The Hunted

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words: deadline, escape, morning

The Hunted

Chad woke up with the sunrise and considered falling back to sleep. This was his first vacation in years and he intended to enjoy every moment of it. There was no deadline to meet; no conference calls to participate in. His only agenda item was breakfast over an open fire.

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

Chad turned from his frying pan at the voice only to find himself staring down the barrel of a high powered rifle. 

With his hands tightly bound, Chad was forced down the trail. Behind him, his camping spot showed no signs that he had ever spent the night there. He tested the strength of his binds and could see there would be little chance of escape. One man was leading the way while two followed from behind. A little time behind the desk seemed pretty appealing right about then. 

As they trudged along to who-knows-where, a flitter off to one side or the other would sometimes catch Chad’s eye. It was always just at the edge of his peripheral vision. None of the others seemed to notice so he just filed it away under “stress induced hallucination”.

As the sun went down, they stopped to make camp. That night, Chad had his first dream about Her. She had floated down from the tree tops; a glow emanating from her in some indirect manner. With one hand on her heart, she placed the other on his chest. The emotional impact was overwhelming. He knew he loved her.

Morning came abruptly; cutting off his dream and shoving him forward into reality.

The leader addressed him as another cut loose the ropes. “You have about two hours before our hounds get here. That should give you enough time to make this interesting.”

Chad turned and ran.