Ethan didn't understand what the darn tradition was about, but he was offended that they thought he wasn't ready for it.
She looked at her older sister, Emily. Long, beautiful blonde hair braided into two pigtails. She had a haughty and bossy attitude, she never liked her sister. She took her things whenever she wanted and never returned them.
He was 15 years old and had attended his first year of tradition at the age of 8, just like him. Why did they think he wasn't ready and his sister was?
"What are you looking at, idiot?" His sister spat at him, which Ethan dodged.
"Mom!! Emily is spitting on me again!!" Ethan complained.
Cecil looked at Emily sternly but didn't say anything or scold her.
"Listen, son, if your sister spat on you, the best thing you can do is spit back at her." Cecil said to Ethan seriously, which made him look at her with his mouth open.
"I told you, he's not ready for the tradition."
"Yes, it is!" His father looked at him with a severity he had never seen before in his loving eyes. "It has to be!"
"Mama, Dad is scaring me." Ethan got nervous. "What is the tradition about?"
Rudolf and Cecil hesitated a lot in giving him an answer until their weary sister let him go.
"Killing people, idiot." The tradition is about a hunt in the forest, but instead of animals, what we'll be hunting are people. Emily played with her braids for a second and smiled. "Sometimes we even choose from the staff and force them to participate as prey, obviously."
"Emily!!" Rudolf shouted at her angrily.
What? He will find out sooner or later.
Ethan couldn't believe what he was hearing, maybe it was just a really bad joke.
"Is this a joke, right?" He asked with hope in his voice.
But only silence answered him and the dark looks of the people he loved.
"This can't be!" Ethan got scared and stood up from the table. "This can't be true."
"It is." His father replied. "Don't worry." After the first death, everything becomes easier.
"¡¡Nonononono impossible!!" I could never kill anyone, let alone innocent people." Ethan dodged his father who tried to touch him.
Ethan backed against the wall and saw how slowly the expressions of his loved ones changed very quickly.
Without giving him time to react, Rudolf lunged at him and grabbed him by the neck.
"Listen to me well, you stupid little boy!!" Easily lifting his small body with one hand, Rudolf stared at him with a twisted expression. "You will take a knife and with it you will slice the neck of some unsuspecting victim in the hunt because if you don't, I will slice your neck myself and I will enjoy watching the life escape from your innocent eyes."
Ethan's breath caught in his throat, and he looked at his own father with horror and disbelief, who no longer seemed like the same person.
"Don't think I won't kill you because you're my son." Rudolf tightened his grip on his neck, making his face turn purple. "Maybe you don't remember, but you had another older sister." The damn girl couldn't kill a simple old man in his last moments. Do you know what I did with her?
Ethan was scared to death and looked at his mother pleading for help, but she ignored him and looked coldly.
Emily was laughing with her eyes half-closed and playing with her pigtails.
I opened the fucking stomach and saw how he tried to stuff his guts back inside. So don't challenge me, you fucking kid, and do your fucking job!!
Rudolf let him go and let him fall to the ground.
He bent down a little and whispered in his ear.
"If you do what I say, I'll give you whatever you want." I know you're in love with that girl Anaís from your class. If you kill someone today, I will kidnap her for you and tie her up completely naked on your bed so you can do whatever you want with her.
The shock had not yet left Ethan's body when his father forced him to walk through the hallways again. This time, his family nucleus was meeting with his uncles.
Uncle Iván who mocked his father with a snort. Aunt Magdalena who walked alongside her husband and their two 12-year-old sons.
The boys were twins and both held rusty machetes with an excited look.
Uncle Grigor appeared last, equipped to the teeth, but something that made him tremble was an axe hanging on his back.
It was an axe different from the one in the hallway, it seemed rusty and dull. But just seeing it made his expression twist in fear, his face paled, and he almost pissed himself in terror.
He was more afraid than when his father had threatened to kill him, and that feeling only increased when the guards brought several steel boxes to the mansion's backyard.
The doors of the boxes opened, and several chained people emerged, looking around bewildered.
"Listen very carefully!" Grigor shouted to get the attention of the chained people. "Now they are in the hunt for the Bergil family." If they manage to escape more than 10 kilometers from here, they will be completely free; if they don't, they will die.
The people remained bewildered in their place, not knowing what to do or how to take Grigor's words.
An arrow shot out at full speed and lodged in the head of a 5-year-old boy who fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Ethan turned to see how Emily was holding a bow and looking at him with a smile.
"NOOOO!!"
"!!What the hell is going on?!!"
"That girl killed an innocent child!"
"Someone call the police!!"
"I'm outta here!"
The people began to run and flee from there. Some even tried to approach the child's body, but they were also pierced by Emily's arrows.
One last person came out of the metal boxes.
You had more shackles and chains than anyone else in the boxes. Besides that, you had deep lacerations all over your body and face.
His hands and legs seemed to be pierced by a sharp object, which is why he limped when he walked.
Unlike the other people in the boxes, he didn't run away immediately. He stood firmly in front of the family members, looking at them with such attention that it seemed he wanted to imprint their faces in his mind.
Emily shot one of her arrows, but Ben dodged it by moving his head slightly to the side.
His eyes seemed to ooze pure and unrestrained hatred.
If it weren't for his wounds and gagged mouth, no member of the Bergil family would have doubted that he would be upon them, tearing them apart with his teeth.
"The hunt begins"
"za!!!" Grigor shouted with excitement.