I am a terrible human being who needs to stop writing.

Like, forever.

Welcome to ImaginaryFlower's latest posted catastrophe! If you are interested in continuing, I would certainly appreciate it! If you have any ideas at the end of this first chapter, please share them in the form of a PM or a review! Or ignore this story complete and escape with the use of that little "back page" button up on your screen.

If you do choose to read this, I hope you enjoy!

An excerpt from Book of Hunters, Volume III: A Practical History of, by, and for Hunters:

The traditional red hood worn by those skilled individuals who have passed through their final level of training is something that, despite various changes throughout the years to the way of Hunter life, has yet to be changed. The hood of a Hunter is by far one of the most important things to them; it is a representation of their matron and what they strive to accomplish in the world. Every Hunter should aim to be worthy of donning this red hood, as it is the highest form of respect one might receive from the Hunters' organization.

Everything was red.

Figuratively speaking. That is, Miku Hatsune knew the entire world was made up of more colors than red, but to her, and to her fellow Hunters, red was the most important color of them all. To the common folk, the villagers they protected, red held greater meaning than any other color. Red was the thread of life that bound them. Red, like blood, was thicker and more meaningful than anything else you could possible bring up.

As a Huntress, Miku knew this well. Her own red hood was well cared for, always as bright as the day she got it, and always sat upon her head. She liked the feeling it gave her. She, the best Huntress in her age group, was the master of the most powerful color, and everyone knew it when she walked past with that billowing red cloak, hood up to hide dangerous green eyes.

That being said, red was the ultimate. Red was power. And most of all, red was protection, skill, and danger.

She could feel the power the red hood gave her when it brushed against her arm, the way it empowered her, allowing her defeat a foe or conquer a rogue. She sometimes couldn't believe that this is what her life had become; she, the smallest girl from a wasteland village, had accomplished the deadly skills needed to become a Huntress. And everyone knew that Hunters and Huntresses were the best.

Sure, a commoner might boast his skill with a sword. A knight could advertise his expertise and experience. But if a Hunter walked past their bar table, they wouldn't dare speak of such accomplishments. For hunters fought an enemy far worse than their fellows.

Miku blinked at the thought of them. The Beta wolves, the Alphas, and the mess of mutants in between. It was a sight for a Huntress like Miku to react at all simply to the thought of her enemies. But while someone may believe her reaction came about because of fear, they would be entirely wrong in thinking so.

Miku wasn't scared. She was excited. More excited than she had been in years. The last time she remembered the blood hammering in her ears this loudly was on her naming day, the day when each hunter or huntress passed their final level of training. The day she had earned her red hood.

But today compared to that in every way. While Miku understood the importance of her naming day, she also understood that her current task was by no means one to belittle. In fact, with each passing moment, Miku could feel her heart slow, her eyes focus, and her every breath come like a planned cosmic event.

Miku Hatsune was, on this cold winter day, assigned to the duty of killing the Alpha wolf.

Beta wolves, a dirty, disgusting lower species that preyed on the weak and did nothing but incite fear and rebellion in Miku's kingdom, were the natural enemies of Hunters. Hunters, having originally descended from the line of Rose Adeen, the first human in history to have ever killed an Alpha wolf, possessed the skills necessary to decimate the wolf population. Not normal wolves, of course. In fact, Hunters had an odd sort of fondness for the creatures, who seemed to get along terribly with their larger counterparts. The Beta and Alpha wolves created regular canis lupis with about as much respect as the bastard child of a monarch. They gave even less respect, if it can even be referred to as that, to the human population and those smaller populations that chose to live alongside them.

Wolves were the bane of human existence. Without Hunters, human kind would have been doomed long ago.

Miku snapped her head to the side only to encounter a young doe breaking through the fresh snow on the forest floor. Its eyes met briefly with hers before correctly assuming she posed no threat. The doe lazily moved on, its nose digging for the last few frostbitten blades of grass below the snow. Poor thing. It likely wouldn't survive the winter.

Miku returned her focus to the general area, blocking out the sounds that came from the doe. Aside from her, there was nothing to be heard apart from the carefully cooing of winter birds. But she knew this wasn't an accurate sum of her present situation. The large tracks she had found through here meant that the wolf, the Alpha, took this route often, perhaps daily. She had been here long enough to track its basic movements, and now she was more than ready for her first confrontation.

Of course, this wouldn't be her last. Alpha wolves were intelligent creatures, with an almost human thought process. You could see it in their eyes when they scanned you. Each blink and twitch of a claw was planned perfectly. It was unnerving to think that a lower, violent animal had such amazing mental capacities, but Miku knew this fact, however controversial it had been in the past, was more than true. Alpha wolves were smart, and before taking them down for a final time, you had to attack one. Attack one and lose.

For such intelligent creatures, Miku wondered why they still fell for the same trick. Every Hunter had applied the same strategy to every Alpha in the past. Know thy enemy was the ultimate motto of a Hunter, and to no wolf did this apply more than an Alpha.

She knew that after having accomplished its attack, an Alpha would be at its weakest. This steady decline would go on for weeks, during which a Hunter would track the Alpha's every step. Finally, when the Alpha could hardly match a Beta in a fair fight, the assigned Hunter would kill it. It was the simplest way of going about it. The queen's knights may complain about the principle of it, the lack of honor in such action, but if it meant the survival of a powerful hunter and the protection of the country, Miku would do what she had to do in order to kill such a disgusting creature.

Her hands itched at her sides, twitching beneath her red cloak. The cloak stuck out against the white of the snow, but it wasn't as though the wolf, a creature attracted to red, would dare ignore the call of such a pretty fabric. What the wolf loved would eventually be its demise.

