"The first time I met Hunter was back in elementary school."
A child Marcus is at his home all by himself reading a note that his parents left him, the note states 'we went to the store and got some more groceries in the fridge.' As the child Marcus goes to the fridge, he hears a loud bang come from outside. Curious, Marcus opens the door to see a kid his age trying to pick up a trash can he accidentally knocked over.
"Y'know, a part of me wonders how different things would have been if I never said hi to him..."
The kid Marcus goes over to the other kid and helps him pick up the trash.
"Thanks for that," the other kid says.
"No problem," Marcus says.
"How better would my life have been..."
"By the way, if you ever wanna play some baseball, then come find me! The name's Hunter Huntingson, and don't you forget it," the young kid says with a smile on his face.
"If I never met Hunter."
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Back in middle school, both Marcus & Hunter are in class chatting during work time. Hunter is trying to toss crushed-up balls of paper into the trash can from his desk.
"Back then, we got along really well. I don't know if it was that we had a similar sense of humor, or that we could bond over some issues, but for the longest time..."
As Hunter tells Marcus a joke, he can't help but laugh.
"I thought we would be friends forever."
As the two continued to talk, the loudspeaker in the classroom activated as it stated, "Hunter Huntingson, please come down to the main office."
Hunter looks at Marcus and shrugs as he stands up.
"I'll catch you later Buddy," Hunter says as he walks towards the door.
"Oh, okay," Marcus replies.
"Little did I know it then but..."
Hunter walks out of the classroom and the door closes behind him.
"That would be the last time I would see Hunter like that."
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A few days later on a cloudy rainy day, Marcus is in the cafeteria when he sees Hunter. Hunter's eyes look vacant as he eats his food. Marcus walks over and sits at his table.
"Hey Hunter," Marcus began to say concerned, "I haven't seen you for a while, everything okay?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Hunter murmurs.
"Oh okay," Marcus replied as an awkward silence fell between the two of them. Hunter looked down at his lunch tray as he ignored Marcus. Eventually, Marcus coughed and added, "if you want to. You can come over to my house and hang out. You know my mom & dad are never home so they wouldn't care."
Hunter grits his teeth as he stands up and begins walking away.
"You know Marcus, it sure sucks how your parents can just leave you be and you can do whatever you want," Hunter snaps.
"What? Hunter-" Marcus tries to say but gets cut off.
Hunter interjects by saying "your parents really must be the worse huh? Your life must be miserable."
Marcus doesn't know what to say as Hunter walks away and murmurs to himself, "at least you have a mom."
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"After then, every time I saw Hunter, he would be different."
Marcus is walking down the hall when he sees Hunter arguing with a teacher. His face has a few bruises and his hands are wrapped in bandages.
"He started lashing out at teachers, he got into a ton of fights, and the thing that made me the most upset was..."
After getting scolded by the teacher, Hunter walks over to Marcus and proceeds to spill some water over his clothes.
"How he began to 'joke' around with me."
"Oh, I'm sorry Buddy!" Hunter began to say, "I didn't see you there!"
"Oh, no worries," Marcus said.
"It would look like innocent teasing to anybody on the outside."
After a while, Marcus is walking to another class when Hunter 'accidentally' knees him in the groin.
"What the hell!" Marcus yells.
"Buddy, what's the big deal, I'm just messing around!" Hunter casually remarks.
"And whenever I'd try and stand up for myself, he'd just pretend like this was how we always acted. To those looking from the outside, it looked like I was the one acting irrationally."
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In a male bathroom in Starlight Middle School, Marcus is washing his hands when Hunter walks in. The two may eye contact as Hunter walks over to Marcus.
"So Buddy, you wanna hang out later?" Hunter asks as Marcus just looks down.
"I don't want to," Marcus murmurs.
"What? Why not! We always hang out."
"I'm not in the mood Hunter," Marcus sighs.
"What? You don't want to hang out," Hunter begins to say, "But I thought you always wanted to hang out with me whenever your parents weren't around."
Marcus groans as he shouts, "Hunter! What are you doing?!"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, why are you like this? This isn't you!" Marcus screams.
As Marcus stops talking he looks at Hunter whose eyes are filled with rage.
"I'm not like this? This isn't me? You don't know a damn thing about me!" Hunter begins to yell, "You have no idea who I am, everything I go through, you're just some idiot I hang out with!"
As Hunter is breathing heavily and his hands are shaking, Marcus tries to reach out to Hunter, however in a fit of blind rage and not realizing what he was doing, Hunter makes a fist and punches Marcus straight in the face.
"In that instant, we no longer were friends..."
As Marcus falls to the ground, Hunter snaps back to reality as he realizes what he's just done. A feeling of regret washes over Hunter as he doesn't know how to apologize to Marcus. But as he tries to find the right words to say, a new feeling begins to bubble up inside him. A feeling of having power over someone, a feeling of having some sort of control, a feeling of absolute freedom.
"Instead, the only thing I was to Hunter was..."
As Marcus tries to get up, Hunter grabs Marcus by the hair as he makes a fist with his other hand. A twisted smile creeps onto Hunter's face as he bellowed, "Hey Buddy, did you think I was done after just one swing?!"
"Nothing more than a mere punching bag."
See You Next Chapter!~