(Deer's POV)Before I could speak, the boy hoisted me onto his shoulders. "Hold on tight," he warned. "We're about to get fast."
Suddenly, eyes manifested all around us—hundreds, maybe thousands of demons hiding in the shadows. The hunter didn't flinch. He began to sprint with a speed that defied nature. The wind whipped past so hard I couldn't see where we were going. He moved through the forest like a ghost, dodging trees with a fluidity that made it seem like he had memorized every leaf and root.
He was having fun. He performed a front flip, landed in a slide, and then hit a "blitz" speed that made my heart stop. We launched off a cliff, soaring through the air, his clothes barely fluttering despite the velocity.
Is he even human? I wondered.
As we cleared the forest, a swarm of demons blocked the exit. The boy didn't stop. He leaped high into the air and crashed down like a meteor, the ground beneath us shattering into a crater. He hopped out of the hole, set me down, and stuck his tongue out at the dark woods. "You can't catch us!"
A demon tried to cross the boundary of the forest to reach us, but it instantly turned to ash. They were cursed to stay in the expanding dark. The boy pointed a finger at the burnt remains and laughed—but when he turned back to me, his expression had changed. He looked dark, cold, and mysterious.