If Miku cared for poetry, she might have smiled. However, in her current circumstances, she couldn't care less.

She perked up again, listening for a second as the wind whispers unfamiliar sounds in her ears. The crunch of a heavy individual on the snow. A branch, broken in passing. Could it be…?

Miku sighed as a boy passed through her line of sight. He was bundled up against the biting cold, face mostly obscured by hat and scarf. He didn't notice Miku, despite her obvious placement. Dimwit.

Miku's hands relaxed against her thighs as the boy continued to crunch around. Well, now there was no chance the wolf would show up for the next twenty-four hours, not with the stench of human boy all over the path.

With a sniff of disgust, Miku left her position, leaving the unsuspecting male to his own destructive devises.

The village where Miku was situated on this particular mission was cozy. The community, had Miku cared for such things, was one of inviting people, all neighborly the way their court representative always brought up. The children were an odd bunch of mutants, some human and some a mix of human and whatever other species lived in this village. Miku had nothing against interspecies breeding, for the most part. Hell, it was her job to protect every soul in this village. But these children… They were not attractive. She had seen many on her travels. They did not look like human children; pudgy and adorable. And they did not live like human children. Honestly, what parent could live with their child's early death? Mutant children were not worth the pain they caused.

Nonetheless, Miku protected them. They were just children. They never asked to be born.

Miku's bare cabin was on the edge of town, a little shack that the Hunters' organization rented year-round. There was one of these cabins in every village, designed for the stay of a Hunter. Or a Huntress like Miku. It was odd to sit on that bed and wonder who had been there last year at this time. Were they even still alive, that person who had slept in Miku's bed?

Well, if Miku was alive, then there was always a chance they were, too.

As the youngest Huntress (or Hunter, for that matter) to ever pass her final test, Miku was the prodigy. T was exceptional for anyone under the age of twenty to start training, let alone finish. But Miku, at age nineteen, had seventeen successful Beta kills under her belt, as well at nine Mutt kills. Mutts were the offspring of Alphas and Betas, an odd, twisted animal Miku could hardly stand to look on. They fit somewhere between the two species, their minds warped by a mix of genes that shouldn't have genetically been allowed. Somehow, though, this species was almost as prevalent as the Betas.

Miku hated Mutts. Mutts were chaos, confused by light and sounds and pretty much every other natural occurrence. While Alpha and Beta wolves followed logical patterns, Mutts fit no solid mold. They were, in no uncertain terms, mentally deranged, often ignoring fatal wounds to get at an attacker, bleeding out in their efforts to kill an enemy. It was as though they felt no pain, had no real connection with the world, and existed solely to defy the human concept of cause and effect.

Miku's boots thumped onto the wooden front step of her tiny cabin. Inside, a warm, sparking fire sat in the fireplace. The little girl she paid to maintain the fire in her absence scuttled away from it, her bare feet knocking against old wooden floors.

The girl was adorable, with a bright smile and mismatched teeth that gave away her mutant status. She was obviously the result of an illegal love affair between a human and a Hunter, who were not entirely human themselves. In their own right, they were wolves, sharing a small part of their DNA and attributes with them. But the majority of a Hunter's composition was human, making sure they stuck to the proper side.

This girl had strained, sharp teeth that cut into her lips and gums. There was something about her eyes, too: just slightly too yellow to be entirely human. These tiny details led Miku to believe the girl's status, and she couldn't help feeling sorry for the girl. The offspring of a Hunter and a human rarely live long, happy lives. The constant scabbing around her mouth further showed Miku that she must be in constant, extreme pain from those teeth. They didn't fit right in her human mouth, far too big and growing every day. Sooner or later, her teeth would all have to be pulled, or they would grow straight up through her skull.

Miku offered the girl a rare smile in return, her own sharp teeth neat and tidy. Her DNA worked with her, fit specifically to her body so as to enhance her, not weaken her. Unlike this girl, who had never been designed the way Miku was to hold these wolfish qualities, Miku would survive her attributes. She wished she could say as much for this girl.

"Thank you very much," she said in her kind voice, which if she was being perfectly honest could use some work. The girl ignored this, though.

"My pleasure! It gets me out of the cold, at least," the child replied, her bare toes drumming against the floor.

"Yes, well," Miku continued, unsure how to respond. "I… have your payment. And the treat I owe you, if you would like."

The girl's eyes lit up, excitement brightening her pale features. "Yes! I would be very grateful for that," she said quickly, eagerly, with no remorse for her immediate response. Good. She deserved this, at least.

Miku produced her handful of coins, pressing them into the girl's tiny hand. Compared to her own worn digits, the girl's fingers were soft, with small, ragged cuts and splinters Miku wished she could just ignore. After doing that, she pulled the warm jar of cider from her bag, a sugarcane candy tied to the side with red thread.

"I believe this is enough. Please return at the same time tomorrow; I have more work to do."

The girl nodded, thanking her before sliding into dirty sandals and wading out into the cold with her thick, blanket-like coat. It trailed behind her, collecting snow, and Miku closed the door before she continued to watch. She felt an odd sort of affection for that girl, like one might hold for a sibling. But Miku had no siblings, and she certainly did not have the energy or the time to care for a little girl.

With calloused hands, Miku procured her night meal, gulping down the warm food with finesse. She may have been raised by low-class ruffians, but she knew well enough not to waste a drop of food by bothering with poor manners.

With that, Miku turned to her bed, wishing that sleep would come easily tonight.

It did not.

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