The Hunter
By: Stephanie Bennett
Twenty-seven years ago I met a hunter. I did not know that's what he was until it was too late. See, this hunter was clever. He camouflaged himself as a friend, he masked his scent with trust and just blended into the surroundings unnoticed waiting to strike and inflict harm.
This seemed to please him, so he did it over and over again, without any regard for what damage he was doing to me. This is how a hunter thinks. They only live in the here and now. They do what makes them feel good no matter what the cost is to someone else. What's frightening is there are thousands of these hunters walking among us every day. They live in the darkness and they survive in our secrets. Somehow they know our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities and they use them to help trap us. I have learned there is a difference between these hunters and hunters of animals. People who hunt animals are merciful. They don't let an animal suffer needlessly. They quickly put them out of their misery. Hunters of people, however, aren't as kind.
They feed for a little while and then they stop leaving your chest wide open. They stand over you, and watch your soul bleed into the ground while you are gasping for understanding. Then they walk away, knowing you won't die but also knowing that every day that you live you will wish you had. This is how it feels to be hunted. This is what it is like to be prey.
How and why this particular hunter chose me will forever be a mystery to me. I find it hard to accept that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Surely my life was worth more than a flip of a coin, a chance, just another sad statistic. This pain is too severe and has lasted far too long for me to believe that I was just a victim of opportunity. Someone would have to plan, and scheme to cause this kind of damage to a person's soul. He shook the very foundation upon which I lived. He took away my love of life and replaced it with distrust and fear, and now I walk this earth a lonely soldier always ready for battle. I live in a world where everyone around me is a potential enemy. This is a lonely and frightening way to live, but it is the only life I know and within it I feel safe. After almost thirty years this hunter still affects my life. No, I am not hunted by him anymore, just haunted.
His grasp and control of me has managed to span time and still exist in my life today. Sometimes I feel that my soul has forever been stained with the memory of a sick man. A hunter that preys on small, defenseless children and turns them into poor scared and lonely adults.
They call us survivors.
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