frozen until I heard the screech.  

It was a cry so horrifying that I was instantly filled with fear.  

A thousand different kinds of birds were suddenly everywhere in the sky. For some reason, all of them were midnight black, painting the sky the same color.

The people that used to be fighting were now running away from the flock.  

I imagine there is a monster coming.  

“Please don’t tell me I have to kill it,” I said to no one in particular.  

The flock started to fly around a woman with an injured leg that was left behind. 

I thought the flock was going to pluck away until she died, but what happened was way worse.  

The flock got together and, as if it was a sort of liquid, formed a huge owl.  

It was completely black, with holes where the eyes would go. If you looked at its eyes, you could see the landscape.

It was huge.  

The giant owl ate in one fell swoop the girl on the floor.  

Great, it was a carnivore too. 

Of course it was.  

After eating her whole, it screeched again, and then it saw me. 

It showed me its wing, looking at me like a predator would look at prey. 

“You are a Hunter. That means that you are meant to hunt, not to be hunted” I muttered to myself.  

I almost believed it.  

Almost.

I mean, I was supposed to kill a giant monster with six bullets?   

Who the hell do you think I am?