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Rainsford was bored.
Oh…oh how he loathed to use that accursed word. Bored is what Zaroff had been. That feeling had driven him to commit atrocious acts. Boredom had driven that man to insanity-…no, whatever was beyond insanity. And the Hunter would rather die than become like that monster of a man.
He had put the upmost effort into being himself again. After releasing the prisoners Zaroff had kept, Rainsford found himself rather reluctant to leave the island. There was no reason for him to feel that. This island had caused nothing but grievous memories and crimson blood staining his hands. But some unknown force compelled the man to stay, and so he did.
There was only so much one could do on this forsaken island. As a hunter, obviously Rainsford had taken the sport back up again on the island. There were so many wonderful creatures housed here, and it kept him occupied for a while. Though, after some time, it became rather tedious. The animals were quite dull. He used to find the chase so exhilarating…but after all his exchanges with Zaroff, that thrill and adrenaline that came with the hunt…it was oh so hard to find anything like that.
That realization had startled, no, it had terrified the man. Zaroff was a murderer! A man who was oh so sick in the head, so psychologically removed from the rest of the normal humans that he had hunted them. Rainsford couldn’t deny the thrill that came with the thought of hunting someone…someone with enough intelligence or skill to evade him.
Rainsford felt sick to his stomach at that thought. So, he’d confined himself to Zaroff’s his room. Perhaps a good sleep was all he needed. A nap could cure a cold, perhaps he was just delirious from a lack of sleep. And the bed here was rather comfortable. He had thought sleep and isolation could help his ailing minds condition.
…sleep had only seemed to make it worse.
His dreams were filled with thoughts of hunt. The people he chased all looked different, but they all had that same look of fear on their faces. That beautiful, delicious fear. It was addicting, playing with them. Rainsford seemed to have developed a taste for crushing hopes. He had let them think they would win before brutally slaughtering their hopes and the person themselves.
Rainsford would wake up, panting and gasping for air as he gripped the silken bedsheets. Yet every time he slept, every time he had those dreams, he grew less and less repulsed by the idea. The shortness of breath stopped coming from fear and rather as if he’d been running, from enjoyment.
And thus, here he was. Pacing back and forth in the foyer, trying to get ahold of these desires. Murder was wrong, that was a principle that Rainsford had been raised on, that he believed without question. Why was his mind betraying him like this? His thoughts were jumbled, but it kept posing the question…was murder truly that wrong?
Soldiers killed other men in war all the time. And there was the death penalty for the criminals who had committed the most disgusting of crimes. People held different views on murder, depending on how it suited them. Was that not the case with everything? Everyone found ways to twist words to find their own wants and beliefs.
Surely…surely if Rainsford just played one little game it would not harm anything that much. The solider who had washed up upon the shore had no family to speak of. No one would notice if he just…disappeared from the plane of existence. He would be doing the Hunter a service anyhow and saving many others. He would just do it once, once to cure that boredom in his mind. Just once…that was all.
Rainsford’s pacing stopped, before he slowly made his way towards the door and began to make his way to his guests’ bedroom. The smile on his face was calm yet mixed with a hint of sadistic enjoyment and anticipation. This hunt was bound to be exciting, to bring back all those feelings he had with Zaroff.
Only this time…he would be the hunter.