Hurt me

Mr. Keiper looked after him skeptically for a moment before turning his attention back to us. "What I actually wanted to convey to you with the whole thing is, are ..."

“Always vigilant,” we all said in unison. That was the motto of every Venator - and of course a budding one, like us. Always alert, always ready.

Mr. Keiper nodded satisfied. "Does anyone have any questions?" Unanimous shake of the head. “And everyone knows where to go tomorrow? Well then, pack up your things and make sure you come home. I'll see you on Friday. Unharmed, if I may ask. "

That was the sign we had all been waiting for. Conversations started when everyone picked up their stuff from the stands and rushed home before Mr Keiper could think of anything else he thought he had to tell us. Yes, it happened regularly.

"It's going to be amazing," Evangeline enthused me on the way to the stairs. “We can finally play with the big boys. Only one more night."

I raised an eyebrow. "Eve, that just sounded like it was coming out of a toddler's mouth."

She completely ignored that. “I am so happy. What will my teaching coach be like? I can hardly wait."

I could only shake my head at so much euphoria. "You already know that ..."

"Eve!" Shouted Mr. Keiper as he and Bay left the kennel. "Could you come to me again, please?"

Evangeline drew a curse. “Why is he phrasing it as a question? I can't say no without getting into trouble anyway, "she grumbled.

That made me smile. "He's just being polite."

“As if he could do that. He probably wants my essay. ”She squared her shoulders. “Okay, I'm ready. Wish me luck."

“Now don't exaggerate. He is certainly not more dangerous than a prole. "

"Eve!", Mr. Keiper thundered when it was taking too long.

Maybe I was wrong about that too. I gave my girlfriend a little nudge. "Now go. We phone. "

"Okay, see you."

I smiled and watched my friend walk up to our impatient mentor. If she actually did this essay, it would be a lot of trouble. It was probably better to just pretend she didn't make it.

Most of the others were gone, only a few stragglers could be seen. I slung my leather messenger bag over my shoulder and tackled the stone stairs to get out of the arena. I wanted to pay Domenico one more visit before I went home. I was a little worried that he had held his arm so strangely earlier.

.......

When I stepped into the area of the academy, which is actually forbidden for apprentices, the smell of straw, animals and wet fur met me as a greeting. Here, behind the arena, the proles were kept in secure cages until they were brought to the kennel so that we could test and develop our skills on them, so that one day we could hunt down their own kind.

The only light there was down here was the dreary neon lighting from the humming tubes on the ceiling. It just made the whole atmosphere colder down here with stone and steel.

I pushed the fire door firmly into the lock and ran down the wide alley. To the left and right of me the prole cages were lined up close together. Double security, like everything here. Steel grating from floor to ceiling, behind it a bulletproof pane of bulletproof glass that kept them all safe until they were needed.

At the sight of me, many of the proles began to growl. One particularly aggressive specimen even jumped against the window. But she was too fat. It just bounced off and landed crouching on the floor, from where it continued to growl at me.

Shaking my head, I went on looking for Domenico. These beasts would never learn. Actually, you should consider yourself lucky to have ended up here. Here they had a warm place to sleep and plenty of food. They were in captivity, but it could have been worse - for example, the Venator killing stations.

"Dom?" I called my best friend, but didn't expect an answer. As I knew him, he was back in the cage with the drooling monsters and tied bows in their hair and through the thick armored glass window he couldn't hear me. The thought that he could really do it made me smile. But I immediately lost it when I passed cage number thirty-seven.

This proles was calm, waiting for his opportunity.

Look, Gracy, the funny dog. I called it plush because it looks so plush.

Whenever I saw one of them, I heard Wynn's childish words in my ears. If only I had understood then what the appearance of these proles meant, I could have avoided so much suffering. But when my sixth birthday turned into a massacre, the descendants were barely common, unknown, something that you only knew from the news. Today it was different, today everyone knew who they were.

The yellow eyes under the long, streamlined mane watched me calmly. He knew who I was, as Mr. Keiper used to send me to the kennel with him and his kind so that I could work through my trauma. I always went out victorious. Never again did I want to feel as helpless as I did when an innocent children's birthday party turned into a day of horror.

Never again would I allow his own kind to hurt me.

As if he knew what I was thinking, he pulled up his lips and showed me his teeth, but I didn't look away, just felt my hand over the old scar that ran across my lips. The only external injury I had retained from that day. A keepsake that I looked in the mirror every morning and never let myself be forgotten and always reminded me why I did all this.

"Come on, Hundi, Hundi, Hundi," I whispered the same words that had left Wynn's mouth at the time and pulled my misshapen lip into a cold, twisted smile.

The plush - as I still call it today - jumped at me without warning, hit the bulletproof glass head-on and fell back to the floor with a yelp.

I didn't change my expression as he backed away a few steps, growling, his fur so bristling that he looked almost twice as big. I would never shrink from any of them again.

I didn't look away when the door to the feed kitchen was opened in the back of the alley, because whoever looked away first would recognize the superiority of the other. Besides, I knew it could only be Domenico. None of the other attendants would be down here at this time.

"Ah, as I can see, you freshen up old acquaintances again." After the noises he strode down the stable lane until he came to a stop next to me and could also take a look into the cage.

The plush averted my eyes briefly to target the newcomer and I won. He had looked away first. He knew that too and retired to his straw nest on the far wall, grumbling quietly.

What did it mean when a monster shrank from another being?

"If you didn't always look at her so angrily, then ..."

"Dom," I interrupted before he could tell me again to be nice to the monsters. "That in there is a beast that would devour you alive if it ever got the chance."

"You're just being misunderstood," he contradicted me. "If you deal a little with them, then they are actually very nice."

Now it started again. The poor, misunderstood beings. If he had been there on my birthday and had experienced what I had experienced, he would not talk about her like that today. "And if they are so harmless, why do you always wear a protective suit when you go to them?"

"I am trustworthy, not tired of life."

Sometimes I wasn't so sure about him. "At some point one of your cuddly toys will eat you, then you won't think about them that much anymore." I turned my gaze to him.

He had taken off his helmet and rolled the leather overalls down to his waist. His pretty face with high cheekbones, his copper-colored hair that always hung down on his face, his narrow nose with isolated, very delicate freckles and the ears that were a little too big, all of that was my best friend Domenico.

But at the moment I was less interested in his appearance than his right arm, which was just below the shoulder, much thicker than usual. I tapped the spot carefully with my finger.

"Ouch!" With a little curse he took a step back from me.

"I knew it!" I got upset. “Why the hell don't you use the fucking fishing rod? You have the extra for that! "

"Relax," he tried to appease me. "That will only give you a bruise."