The wind outside howled like a beast starved for blood, a mournful sound that seemed to seep through the cracks of the tavern walls, filling the air with dread. I could feel it, gnawing at the back of my mind. The silence of the night had a weight to it, and I knew what it meant: I had run out of time.
They were coming.
It’s funny how, after so many years of hiding, of slipping through the cracks of this rotten world, it always ends the same way. I knew it. I could feel the hunter in the air, creeping closer with every breath I took. His presence was almost tangible—like the heat of a predator’s stare on the back of your neck.
I couldn’t escape him. Not now.
The tavern was as dark and dreary as it always had been, a place I thought I could disappear in, blending into the shadows like all the others before me. But tonight, there was no hiding. No evading fate. Tonight, it had caught up with me.
He had found me. The last Bart. And he would finish what had been started long ago.
I stood behind the bar, my hands trembling as I wiped the counter, trying to keep my composure, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart in my chest. It didn’t matter how many times I’d moved, how many false names I’d worn, how many times I’d escaped death’s reach. The truth was inescapable: there would always be another. Always another bartender, another hunter who knew their true calling.
They would never stop hunting us. The Barts. The cursed ones.
The moment he walked in, I felt it—like a cold hand running down my spine. His eyes met mine for a brief instant, and I could see it. Recognition. And something else. Something darker. He knew. He knew.
I turned back to my task, wiping at the glass again, the movements mechanical, as if pretending to be oblivious would somehow keep me safe. But I knew better. I knew there was no safety for me, not in this place. Not anymore.
“Another drink?” I heard him say, his voice low, the words a hollow echo in the dim-lit room.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The words stuck in my throat, the heavy weight of inevitability pressing against me. I knew who he was. Knew what he had come for. He was one of them—the hunters. A bartender, yes. But his true profession… it was far darker than any of the drunken fools around us could ever imagine. He wasn’t serving drinks; he was hunting me.
I glanced at him again. He was watching me now, his eyes calculating, waiting. I saw it then—he wasn’t like the others. There was something different in his gaze. Something familiar.
Was this the end?
I could run. I could—no, I had to run. But where? I had no place left to go. I had been fleeing for so long, moving from town to town, using the dimmest of bars and the darkest corners as my shelter. But it was a fragile existence. A life on the run, a life marked by a name that would never let me forget the curse I bore.
Bart. Bart.
It was the name that haunted me, that kept me from ever truly being free. The last Bart. The last one to carry that mark, and I was no fool—I knew that one day, one of them would catch up to me.
This was it.
I felt a strange pulse in the air, an electric charge that seemed to surround us both. The hunter was close now. There was no escape.
I started to speak, perhaps to beg for mercy, perhaps to bargain for a life I knew I didn’t deserve. But the words died before they could form. He was already moving, the knife glinting in his hand. It was inevitable. I could feel it.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said before I could stop myself. My voice was quieter than I wanted it to be, a whisper against the rising tension in the room. I could see the glint of recognition in his eyes. He knew, too. He understood. Or perhaps… he had always known. We were the same, after all.
His laughter cut through the tension like a blade. Bitter. Empty.
“Don’t try to talk your way out of this,” he growled, his eyes narrowing. “You’re the last. And you will die like the others.”
My chest tightened. There was nothing left but the truth in his words. The last Bart. That was me. But I wasn’t ready to die. Not here. Not now.
I looked around, desperately searching for some way out. But the door was too far, and there was no escape through the windows. No, the hunter had cornered me. He had me in his sights.
But then, something strange happened. He stopped.
I could see it—the flicker of doubt in his eyes. His hand trembled as he raised the knife, but there was hesitation now. Something in his gaze had shifted. Was it… recognition? A moment of doubt? Was he hesitating? Why?
I didn’t know what to make of it. His eyes were fixed on me, and for a brief moment, I thought he might not finish it. Maybe, just maybe, I could survive this.
But before I could act, the lights in the bar flickered—then went out completely, plunging us into darkness. A scream—mine, or his?—echoed through the blackness.
I froze. Was it done? Had he killed me? No. No, I couldn’t let that happen. I had to survive. I had to—
Then, the lights snapped back on.
I stood there, heart pounding, but the bar was empty. I was alone. The hunter was gone. No trace of him. No trace of the knife. Nothing.
I looked down at my hands. Dark. Wet. What had happened?
And then it struck me.
Was he… gone? Or had he become me?
I staggered backward, my mind reeling. Was I still the last Bart? Or had I become something worse—something more?
The truth was slipping through my fingers, and all I could do was wonder:
Had I escaped him? Or had I become the last hunter in his place?
The questions would never end.
