Archive of Our Own

Cold was the first thing Hunter felt as he woke up, the warmth of his blanket nowhere to be found. When he opened his eyes, instead of the familiar sight of his bedroom there was only glass. It was close enough to fog up with his breath and only faint light shining through it. His heart lurched against his ribs as his hands began cracking against the dome above him.

The lid swung open. As Hunter spilled out over the edge, hands closed on him at once and locked around his arms. His body answered before his mind could, thrashing and swinging his fists until a palm slapped him hard across the face. Light burst white behind his eyes and the fight drained out of him. He hung there, dazed.

"Easy. Nobody's gonna hurt you, or well not any more than we need to."

Hunter blinked until the smears of color resolved into faces. The boy gripping his left arm was about his own age. He was quite androgynous and was very pretty indeed. Long black hair, warm dark eyes, his skin a deep smooth brown. It contrasted nicely against the white skintight bodysuit he was wearing. It showed off his lean body and covered every inch of his skin save his face and hands. Matching sleek boots completed the look and overall it seemed like something that belonged on a sci-fi film set.

On his right stood someone taller. Blond hair, eyes a level blue, a handsome face held in something careful and serious. His suit was black and it clung to a frame fit for a quarterback. He was broad and solid where the younger boy was slim and slender.

Hunter quit struggling. The situation was strange but at least he wasn’t facing perverted creeps running a human trafficking ring.

"There you go," the older boy said as he released his grip.

Still catching his breath, Hunter turned and found himself reflected in the glossy curve of the pod he'd just climbed out of. Messy ginger curls and hazel eyes. A face he'd been told was cute more times than he liked. And a body that his very own white bodysuit had no intention of hiding, every line of his gymnast's build traced out from collar to ankle.

He looked away from himself and took in the surroundings.

A huge room, all dull grey. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything was monotone grey and lit by a glow with no visible source. It was crowded too. Boys were everywhere. Hunter's gaze swept across them and counted about fifty. The youngest looked twelve and the oldest were basically grown men. Every one of them wore a bodysuit in black or white with boots to match.

Every one of them was attractive too. No matter the age or ethnicity, all were very appealing to the eyes. Around the room were more pods, open and empty, each one clearly having held one of these boys.

Yeah. Maybe the human trafficking theory wasn't so far off after all.

"Mason," the pretty one offered, holding out a hand. "Fourteen. First one awake, probably about an hour ago."

"Archer." The blond dipped his chin. "Seventeen. Sixteenth up."

"Hunter." He clasped Mason's hand. "Last one, I'm guessing."

"Yep." Mason's smile thinned out fast. "I looked everywhere while the rest of you were still under. There's no way out of here. I checked every wall and corner. Not a door, window, opening, or vent to be found. I don’t even know how we got placed inside."

Hunter checked for himself and Mason hadn't oversold it. The walls ran unbroken into the floor and the ceiling was smooth. The whole room was sealed tight as if cast from a mold.

"And nobody remembers anything," Archer added, those blue eyes fixed on Hunter, watching his reaction. "How we got here. Anything from before they went to bed. I’m guessing you’re the same?"

Hunter cast back. The last thing he remembered was his own bedroom as he drifted off to sleep. Then the glass.

"Nothing," he admitted.

Mason breathed out slow through his nose as Archer’s jaw tightened. Evidently they’d been hoping for something else.

"Right," Mason murmured. "That's what every single one of us says."

"Most of the others aren't being friendly," Archer said, tipping his head toward the room at large. "Can't blame them. Waking up kidnapped and stuffed in a pod, the last thing I’d do is trust the stranger in the matching outfit next to you."

Hunter swept his gaze across the space again, seeing it now that he knew to look. The boys had clustered into pockets, but the pockets were small and wary, lots of solitary figures hugging the walls or sitting alone with their knees drawn up. Suspicion hung over the whole room.

"The ones sticking together knew each other before," Mason added. "Me and Archer are neighbors. I’ve known him my whole life." He nodded toward a far corner. "And those two are brothers."

Hunter followed the gesture. Two boys with similar features close together. The younger one was twelve, with a bright face that was pretty out of place with the rest of the room. When he caught Hunter looking he lifted a hand and waved a little.

The older brother was easily seventeen or eighteen and quite built, immediately sent a sharp scowl towards Hunter. One arm shifted in front of the younger boy, subtle and absolutely deliberate.

Sheesh. Hunter looked away. Real warm crowd.

"So why bother with me?" he asked, turning back to Mason. "You didn't have to come pull me out of the pod."

Mason shrugged. "It's just the right thing to do." His dark eyes flicked away, and his voice dropped a notch. "It was…. bad. Waking up alone in here, I mean. Seeing all these pods with people locked inside them and not moving." His jaw worked. "Especially finding Archer in one…. Just seeing somebody I knew sealed in. Not knowing what was going on, not knowing if anyone else was gonna wake up…. I just didn't want anyone else having a hard time when they woke up."

Archer said nothing. He stood with his arms loosely crossed and not looking at Hunter. Seems like the older boy wasn't here out of any kindness, he’s just here because Mason is.

"Well." Hunter rubbed the cheek that still tingled from Archer's slap. "Thanks. Seriously. Both of you." He glanced toward the scatter of boys he hadn't met yet. "I'm gonna go talk to some of the others, see if anyone—"

A sound cut him off.

The distinctive crackle of an intercom. But there was no speaker anyone could point trace it to. The sound seemed to bleed straight out of the smooth grey walls themselves.

Then a robotic voice came on.

"Good morning. You have been selected to participate in a game. A simple one, hide and seek."

Hunter felt the hair on his arms rise.

"The rules are simple. You must survive," the use of the word sent a visible flinch through some of the gathered boys, "for the duration of one full day. To do this, you will avoid the hunters."

Mason had gone pale beneath the warm brown of his skin while Archer was looking quite cross.

"Last one full day, and you win. You will be released. Fail to last the day, and you lose. Those who are caught will become trophies and the hunters will keep what they catch."

The room exploded with noise.

"What the fuck is this?!"
"Let us out! LET US OUT!"
"You can't do this! Somebody’s gonna look for us, you bastards!"

The shouting overlapped as boys surged up off the floor, fists pounding the seamless walls. Denial poured out of them calling this a prank or just shouting obscenities. Hunter found his own throat tight, his pulse hammering. Mason had grabbed onto Archer without seeming to notice it.

For about a minute the voice let them rage until they ran out of energy. Then when the shouting started to thin.…

"You appear to require a demonstration."

A high chime played before a shaft of light dropped straight down out of the ceiling. It landed on a single boy. The young boy here with his older brother. The one who'd waved at Hunter.

The light swallowed him whole, wrapping his small frame in a bright glow. Hunter could still make out his outline within it, he was turning around looking for the source of the chime. His brother lunged with a strangled shout, but the light held him back like a wall.

A few seconds passed before the beam vanished, snapping off as fast as it had come.

The boy was still standing there, but….

His bodysuit was gone. Seemingly vaporized, he was completely bare in the middle of the room. And his small cocklet stood fully erect, flushed and straining upward. Thin watery fluid erupted out of it before slowing down to a stream, running down in steady glistening lines. The fishy smell told Hunter that it was cum.

The boys nearest him recoiled, gasps and a few sobs breaking out. His brother's voice tore across the room.

"You disgusting bastards! FUCKING PEDOS!" The teen crashed to his knees beside his brother, hands flying to the boy's shoulders.

"Hey. Kyle, look at me. Look at me."

The boy didn't.

The teen shook him. The small body rocked stiffly with the motion, rigid as a mannequin before settling right back into its pose. The brother shook harder, becoming more hysterical as nothing he did elicited a response. Not a flinch or blink. Not even a sound. The boy simply stayed frozen as if time had stopped for him alone.

