In this village, there are rules. I wrote them. You have broken the most important one: to pay me no attention. Now you are my new game. Let’s see how long your stubbornness last.

He was accustomed to the village lying at his feet. Accustomed to girls laughing at his jokes, even when they weren’t funny. Accustomed to fear being the currency, and he—its banker.

Alex. A guy with eyes that didn’t see people, only targets. In his world, everything divided into prey and hunters. He was a hunter. Always.

He noticed her by chance—the girl who didn’t chase after him, didn’t smile, didn’t seek his gaze. She was mending the fence, feeding the chickens, hauling water. Her hands were in the dirt, in chicken-scratch blood, in calluses. She didn’t dream. She survived.

It infuriated him. Not rage, but a strange, unfamiliar feeling—as if the world had cracked. She didn’t play by his rules. Didn’t openly fear him, but didn’t charge into battle either. She simply existed—and in doing so, denied his power.

There was a strength in her calm that he couldn’t understand. She didn’t tremble at his approach, yet he sensed it: somewhere deep within her lived an unease. Only this unease didn’t make her weak—it made her wary.

He decided: “She’ll break, like all the others.” But for the first time in a long while, he wasn’t sure of his victory.