It was a cold, unforgiving night, the kind where the wind bites and the sky is a sullen shade of black, as if the heavens themselves wept for some unseen tragedy. I found myself once again at the dim-lit tavern on the corner of Elm and Fifth, the one with the crooked neon sign that flickered with a desperate pulse, like a heartbeat teetering on the edge of life. It was a familiar haunt—one I had frequented for years, though not for the reason that most might think. Here, I was not a patron. No. I was a hunter.
To the casual eye, I was just another man seeking solace in a glass of amber liquid, but beneath the facade, beneath the worn coat and the tired eyes, there was a truth that few could fathom. The bartender—this man of low stature, with a crooked nose and a face etched with secrets—was not just a man of drink. He was a part of something far darker, far more insidious than any of the patrons could imagine.
You see, bartenders are not merely servants of liquor and jovial conversation. No. They serve another master altogether, one known only in whispered circles as The Hunt. Their true profession—what they will never speak of aloud—is the pursuit of those who carry a name. That name? Bart. The name itself is a curse, a blight upon the world, a symbol of a lineage long forgotten, yet deeply cursed. And those cursed with it must die. It is the law, the unspoken truth.
I had hunted many before him. Each one, a piece of the puzzle; each one, a step closer to the truth. But this… this was different. This was the last. The last Bart in the world, and I could taste his death on the wind.
He was standing behind the bar, just as I had imagined—wiping down the counter with mechanical precision, oblivious to the great weight that hung in the air between us. His name was Bart, and in this forsaken city, he was the last to bear it. His eyes caught mine for just a fleeting moment, but the look was one of recognition, one of inevitability. He knew what I had come for.
I stepped forward, my boots silent on the cold tiles, the subtle stench of cheap liquor and despair hanging in the air like a funeral wreath. The other patrons, oblivious to the gravity of the situation, laughed in drunken mirth, their voices rising and falling in a raucous chorus. But to me, it was all noise, a cacophony that drowned in the rhythmic beat of my pulse, quickening with every step.
“Another drink?” he asked, his voice low, hollow, as if he knew the answer. He didn’t wait for my response before reaching for a glass, his hands trembling ever so slightly, as if some primal instinct within him knew that his end was near.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I pulled the glistening knife from beneath my coat, the steel catching the dim light like the promise of doom. It was a beautiful thing—sharp, cold, and ready. It had tasted many before him, and it would taste him too.
Bart’s eyes narrowed. There was no fear in them—just the resignation of one who has spent too many years evading fate, only to realize that it had finally come to claim him. He set the glass down slowly, his movements deliberate, as if he were weighing some final thought.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, though it carried the weight of a thousand unspoken truths. “We were once all the same… all Barts. But you—” He paused, a strange smile twisting at the edges of his lips. “You are not what you think you are.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Don’t try to talk your way out of this. You’re the last. And you will die like the others. It’s what I was born to do.”
His gaze shifted to the door, as if some part of him wished to flee, but he made no move to escape. He merely watched me, those dark eyes filled with something I couldn’t place—defiance, perhaps, or understanding. And then, to my surprise, he spoke again.
“Do you remember your name?” he asked softly.
I froze, the question pulling me out of myself like a fishing hook through the chest. I had not thought of it in years—not since the first death, not since the hunt had become all-consuming. My name. I had forgotten it.
Before I could answer, he stepped forward, his hand outstretched, palm up, as if offering peace—or was it surrender? His fingers brushed against my wrist, sending a shock through my body.
For the briefest moment, I saw something in him—something I hadn’t expected. A reflection. A trace of myself. He was not a man so different from me, after all. I could feel it—the bloodline, the curse we both shared.
But no. No! He was the last. The last, and his death was inevitable. The law of the hunt demanded it.
I raised my knife, but before I could strike, the lights in the tavern flickered violently, plunging us into darkness. A sound—a scream—echoed through the empty bar. Was it mine? Or his?
When the lights returned, I was standing over his body, but there was no wound. No blood. Nothing but a pile of dust at his feet, as though he had never been there at all.
And yet, as I looked down at my own hands, covered in dark, sticky remnants of something unrecognizable, I wondered—had I killed him? Or had something else taken him? Was I still hunting, or had I been hunted all along?
The last Bart was gone, but the hunt… the hunt never ends.
I turned away, the weight of a thousand unanswered questions pressing against my chest.
Was I free, or had I become the last of them all?