The more Hunter stared, the worse it got. The boy was beautiful. Tousled light brown hair. Round cheeks that dimpled when he smiled, as Hunter had seen earlier. A small upturned nose faintly freckled across the bridge. A delicate jaw, a slim throat, narrow shoulders tapering down to a slight frame. He was adorable, everyone in the room would’ve wanted to protect him in a normal scenario.

And that was what made it unbearable.

All that cuteness was still there, but it was hollow now. He looked alive and well, yet he remained unresponsive. His eyes were the worst of it. Hunter had seen them bright mere minutes ago. Warm and curious, even in a scary place. From where Hunter stood, he could see them clearly over the brother's shoulder.

They were empty. Open and glassy. There was no one inside, no trace of that happy boy. Just two black holes set into that sweet face, staring at nothing, while his cock was on display and that thin clear stream kept trickling down his rigid little body.

He was a trophy.

His brother's shouting had collapsed into broken sounds, his hands gripping the boy's arms like he could shake the life back into him through sheer force of will. The older brother's head wrenched up toward the ceiling, tears tracking down it while his hands stayed locked on his little brother's frozen arms.

"What did you DO to him?!" he screamed. "Bring him back! BRING HIM BACK!"

"Your brother is now a trophy," the voice said, calm and unhurried. "Allow me to clarify what that means, since it seems to require explanation."

The room held its breath.

"He will never age. He will remain exactly as he is now, indefinitely. He will never require food, water, or sleep. He will never need to relieve himself. He cannot be physically harmed. He cannot not die. He is, in the most literal sense, preserved. Permanently."

The brother's mouth was working but no words came.

"However, his mind has been completely erased. The price of immortality. There is no longer anyone inside to bring back. All that remains is the body, and it belongs to whoever claims it. To be used, displayed, and enjoyed in any manner the owner desires. That is what it means to become a trophy. That is what is at stake."

For one long second the older boy just knelt there. Then he broke.

"No. No no no, you're lying, this isn't…. Bring him BACK! Please! He’s just a KID! HE’S TWELVE!!!"

His words dissolved into heaving sobs, his whole body shaking as he clutched the frozen child to his chest, rocking him and raving, half praying and half cursing.

"Please, please, that's my little brother! PLEASE—"

The chime returned. A shaft of white light dropped straight down over him, swallowing his kneeling form, as another round of cries went up from the watching boys.

A few seconds passed before the light snapped off.

The teen didn’t moved. Couldn't. He was frozen, bent forward over his brother, arms wrapped around the smaller body, face looking up in despair. And like his brother, his bodysuit was gone, leaving every inch of him bare to the silent room.

The teen was built like a sculptor’s dream. Broad shoulders drawing down to narrow hips. Dark hair cut close on the sides and tousled on top. The same upturned nose as his brothers and his freckles scattered across a more angular face. He was very statuesque indeed.

That made the rest of it grotesque.

The two of them locked together made a scene that almost tender. The protective older brother folded around the little one he'd failed to save. Their faces told two different stories. The younger’s was curious, sweet snd unbothered. The elder's was a mask of pure despair. eyes shining with tears that would never fall and preserved at the peak of his anguish.

Both had their erections on full display. The younger’s boycock still had clear stream glistening down his thighs. And the elder had his thick cock erupting as pulse after pulse of white cum painted his stomach and pooled beneath him in

The contrast was perfect. Soft and statuesque. Curious and despairing. The thin clear stream and the thick white flood. Hunter hated to admit it, but if one wanted a dual trophy, this was a splendid one.

The watching boys had gone dead silent, several with hands clapped over their mouths. The chime came one final time. A column of light broad enough to swallow them both descended. When it vanished, so had they. The only proof either of them had ever stood there at all was a puddle of cooling cum on the floor.

The room exploded a second time. Far louder as the demonstration having stripped away all disbelief. Boys screamed and sobbed. Boys hammered the walls until their fists must have ached as others backed from the puddle on the floor in disgust and horror.

It took longer for the noise to die this time. But it did, eventually, dread settling over the room heavier than panic ever could.

"Does anyone have further questions?" the voice asked, as breezily as a tour guide.

For a moment no one dared. Then a small figure near the front straightened.

He was probably the youngest one here, and one of the most beautiful too. An albino, hair white as paper, skin a few shades darker. His eyes a soft mix of pink and purple that looked luminous. His condition had somehow enhanced his beauty instead of spoiling it.

"Can you tell us more? About where we're going? What it's like?"

Brave kid. Does he even understand the implications of what becoming a trophy means, especially considering what was leaking out of those two before they disappeared?

"Of course!" The voice brightened, delighted to be asked. "You will all be released into a model environment. An enclosed world. It is more than large enough to comfortably contain the remaining forty eight of you. In fact, if every one of you chose to hide entirely alone and in separate areas, there would still be a great deal of distance between each of you. Space will not be your problem."

The boy nodded along.

"Food and clean water are distributed everywhere throughout the environment, along with shelter and amenities of all kinds. You will want for nothing. And to spare you any discomfort during the game, each of you has already been injected with nanites that eliminate the need to urinate or defecate. So there's no need to worry about that at all!"

A ripple of revulsion moved through the room and Hunter felt his own stomach turn. His skin crawled at the thought of something microscopic swimming through him and rewiring what his body did. He resisted the urge to claw at his own arm.

"What about the hunters?" Asked another boy. "What are they gonna do to us? What ARE they?"

"Ah. I'm afraid I can't say much there, it would spoil the game." A note of genuine regret. "But I can tell you this. The hunters are very good at finding their quarry. They are equipped with different tools and features whether those be trackers, scanners, and x-ray vision, among others. Hiding will be a real challenge."

"They are also armed. All of their weapons are designed for restraint so laser cages, stun bombs, those sort of things. And of course the stasis rifle, which has been specially modified to turn its targets into trophies. Or, if the hunter prefers, even into posable statues! So please, try very hard not to be caught."

Hunter's mind reeled. Laser cages. Stun bombs. Stasis rifles? Skepticism welled up before he glanced at the cum puddle. Never mind.

"There will be eight hunters in total," the voice added as helpful as ever.

The albino boy spoke again. "Where will they come from? Will we know when they arrive or will we just be surprised when they show up?"

"Excellent question!" The voice trilled. "The hunters will all arrive together, in the hiding ground itself. But don't worry about missing them, no one will. It's quite hard to miss something descending from the sky!"

Hunter's thoughts spun uselessly around the impossibilities stacking one atop another. Waking up in a pod. Machines in his blood. People turned to leaking statues by a beam of light. Hunters that fell from the sky, armed with technology that shouldn't exist anywhere on Earth.

What the hell are we even being hunted by? Robots? Aliens? Alien robots?

But he kept his mouth shut. He had his questions but he had no intention of angering the announcer and becoming the third trophy of the day.

It was Mason, surprisingly, who spoke up next.

"I have two questions," he said. "Why are the….. trophies cumming?" He swallowed. "And why is this happening to us?"

"The first is easy!" the voice answered, delighted. "The trophies expel semen because that is what the hunters enjoy seeing. The stasis technology has been tuned to force the affected body to discharge all of its seminal content at the moment of capture. There's no need for concern, though. These initial eruptions taper off quickly, once the testicles have emptied completely. After that, the trophy will only continually leak a small steady trickle until it is readjusted to its owner's preference!"

Oh good, Hunter thought numbly. So glad their dignity's accounted for.

"As for the second question..." The voice took on a coy lilt. "I'm afraid that one stays with us. Why should the prey need to understand why the hunters do as they please? It would change nothing for you. Know only this: they have a vested interest in human boys. That is all you require."

A vested interest in human boys…. Urgh, how ominous.

"And with that," the voice declared, "you have all the intelligence you need."

A sound rolled through the room as on the formerly seamless grey walls, doors were appearing, More than a dozen of them were scattered around the chamber, each one yawning into darkness.

"You have one hour to run and hide before the hunt begins. Choose well! Unless, of course, you'd like to join your friends as a trophy. Good luck!"

Silence and then every boy bolted at once. Scrambling toward whichever door was nearest, the air filling with the stomping of boots and the ragged sound of panicked breathing. Within seconds the chamber was emptying out.

Hunter just stood there.

It was too much. He couldn’t handle all this, he just woke up like ten minutes ago! How is he supposed to deal with probable aliens and being hunted and trying to hide unless he wanted to be turned into a fucking life sized sex doll?! He felt himself blanking out before a hand grabbed his.

"Hunter. Come on." Mason was tugging him, dark eyes wide, Archer already ahead of them. The room had nearly emptied. Just them now and one other.

The albino boy. Still standing exactly where he'd been, white hair and pale skin almost glowing under the sterile light. He hadn't moved an inch.

Hunter let Mason pull him a few steps, before turning back. "Hey! Hey, you! Come with us, you can't just stand there!"

The boy turned that luminous pink gaze on him and offered a serene smile.

"I'm right where I want to be," he said simply.

Hunter faltered. There was something in the kid's calm that he didn't have time to understand. Mason yanked again.

Suit yourself, then. Hunter tore his eyes away and ran.

The three of them hit the nearest door together and plunged through. Beyond it the hallway was pitch black. Almost zero visibility, just the walls close on either side and the floor pitching unevenly beneath their boots. It sloped, Hunter realized, the angle dropping away under them. Inclines and declines, the passage carrying them steadily downwards.

They ran blindly, hands brushing the walls. Mason's grip still locked in Hunter's, Archer's breathing somewhere ahead. The descent went on and on. And then, a light. A pale glow at the end. The three of them rushed toward it. They burst out of the tunnel mouth into open air, and Hunter's brain stalled trying to take it in.

A city sprawled out below and ahead of them. Streets, storefronts, and skyscrapers under a sky that wasn't quite right. And far out, a faint shimmer hung in the air. A rippling translucent wall that climbed up out of sight. The edge of the map.

They'd come out onto a platform a couple stories up, a wide ledge jutting from the side of a structure. Hunter turned to look up at what they'd emerged from. A spire. Impossibly tall, a needle of pale metal that dwarfed even the tallest skyscraper until its peak vanished into the false sky. They must have on the lower floors because now way they descended something this tall so quickly.

"Look," Archer murmured.

Hunter followed his gaze down to the streets. There were figures everywhere. Standing on corners, paused on sidewalks, dotted through the open spaces. None of them moving. Props, he thought. Mannequins to make it look lived in. And weaving between those still shapes were flashes of black and white. Their fellow players sprinting down avenues and ducking into doorways, scattering into the city to disappear.

"There's a lift." Mason pointed. Set into the side of the platform was a simple open elevator, the three of them piled onto it. It carried them down rapidly, the city rising up around them until the rooftops were overhead and they were level with the streets.

They stepped off and ran. The city was silent, the clacking of their boots the only sound they could hear. As they moved deeper into the city searching for somewhere to hide, they passed close to the standing figures for the first time.

They weren't mannequins, they were boys.

Boys dressed up in outfits of all kinds. A delivery boy with one hand carrying a parcel. A worker in coveralls. A construction boy with a hardhat tipped back. A waiter frozen with a tray balanced on his palm. Boys in school uniforms and satchels over their shoulders. Boys in casual clothes, in trendy fashion, in every genre of clothes just posed in the streets or inside shops mimicking everyday life.

All of them frozen. All of them beautiful. All of them sporting empty eyes, windows into the void.

"Oh my god," Mason gasped as he pointed at something. Hunter saw it and understood his reaction. Because there at the corner, dressed in crisp private school uniforms, stood two figures he recognized. The brothers. The older one's hand resting on the younger one's shoulder. Both of them sporting pleasant smiles. The little one looking up at his big brother, the older one looking fondly down. Picture perfect and wholesome.

How? They'd been taken like less than twenty minutes ago! How had they been changed and clothed so quickly? They were in an unseemly state before but now they were arranged as a display of brotherly affection, as if they were just decorations. But….. Hunter supposes that that’s all they are now.

Still their presence here added a new level of discomfort. The hundreds of still figures dressed up and scattered through this entire fake city….. every last one of them had been a player like Hunter. Probably belonging to the organizer of game, Hunter doubts that the hunters would be generous enough to give up their prizes for use as decor.

When Archer saw what Mason was pointing at, he actually recoiled from the frozen siblings, like he couldn't stand to look at them. It startled Hunter, Archer had been subdued and relatively calm this entire time. To see him shaken was shocking. Not that Hunter could blame him. The little one's empty cheer, the older brother beaming where minutes ago his face had been full of despair. There was something deeply wrong about it.

"Let's keep moving," Archer said roughly and they happily did so, eager to distance themselves from the siblings. They went a few blocks deeper before settling on a building. A corporate building, sleek and tall but rather average among its taller neighbors. Its faces were covered in large glass windows.

"Not this one," Hunter said, eyeing the glass. "Look at all those windows. If the hunters come from above, they can see right in. We should find somewhere else, preferably with less glass."

"It's fine," Archer cut in. "It's totally ordinary in this district. It blends right in with every other building on the street. Nobody's gonna pick this one, especially since there are plenty more obvious hiding spots around it."

Mason nodded. "Two against one, sorry."

Outvoted, Hunter followed them in.

The lobby and the floors above were populated with more trophies. Teenagers dressed in crisp business attire, posed as office workers. Frozen with coffee cups, paused over keyboards, standing in little clusters as if chatting. The trio wove between them and headed up. They found a somewhat high floor and holed up in an interior room well away from the windows.

Once they'd caught their breath, Hunter volunteered to scout the rest of the building. He found a couple of useful things. The elevators worked, would have been nice to know before they climbed up the stairs. Not sure if they’d be helpful since the floor they’re hiding on is pretty high up though. There was a large cafeteria that was well stocked with food and water, just as promised, with a big digital clock mounted on the wall ticking down the hours. There were even two boys posed as chefs in the gleaming kitchen.

Hunter was heading back when he heard voices through the door of their hiding room and paused.

"You should've just left him." Archer's said with his voice hushed. "It's easier to hide with two than three. Less noise and less to argue about. We don't even know him."

"Archer." Mason's voice came back, firm. "The city's huge. One more person isn't gonna get us caught if the hunters manage to find us anyway in such a large area. And it'd be a horrible thing to do, leaving him out to dry. He didn't even get a minute to figure out what was happening before the announcer started talking. We all woke up scared. He's no different."

A pause. Archer didn't answer.

Warmth pushed through the fear in Hunter's chest. It was nice to know that there really was someone nice and trustworthy in this game. From the start Mason had helped him and now he defended him without even knowing Hunter was listening.

He waited a moment before pushing the door open and acting like he'd heard nothing at all.

"Okay, good news. Elevators actually work, might’ve saved us some time earlier but now we’re so high up that I don’t know if the elevator can even arrive on time if we need to escape fast. And there's a huge cafeteria a few floors down with tons of food and water. There's a big clock down there too so we can keep track of the time." He paused. "There’s also two trophy chefs in the kitchen. Par for the course at this point but you might get surprised if you head down there."

No sooner had the words left Hunter's mouth than a sound split the air. A loud trumpet blast rolling across the entire city like a herald.

Through the large windows down the hall, light flared. Eight points of brilliance had appeared high in the sky. The trio watched they began to descend toward the city in slow arcs, spreading out over the skyline as they came.

The hunters were here.

"Get back," Archer hissed and the three of them scrambled away from the glass, retreating back to the hiding room of choice. Windowless, close to stairs and elevator, and with a clock to tell the time. They pressed inside and pulled the door nearly shut.

"Someone needs to keep eyes out," Hunter said. "Check where the hunters are every so often. I'll do it every hour or two." He volunteered to put distance between himself and Archer. Hunter didn't trust himself not to say something if he stayed cooped up beside him.

So they settled in to wait. For a while they talked. Where the hunters might be, what the hunters were, how big the city really was, whether anyone had found a better hiding spot. But the conversation thinned and died as time passed, unease curdling into silence. Especially once the cannon noises started. They echoes across the city at an irregular pace. They didn’t know what it meant but it probably wasn’t good.

Four hours passed. Hunter rose to check the windows again. On his way he glanced up at the sky through the glass. The sun still hadn't moved.

Well at least that’s definitive proof that the whole sky's fake.

Then he saw it.

On the rooftop of a neighboring building taller than the one they hid in, something hovered. Hunter dropped instantly, throwing himself behind the nearest cubicle wall. But after a heartbeat he edged one eye around the corner to look.

A large smooth metal sphere floated above the rooftop, easily the size of a car. At its center sat a single glowing red orb, a great unblinking optic that swept slowly across the cityscape. From that orb, a beam lanced out. A laser scanner, fanning over the building below it with a low electronic hum that Hunter could hear faintly. The beam swept down through floors and walls. To Hunter's horror, he could suddenly see what it saw. Two red human outlines lit up inside the structure, two boys crouching their hidden forms rendered visible by whatever pulse the thing emitted.

The sphere's surface rippled. Two sleek cannons emerged, swiveling around before firing into the building.

BOOM. BOOM.

Two of those cannon blasts. Inside, the two red outlines flashed brilliant white.

Then they rose. Two figures floated up out of the building, drifting weightlessly through the air toward the sphere. Even at this distance Hunter could see the telltale shine as thin streams of fluid trailed from them as they came, semen leaking from the fresh trophies as the orb drew them in. They vanished into the sphere and it sealed shut, the red eye resuming its patient search.

Hunter's mouth had gone dry.

And far off past the sphere, near the shimmering edge of the map, something else moved. He squinted. A shape was descending the face of a distant skyscraper, ten legs gripping the wall as it climbed down like a spider, a long staff like weapon clutched in one of its limbs.

The hunters. Not one of them remotely human.

Hunter was about to slip away from the windows, his pulse hammering, when movement caught his eye. Right across the street. The building opposite to theirs was all glass, its broad windows offering Hunter a clear, unobstructed view straight into one of its floors. And there, a boy was running for his life.

He was sprinting between the office furniture and behind him flowed his pursuer, a mass of glowing neon blue slime lugging along a few trophies inside itself and what looked like a slender lance. It moved fast for something with no legs, surging across the floor after the boy.

Hunter watched, unable to look away.

The slime extended a tendril, a long whip of itself that lashed out and wrapped around the boy's ankle. He went down, fingers scrabbling at the carpet, and then he was yanked backward and hauled off the floor. The poor thing was flung straight into the slime and it swallowed him.

The boy disappeared into the translucent blue, suspended inside it, and Hunter could see everything through the glass and slime both. The boy thrashed, his limbs pushing against the gelatinous walls that held him. Then the slime began to work him. The bodysuit melted away inside the mass and the boy was bared. The inner slime flowed over him in deliberate currents.

Hunter saw a thick coil of it wrap around the boy's cock and begin to stroke, sliding up and down in a steady rhythm as another tendril pressed between his cheeks into his ass, sinking in and pumping. The boy's struggling changed. Panic drained out of his movements. His head tipping back, his mouth falling open as more slime poured in through there to fuck his throat. Even through two panes of glass and the rippling slime, Hunter could see the boy's face go slack and blissed out as the slime worked his cock and his hole at once.

When the boy was about to orgasm, the slime acted. The lance suspended in its mass drew back and pressed itself into its own body. Pressing the weapon through its substance until the tip poked against the boy's bare skin.

A bright flash followed by a cannon blast.

The new trophy’s cock began to pulse, thick white spilling out into the surrounding slime. The neon blue mass drank it in, swirling the cum through itself, growing larger the more it consumed.

Hunter had seen more than enough. He bolted back through to the interior office, bursting in on Mason and Archer.

"There are at least two of them close by," he said, breathless. "And they don't all hunt in the same way. One's this floating metal sphere, it's got an eye that scans straight through walls and cannons that just shoot the stasis beam right through the building. The other’s a literal blue slime. It grabs you and pulls you inside…. it doesn't matter. They both turn you into a trophy. The cannon blasts we keep hearing? It’s a signal. Every boom is somebody getting caught."

Archer's face had gone pale. "I've been counting them," he said quietly. "I thought they were signals or something."

"How many?"

"Sixteen."

Hunter did the math and felt sick. "We're only a sixth of the way through," Mason whispered. "And we're already down by a third. At this rate there won’t be anyone left to win."

"Okay, we can't just sit here," Hunter said. "If that sphere's scan can see through walls, an interior room doesn't help us, it'll—"

A low hum cut him off. Hunter knew that sound. He'd just heard it.

"Move." He grabbed both of them, yanking them toward the door. "The scanner! It's the scanner! GO!"

They scrambled out and sprinted to the stairwell, hands skidding along the railings as they took the steps three and four at a time. Above them, Hunter saw the red laser fan of the scanner sweeping down through the upper floors, descending toward them.

"Faster!" he gasped.

They flew down the stairs, flight after flight, lungs burning. And the red beam followed them. Hunter could see it gaining, the crimson light bleeding closer through each level they cleared. His mind screamed that they weren't going to make it, that any second the outlines of three boys would light up and the cannons would soon fire.

The scanner dissipated. The red light and hum just gone and the stairwell plunging back into quiet. The sphere had decided to try its luck elsewhere, just barely missing the three boys.

For a while they just stood there gasping and catching their breath. Mason slumped against the railing, chest still heaving. "Let’s just go to the cafeteria. It’s on a lower floor and closer to the street. If we have to bolt to another building we can do it faster from there."

Nobody argued, too drained from the close brush with becoming a trophy. The cafeteria was as Hunter had left it. Archer took one look at the chef boys and maneuvered their stiff bodies into a back corner far out of sight.

"I'm not eating with husks staring at me," he muttered. They ate. Hunter felt strange to be hungry in the middle of all this, but they’d certainly need the energy if they wanted to be able to keep running.

Another five hours bled away. Fewer blasts this time as Archer kept his grim tally. By their count, the players were down to twenty four. Half of them already trophies…. It was quite grim. Hunter checked the windows every so often and thankfully saw no more creatures prowling close. He found himself volunteering for those window checks more and more, and not entirely out of caution.

The truth was, he was starting to feel like a third wheel. It was obvious, Mason had a crush on Archer. It was written all over him. The way he angled toward the older boy, the way he laughed a beat too eagerly at anything Archer said, the way his eyes lingered. Archer was completely oblivious to it, treating Mason like a longtime neighbor and family friend but nothing more. Maybe the brush with the hunter had made Mason bolder as Hunter caught him being more blatant as the hours wore on. Leaning in, finding more reasons to touch Archer's arm. Still, Archer noticed none of it.

It left Hunter feeling distinctly extra. So he checked the windows. On the tenth hour of the game, he pushed up from the cafeteria table to go check again. "I'll come with you," Mason said, surprising him, rising to follow.

They walked together down the corridor away from the cafeteria, and once they were out of Archer's earshot, Hunter glanced sidelong at Mason. "So," he said, keeping his voice light. "You and Archer."

Mason's head snapped toward him, and a flush bloomed across his warm brown cheeks. He looked away fast. "Was I that obvious?"

"Little bit," Hunter admitted. "I don't know if he's oblivious or just ignoring it because, y'know." He gestured vaguely at their whole situation. "Hard to focus on romance when you're being hunted by aliens."

Mason huffed. "No. He’s oblivious, trust me. Archer's always been like that. People confess to him all the time and he just... doesn't get it. He doesn't realize he's charming. He'll do something completely romantic and have no idea that's what it looks like." He shook his head, a rueful smile tugging at his mouth. "To him I'm just a neighbor. His friend's bratty little brother who's tagged along for forever."

"But you’re trying anyway," Hunter said softly.

"I have to." Mason's voice cracked a little, and he stopped walking. "Hunter…. any second now I could get turned into some alien's furniture. Frozen forever with my mind wiped, dressed up and posed for their enjoyment like a stuffed bear." He swallowed hard. "I couldn't just... not say it. I had to get it out. Even if he didn't understand a word of it, at least I told him. At least it's not stuck inside me anymore." He gave a deep sigh. "At least it’s off my chest, right?"

They'd reached a stretch of windows. Hunter hung back and kept to the shadows along the inner wall. But Mason drifted forward, stopping in the open where the false sunlight poured in through the glass.

And Hunter just... looked at him.

Lit up like that, the light catching in his dark hair and warming his skin, a small blush still on his face. His pretty features in a pensive unguarded look….. Mason really was lovely. Hunter found himself struck by it, by how kind this boy had been, baring his whole heart to a near stranger because he was scared he might never get another chance. He really didn’t deserve to be here, none of them did, but Mason truly didn’t.

A white laser shot through the window and struck Mason square in the chest.

The cannon blast rang out in the same instant. The shock of the light suddenly hitting Mason sent Hunter staggering backward. His stumbled backwards and fell onto the floor, yet his eyes never left Mason as brilliant white swallowed the boy whole.

The light faded and Mason was there. He stood where he'd been but now he was white. Gleaming and flawless marble. Hunter's stomach lurched in confusion until remembering that the stasis tech could be modified. Trophies or statues. Whoever had fired through that window had chosen the latter. What they'd made was beautiful.

Mason had been caught in that pensive moment, and the petrification had kept it perfectly. His pretty face tilted slightly downward, lips just parted as though about to speak, his brows furrowed in soft contemplation. The androgynous delicacy of his features had translated into the white stone exquisitely. His long black hair had turned to stone along with the rest of him, the soft locks frozen in the gentle swaying of his movement. Individual strands seemingly flowing where they framed his face and spilled past his shoulders to drape his neck and upper back. It lent the statue an even greater air of grace.

His body had settled into a pose of relaxed elegance. Weight on one leg, the other knee gently bent, one arm drifting slightly from his side with the fingers loose. The slender lines of his smooth chest, the soft taper of his waist, and his long limbs all intensified the effect.

And unlike all the others, there was no obscenity to it. His cock wasn't rigid and spewing. It was soft, just another graceful detail of the whole. He looked like a statue from the golden age of antiquity. People would travel across the world to stand before him in hushed reverence. He was dignified and serene while every other trophy had been an obscene leaking spectacle.

It’s like he had been born to become a statue.

The thought arrived unbidden and shame violently crashed over Hunter. How could he think that? Mason was kind. Mason was brave. He could’ve stuck to himself and not help Hunter calm down at the start. He could’ve left Hunter behind when he’d blanked out from panic. And Hunter's repaid that kindness by thinking his defilement was beautiful.

Hunter swallowed the self-hatred down. There was a time for that later, he had to move.

Hunter scrambled up off the floor and fled, ducking beneath the line of the windows until he reached a doorway and slipped inside. He pressed himself against the wall and peeked back through the gap of the door.

Shadows fell across the corridor. The light from outside blocked out by something vast moving beyond the glass. A massive tentacle slid in through the broken window, thick and glistening, moving with surprising delicacy. It curled around the white statue that was Mason and lifted him with the gentlest care.

For an instant, as the statue rose and turned in the tentacle's grip, Mason's blank white eyes seemed to meet Hunter's terrified hazel ones. Then the tentacle withdrew and Mason was gone, carried away out of sight by whatever had claimed him. Hunter sank down against the wall, stupefied as tears spilled down his cheeks.

How am I supposed to face Archer?

How was he supposed to walk back into that cafeteria and tell Archer that his neighbor and friend was gone while Hunter watched from the shadows and survived? But Archer would be worried by now. They'd been gone far too long. And if Hunter didn't go back, Archer would go looking and that was just one more boy wandering through the open to get caught. He had to go back now, before he got anyone else turned into a trophy too.

It took a while as he was being extra cautious, but Hunter eventually made it back. When he trudged back into the cafeteria alone, Archer was already on his feet.

"Where's Mason?"

Hunter couldn't answer. He didn't have to. The tears still glistening on his cheeks and the guilt on his face told Archer everything. The teen’s expression collapsed, raw grief pouring forth. Then it hardened into fury.

He crossed the room and seized Hunter by the scruff of his bodysuit, hauling him up onto his toes, blue eyes blazing. "What happened?" His voice shook. "What the fuck happened?"

"It was so fast," Hunter stammered, the words tumbling out. "We were by the windows and…. a laser came through the glass and it just hit him. I didn't even…. I didn't realize what was happening until it was already done, Archer. I swear, we didn’t even see the hunter before everything was over!"

He left out the reason they had talked in the hallway. Archer didn't need that weight on top of everything else. "When everything was done, a tentacle came in and took him. They…. turned him into a statue. He's gone. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Archer's hands moved. They slid from Hunter's collar to his throat, and they squeezed, the older boy's grip tightening with his eyes dark and wild with rage. Hunter's air cut off. He struggled at first, instinctive, fingers clawing at Archer's wrists
And then he stopped.

He went limp. Because….. he deserved it. He distracted Mason by starting that conversation in the first place. Mason became a statue because of him. If Archer wanted to choke the life out of him for it, who was Hunter to fight? He closed his eyes and let the darkness crowd in at the edges, accepting his end.

The grip released. Hunter dropped, gasping. Archer was suddenly scrambling over him, voice cracking.

"I'm sorry, I didn't…. Hunter, what have I done? I'm sorry!" He looked stricken, horrified at himself. Hunter didn't understand it. Couldn't have known what Archer saw in that moment. a boy just like the friend he’d just lost just accepting his death. His eyes as empty as any of the trophies out there on the street. It had broken Archer out of his rage, replacing it with self-hatred and guilt. None of this was Hunter's fault. Mason being taken wasn't something a fourteen year old could have stopped any more than Archer could have. So he'd let go.

They didn't speak much after that. The hours dragged on, they spent them on opposite ends of the cafeteria as they ate and drank silence. Archer took up the window watch himself now. Hunter was too forlorn to be trusted with it, and Archer wasn’t about to do that to an obviously traumatized boy. So he dutifully checked the windows while keeping count of the cannon blasts.

But exhaustion was creeping in on both of them. They'd been awake for most of the day, running and hiding on top of the stress and paranoia. Hunter's eyes burned, his limbs were heavy. Across the room, he could see Archer in the same condition as him.

A few more uneventful hours passed before Archer slipped back into the cafeteria from his latest watch, his face grim. "We need to move."

Hunter looked up. "Why?"

"It's been quiet for a while, no cannon shots. From what I've been seeing, they've already swept the tops of the buildings. They're working the lower levels now." Archer crouched beside him. "This building is way too open down here. The lobby, all that glass, the cafeteria's exits. We'd get pinned in. I don't want to go back up either, they'll still have a lookout watching the high floors."

It made sense. Hunter nodded and pushed himself up.

They packed what food and water they needed and slipped out the back of the building into the open. They moved from shadow to shadow, pressing into doorways, ducking behind the frozen boys that decorated the city. There was something deeply unsettling about using the trophies as cover, especially if they had to be near the faces and staring into their empty eyes. But it worked. The hunters' scans slid right over the existing trophies and missed them.

Their destination was a construction site in the distance. Archer had seen it during his window watches and said the hunters had scanned it thoroughly hours ago. That means they’d be less likely to check it again. A gamble for sure, but better than the building they’d nearly gotten caught in and lost Mason at.

As they made their way toward it, the cannon shots began again. Hunter flinched as he was yanked by Archer into an alley. From the shadows, they watched the hunt resume in earnest, and the city gave up its hidden boys one by one.

Across the street, a boy in a white bodysuit broke from a doorway in a desperate sprint as the metal sphere drifted up over the rooftop behind him, its red eye fixing on his back. The scanner washed over him, lighting up his fleeing outline as a cannon fired. The boy was engulfed in light before he toppled over, frozen. Hunter watched his stilled body lifted off the pavement and floated up into the orb, leaking semen the whole way.

Further down, two boys who'd been hiding together were cornered in a recessed shopfront by the ten legged hunter, the spider thing skittering down the wall and cutting off their escape. It leveled its staff and fired twice in quick succession. Both boys were frozen where they cowered, clutching each other. Their young cocks erect and weeping their watery seed down their thighs as the creature pointed its staff at them once more to teleport the boys away.

And in a glass fronted lobby, Hunter saw one boy meet a particularly cruel end. The boy had trapped himself in an elevator, riding it up and down, trying to stay ahead of the hunter in the building by never staying on one floor. But the metal sphere had found him anyway, its scanner punching through the shaft to mark his frantic outline in red as the elevator moved. The boy was doomed from then on, Hunter seeing the boy become increasingly panicked as he realized he was glowing and could be seen by others. The poor boy eventually broke down crying. He was put out of his misery when the other Hunter in the building finally reached him. Finally, the boy’s crying outline flashed white and disappeared.

By the time Hunter and Archer reached the construction site, a tower of girders and scaffolding populated by construction boys, the cannon shots had tapered off again. By Archer's count, the city was nearly empty.

Twelve players left. Hunter checked the time on a large digital clock nearby. Nineteen hours gone. Just five more to survive.

But the construction site had drawn another hunter's notice. It came gliding across the city skyline. A vast glowing thing, shaped like a jellyfish or near enough to it. Its great translucent bell pulsed with inner light, casting a pale ghostly glow over everything beneath it. From its underside trailed long luminous tendrils tippled with sparking claws and wires that drifted and curled as it moved. It was approaching fast, drawn to the half-built tower, its light sweeping the girders and scaffolding as it hunted.

"Split up," Archer hissed. "Better odds if we're not together. Go."

They separated.

Hunter went down. He'd decided on something almost stupid. Hide in plain sight. He ducked into a construction office shed to where a frozen foreman boy stood posed over a set of blueprints, a heavy work jacket on his shoulders. Hunter peeled the jacket off the trophy as gently as he could, shrugging it on over his bodysuit and grabbed a hardhat. He positioned himself near the others, sitting next to the desk with a hand flat on the plans before going as still as he could. He prayed that he could pass for one more empty prop in a city full of them and that the hunters wouldn’t scrutinize them too much.

Archer went up. Into the unfinished upper levels, the open skeleton of beams and exposed steel, thinking to lose himself among the girders.

It was the wrong call.

The jellyfish reached the site and chose the upper structure to search, its bell hovering just outside the open framework while it sent its glowing tendrils slithering in through the gaps, probing methodically between the beams. It ignored the shed entirely and focused its attention on the exposed heights where Archer was hiding.

Hunter, daring not to move, watched through the shed's window in mounting horror. Archer was trapped up there. He crept from beam to beam, the luminous tendrils sweeping the spaces he'd just left as they grasping blindly through the steel. He was good but the jellyfish was patient and thorough, the area available to Archer kept shrinking. Tendril by tendril, it herded him without knowing it, until Archer was backed into a corner of the unfinished floor.

Behind him, the glowing tentacles slithered closer. Ahead of him gaped an unfinished floor, a chasm separating him from the next section of the site where he might still find cover. He couldn't go back. He couldn't go forward. But he had a rope. A long coil of it, scavenged from somewhere on the floor. Hunter saw him grip it. If he could sling it across the gap and snag it on the exposed steel beyond, on a section the jellyfish had already explored, he could swing or climb across and escape.

Archer set his feet. He gauged the distance, the grasping tendrils a body's length behind him now. He drew the rope back, taking aim at a jutting girder across the chasm and threw.

He missed.

The rope’s arc too short, the loop failing to catch, and the heavy coil dropped into the construction site with a loud echoing thud. The jellyfish reacted instantly, its tendrils converging on the corner where the noise had come from, where Archer stood with empty hands and nowhere left to go. Before Archer could even be disappointed with his failure, they reached him.

A bright flash bloomed from within the steel framework.

BOOM.

The jellyfish withdrew, rising back up out of the tower with its prize cradled in its tendrils. As it glided slowly back over Hunter's hiding spot, the new trophy held aloft beneath it, Hunter got a long unobstructed look at what had become of Archer.

He was naked, every inch of him bared and held up in the jellyfish's glowing grip. Even now he was splendid. The stasis had taken him in his last moment exactly as he'd been. Handsome face caught in a frozen expression of determination, jaw clenched and brows drawn, blue eyes still fixed on the throw he failed. A stubborn refusal to give up locked onto his features for eternity. His powerful build was laid out in full. Broad shoulders, developed pectorals and abs, strong thighs, all of it glowing in the grasp of the jellyfish.

His large cock was engorged, slapping against his belly. A river of thick white cum pumping out of it in and running over and down his abs and thighs as the jellyfish bore him up and away. And then Archer was gone.

Hunter held his pose in the shed, not daring to so much as breathe, tears welling silently in his eyes. So Hunter stayed. He held his pose in the construction shed and made himself into furniture. The trance came easier than he expected. When you held perfectly still for long enough, the world thinned out and time lost its shape. Even his grief seemed to lessen. He stopped tracking the hours. There was no clock in the shed, nothing to mark the passage but the occasional distant cannon blast.

They were so rare now. By the blasts he counted in his stupor, there were only two players left in the whole arena. Surely the day had to be nearly over. Surely he was close! Hunter hoped the other player was safe, that he was far away from any of the hunters. If they had lasted this long, they must be good!

It was all the more startling then when the other surviving player walked straight into the shed. A cute boy with black hair and unusually pale eyes stepped through the doorway. He was in ordinary clothes like some of the trophies on the streets, glancing back over his shoulder, scanning the sky beyond for any sign of the hunters.

It was so abrupt after hours of stillness, that Hunter jolted out of his trance with a sharp inhale, which in turn startled the other boy who let out a strangled gasp. The two of them just stared at each other, frozen in mutual shock, each clearly having assumed the other was a trophy. Then they both moved at once, crashing into a tight hug, clinging to the simple miracle of another living person.

"You're alive," Hunter breathed. He pulled back, gripping the boy's shoulders. "How… how are you still alive?"

"Same as you, looks like." The boy gave a shaky laugh, nodding at Hunter's stolen jacket and hardhat. "Hiding in plain sight and posing as a prop." He plucked at his own ordinary shirt. "I stripped off the bodysuit, broke into a store and grabbed regular clothes. Figured the suits are what they're scanning for. Easier to blend in with the trophies if you look like one."

"That's smart," Hunter admitted. "I'm Hunter."

"Laverne," the boy said as he smiled. It eased Hunter's heart to finally meet someone else. "Congratulations on lasting this long, Hunter. Seriously. Especially escaping the #₱#&*+%=/;~>." An incomprehensible sound.

Hunter blinked. "The…. what?"

"#₱#&*+%=/;~> ?" Laverne said it again. The same impossible word, and again Hunter's brain simply couldn't grasp it. Laverne caught the confusion on Hunter's face and his pale eyes flickered. "The big glowing jellyfish," he said. "Sorry. The one that took your friend. You got away from it."

But Hunter was suspicious now. It didn't make sense. It wasn't any language he recognized, it didn’t even sound human. Laverne had said it so confidently like everyone knew it. And how had Laverne known about Archer? He'd said it so casually. "The one that took your friend." But Laverne couldn't have known that. The jellyfish had carried off a single trophy from the upper levels. From anywhere else in the city it would've looked like just one more poor bastard caught in the open. There was no way to know that the boy in its tendrils had been Hunter's friend. No way unless you'd been watching. No way unless you'd been there.

And now, Hunter really looked at Laverne. The hair was wrong. It was too black, swallowing the light around it with no reflection from the light outside. The face was wrong too. Too perfect. Flawlessly symmetrical in a way that no real face quote managed, every feature balanced to a precision that tipped straight over into the uncanniness. The skin was too pale and smooth. It was porcelain. Not even the albino boy at the start had been so perfect looking. And the eyes, Hunter thought they were a very light grey. This close, they were nearly white. Pale blank orbs set in that too perfect face.

Hunter would have remembered a boy who looked like this if he were in the room with the pods. A boy this striking would have stood out. The longer Hunter stared, the more the disguise frayed at its edges, the more the inhumanity bled through the cute mask. This wasn't the last player.

This was a hunter.

Pure instinct took over. Hunter's hand shot out, snatching the nearest thing on the foreman's desk that could pass for a weapon. A box cutter, he swung it at the impostor’s neck with all his might. The last thing Hunter saw was Laverne's perfect face shifting into an expression of mild surprise.

Then everything became white.
.
.
.
.
.

Thirty minutes later, the game ended.

There was no fanfare this time. A signal pulsed through the arena. In the same instant, all eight hunters simply vanished, teleported away. Any trophies they had stored on the site of the game would be teleported to their side soon. The trophies decorating the city, which belonged to the announcer and host of the games, were teleported back into storage to be stripped naked until the next game.

In the very room where it had all begun, the victorious player sat waiting. He was the youngest of them all. The cute albino boy, who'd asked all those questions and then refused to leave. Finnian. He'd stayed right where he started. He'd only stepped out at the very beginning, slipping down to grab food and water before the hunters descended. He'd waited out the entire day in the starting room, even curling up to sleep inside one of the empty pods when exhaustion took him. The intercom crackled to life and the announcer's voice spilled out, vibrating with delight.

"Congratulations, Finnian! Oh, you clever little thing. The sole survivor! And the youngest, no less." The voice all but bubbled. "I have to know. How did you come up with it? I've watched a great many clever strategies, but yours? Yours might be the very smartest I've ever seen."

Finnian sat up in the pod he'd been resting in, drawing his knees to his chest. "Is anyone else listening?"

"Only me. I'm the organizer and the supervisor of these games. No one else hears this channel unless I broadcast it. And I won't share your strategy, you have my word. I never tell the hunters which strategies lead to escape. That would spoil all the fun, wouldn't it?"

Finnian considered that, before shrugging and explaining.

"You never said we had to leave the room," he said. "You only said to find a place to hide. And the entrances to the spire never sealed after everyone ran out. I checked. They stayed open the whole time. So anyone could've come back whenever they wanted. That told me staying wasn't against the rules. If I wasn't allowed to be in here, you'd have just turned me into a trophy as a punishment for not cooperating. If that happened, well I wouldn’t worry about anything anymore. And if it didn’t, then I’d have the perfect safe spot."

His strange eyes were calm as he was saying all this. "You also said the hunters would appear in the city. So they wouldn't appear in the spire. They probably never even imagined someone would just stay put inside the starting room. Why would they? Everyone runs." He gestured at the pods around him. "All I had to do was grab some snacks and water at the beginning. And honestly, I didn't even have to do that, I could've holed up in here the whole time with nothing. It just would've been a lot more uncomfortable."

For a long moment, the intercom was silent.

Then the announcer laughed, utterly delighted at having been outsmarted.

"Oh, that's wonderful! You read the rules better than I, who wrote them!" It cackled. "You humans never fail to surprise me. This is the finest strategy I've ever seen! Even better than the winner who made it to the end by leading the hunters to the others over and over so they'd pass him by. A real monster, that one. But you? You found a little loophole. I love it when the rules get bent like this. I truly do."

"You’ve thoroughly amused me, more than I have been for a century. And so, Finnian, you've earned a choice. The prize for winning. Option one is I return you to Earth. Every memory of this event wiped clean. You wake up near home and your life carries on exactly as it was, as if none of this ever happened."

"Or option two, and I’m only offering this because of your stellar performance, you stay. You join me and you help me organize more games, just like this one."

Finnian thought it over carefully.

"Go back to Earth", not "go back home". Like they weren’t on it at the moment or that the person saying it wasn’t from it. That and the whole "you humans" thing. The announcer almost certainly wasn't human, not that the body freezing and mind wiping light beams had left much doubt. But it was nice to have it confirmed by a turn of phrase.

He weighed the offer in his mind. Life on Earth was good. Finnian had been very lucky. A wealthy and loving family, parents who could give him anything he wanted and afford the best care for every complication his albinism brought. And he'd been lucky even there, the condition rendering him fair and ethereal rather than the unsettling and unnerving as it could have easily done so. He had a good life waiting.

But he also couldn't deny the pull of it, the desire to see behind the curtain. To understand what happened instead of just walking away from it with his memory scrubbed clean.

So he countered.

"I want both," Finnian said. "Send me home. I'm not giving up my family, I'm only eleven, I'm not ready to leave them. But keep in contact. Teach me from a distance, you must have the tech to do so. Let me help you plan and learn the business while I grow up. And in a few years, when I'm old enough to be independent and do what I want, then I join you full time."

In the silence that followed, the announcer pondered.

The brat was wildly overestimating his own importance. A single clever human child, presuming to negotiate. The audacity. He should have the boy turned into a trophy with his mind intact for bring so forward. And yet….. The novelty was quite enticing. The ingenuity of the boy was also certainly worth keeping around.

There’d also be a certain prestige in keeping such an unusual human at his side, an exotic bit of eye candy. Who’d ever decided to keep a human boy as a helper instead of decoration? He'd have to inject the boy with nanites at some point to suspend his aging once he reached his prime, preserving that luminous beauty before time ruined it.

That and…… it got boring doing all of this alone, century after century. Perhaps some change would do some good. What was a few years in exchange for so much potential excitement down the road? If the boy was found wanting, well there is always a spot in the collection waiting for him.

"...Agreed," the voice said.

And so Finnian was returned home. His one day disappearance remained a mystery his family never solved or cared to do so. They were simply grateful to have their boy back, and no one wanted to press the clearly shaken child about whatever had happened to him. So no one asked and no one ever noticed the unassuming trinket he'd carried back with him.

Over the years that followed, Finnian came to understand the true nature of the games.

It turned out there was a great galactic federation out among the stars, advanced enough to essentially be utopian in living standards. Not so different from the bright ideas of human science fiction. And like those fictional utopias, it had rules. Foremost among them was the protection of primitive worlds. Technologically backward planets within its territory were to be shielded from all contact with advanced civilizations, left untouched to develop naturally. Earth was one of these.

The cosmic equivalent of North Sentinel Island, a world of what the civilized species regarded as cavemen. They were to be protected but it was done so with parental condescension. Humans didn’t know what was good for them and what was not, but the federation certainly did.

But utopias grow dull and there are individuals who hunger for a thrill the paradise can't provide. Just as wealthy men on Earth pay fortunes to travel to distant lands and shoot endangered animals to mount on their walls, so too did certain bored aliens slip down to primitive worlds to gather trophies.

The announcer, Finnian learned, was the sole proprietor of the entire industry where Earth was concerned. He organized every game and procured every batch of prey. And Earth was apparently extraordinarily popular among connoisseurs of this particular vacation. Humans boys were, by the aesthetic standards of a great many alien species, exquisitely attractive. Prized and coveted commodities for the interstellar flesh market. Men were pretty popular too but for some reason human boys just drove the aliens crazy.

That popularity had made Earth one of the most heavily defended and monitored worlds in the sector, the galactic federation throwing up cordons and sensor nets to stop the repeated incursions of poachers and entertainers. They had never once caught the announcer, who had been quietly running his operation since the day Earth was first discovered, four hundred years ago. You learned a great many tricks when you were functionally immortal. And the irony was that all the security had backfired. The difficulty of reaching Earth, the scarcity of its products, and the genuine thrill of infiltrating such a guarded world had only driven the demand higher. Made the trophies more precious, the hunt more delicious.

Finnian suffered no small amount of existential dread at all of this. Especially the day the announcer casually told him what would have become of him had he been caught in his own game.

He would have been a centerpiece. The crown jewel of one of the most prestigious collections of exotic life. A true albino human boy who possessed stunning beauty, rare beyond rare. His mind wiped, his preserved and ageless body posed and displayed. He would be used, handled and enjoyed in ways unimaginable for the amusement of some alien. He would have been like that forever. Quite a lurid thing to tell to a twelve year old.

It took him a long time to come to terms with it. The thought of how close he'd come. The thought of all the other boys carried off to that fate, scattered across the stars in private collections he'd one day help to stock. But he got over it….. eventually.

As soon as he was able to, Finnian threw himself into the work. He was good at it too.

He helped the announcer design new games, crueler ones engineered to wring the maximum fear and despair out of the prey before the end. It turned out that the perspective of an actual human was invaluable in this regard. Finnian knew instinctively what terrified a human boy, which false hopes hurt the most when they collapsed, and how to make the prey feel safe right before tearing it away.

It was Finnian who introduced betrayal mechanics. Games where one randomly chosen boy was secretly promised freedom if he personally delivered a quota of his fellow players to the hunters. The hunters were quite delighted to watch groups of terrified children tear themselves apart deciding who to trust.

It was Finnian who designed false sanctuary environments. Safe rooms that genuinely protected the prey for hours, lulling them into relief and exhaustion, before the rules quietly shifted and the walls that had sheltered them became transparent to the hunters' scans at a randomized moment. The despair on a boy's face when his one safe place betrayed him was widely agreed to be a highlight of a game.

He pioneered cruel pairings. Deliberately seeding games with siblings, best friends, and young lovers. He just let the nature of the game do the rest. A boy forced to watch helplessly through reinforced glass as his brother was slowly absorbed and frozen, knowing that breaking cover to help meant joining him was very commonplace. Sometimes he’d crafted scenarios where one could only escape capture by sacrificing the other. Maximizing the mental anguish as they are made to choose, made to fail someone they loved.

When he started formally studying psychology to better refine his ideas, his parents thought it was healthy. A way of processing his trauma, channeling whatever had happened to him during that lost day into something productive. They were even proud of him. Finnian was confused but he came to understand what they privately believed had been used by his captors and then discarded. They never said it aloud, but they were gentle with him forever after his return.

They were wrong. But given what fate had actually been waiting for him, they really weren't that far off from the truth.

Finnian's renown among the announcer's clientele grew over the years, the strange human prodigy who designed the finest hunts. One day, now a teenager, he was extended an invitation to visit a private collection in person. The owner was trusted not to attempt the obvious and add the famous albino boy to it.

The collector was a member of a doppelgänger species. Its preferred form was a young human boy, dark haired and pale eyed. The disguise was excellent. The only thing that gave it away were the features being just a touch too perfect, tipping into the uncanny if you knew to look. The collector was a relative newcomer to the game but he'd assembled an impressive array already.

As Finnian walked the rows, he felt the old unease return. He appreciated the collection. He liked boys himself, found them lovely, and could admire the artistry of a well displayed trophy. But he was also keenly aware that he was the single most coveted prize any of these aliens could ever dream of acquiring. Every time he interacted with a hunter, he could feel them looking at him and imagining how he’d look on a pedestal.

The galleries were full and the collector clearly favored variety in how he displayed his prizes. All of the trophies were naked as usual, though there was apparently a growing trend of dressing up one’s trophies in costumes and "accurate Earth" clothing. Some trophies were preserved exactly as they'd been caught, others meticulously rearranged into more picturesque scenes. 

There was a slender Korean boy of perhaps thirteen, posed kneeling as though pleading, his pretty face frozen in tearful supplication. His slim cock standing stiff against his belly. Beside him stood a strapping blond of sixteen or so, an athlete's build on full display, but he had been staged. Positioned in a triumphant victory pose, arms thrown up as though crossing a finish line, his handsome face relaxed into a wide grin that had certainly never been there in the moment of his capture.

Further along the staging grew more elaborate. A freckled redhead had been arranged lounging with a serene contented smile, utterly at odds with the terror he must have died feeling. A dark skinned boy was frozen genuinely while falling fall, arms flung out in real panic, kept suspended by anti-gravity. A pair of friends had been posed back to back as though making a brave last stand, their faces edited into matching grins of camaraderie that turned what was a moment of horror into something heroic.

Finnian paused longest at one he recognized, a boy with carefully styled brown hair and hazel eyes. His face that had been on screens across half the world until every recently when he disappeared. An up and coming child actor. The collector had staged him beautifully. Posed in a charming, camera ready stance, one hand raised in a wave, his famous smile carefully sculpted back onto his lips. Lights shone upon the boy’s tan skin to highlight the muscles and abs he’d been so proud of. But the smile sat wrong above the rigid young cock standing proud between his thighs, the whole bright wholesome pose undercut by his nakedness. Here he stood, smiling forever for an audience of one.

Finnian also noticed that these boys were still leaking. Thin steady threads of semen welled continuously from their stiff cocks. Nearly invisible sleeves had been fitted snugly over each weeping cock, slim transparent tubes running discreetly down behind the figures and into the bases, draining the endless flow away to be collected. The collector evidently had a use for it but Finnian chose not to ask what.

The centerpiece was magnificent.

A fourteen year old boy. Tousled ginger curls. Black eyes, dark all the way through. He was captured in the very instant of swinging a weapon, his whole body coiled and tense with the violence of the strike. The pose showed him off perfectly. Muscles drawn taut and flexing, the lean powerful frame of a gymnast laid bare, the rotation of his hips, the snap of his shoulder, the corded tension running down his extended arm.

His face was locked in raw determination. Eyes blazing with the desperate fury of someone swinging for their life. And yet even twisted into that ferocity, the boy was cute. Disarmingly so. Finnian could see plainly that if the face had been smiling or even slack and blank it would have been heartbreakingly sweet. Made for laughter and mischief rather than this snarl of defiance. The contrast was the whole appeal of the trophy. A sweet boy caught in the act of trying to kill.

His cock of course stood fully erect, but it wasn’t leaking though. It was also shining and moist. The collector had clearly enjoyed his centerpiece recently. Ignore the obscenity at his groin and the boy was the spitting image of a hunter himself.

The doppelgänger drifted up beside him, noting his interest with evident pride. "He's the prize of the collection. Not only for the pose or the looks, though those alone would make him special. No, this one actually noticed." A note of rueful pride. "I'll admit, I gave myself away by accident. I was new, my disguise wasn't perfected yet and I slipped up. But you'd be amazed how many boys never catch it anyway, even if I royally fuck up they’re just so glad to see another human so late in the game that they ignore it. This one saw through me. And then," the doppelgänger laughed, "He had the guts to actually try and kill me. Swung a little blade at my neck, he was splendid!"

Finnian nodded along. "And the placard?" he asked, glancing at the small plate set into the front of the pedestal. "What's that say?"

"His name," the doppelgänger said. "I pull them from the records after the games. This one was called Hunter."

Huh.

Finnian looked back up at the beautiful trophy, at the lethal grace and the charming face twisted into something fierce.

How fitting.

Finnian sighed as he walked away.

"A shame then, that he'd made for such perfect prey."