The Hunt

The jungle was silent as he ran, his labored breathing the only sound. Very little light sifted down to the ground leaving him able to see the path carved out for him but unable to see small sticks or animals. A crunching sound emanated from a nearby tree and he knew the thing was closer. Yon ran even faster putting every ounce of his strength into his speed and doing well with it. In another life he might have been an Olympic athlete, had he not been an archeologist. And further still he might have remained one had he simply kept up with the guide.
He did not believe him when the small framed man with many scars told him many evils lived in this forest waiting for a weak soul to take. It was just myth he had said to his students but no look at him being chased by- the chase! He refocused his efforts realizing he had just begun to slow. Yon had been running for half a hour now and that he couldn't continue to do so for much longer especially at this pace.
The professor was correct. After another seven minutes at this impressively break-neck speed, Yon could no longer feel his legs. How big is this jungle? Suddenly another crunching came from yet another tree and Yon instinctively looked behind him in terror, but went tumbling to the ground over a small branch, planting him head first on the soft, moist dirt.
The creature was no-where to be seen when the professor awoke. He didn't know if it had been several hours or less than a second. Peering around he was puzzled. After a few more grueling seconds of gathering his thoughts he heard several voices coming from further up the trail, so yon tried to stand to greet them but a sharp and monstrous pain shot up his leg. So he called out once but remained seated.
The others found him sitting a massive gash running the front his shin revealing his bone and mixed with dirt. The asked why he ran so fast just barely above the excited voices of his students.
"I thought i saw... I was looking for you all."
The guide looked at him closely. Almost suspiciously. Why was he looking this way? the professor thought to himself. In the end though, the guide made a splint out of nearby wood and with the help of the young students carried him out of the jungle. The professor and students were airlifted out that night. Yon was treated at a nearby hospital while his students returned home where he joined them after a month.
He was over joyed to see his wife again and his brush with death had awakened a new passion in them both, so later that night he told her he would stop going to the dangerous digs to be with her and maybe... start a family if she would allow it. She did.
How ever when the two got home Yon could feel something change in him. He had a new urge he had never felt in his life. It was primal, simple. It awoke from the inner core of his body beyond that of even sex drive. It seemed to eminate from a joy he had felt in a time before and longed for once again. A time he had never expereinced.
When his wife went to sleep it seemed to speak louder. It spoke to him unceasingly in his dreams as well showing what it would be like to take that step, to seek that thrill, but no he could not do something so... wrong, so evil. He had long ago accepted it as a fact of the world that good and evil are only words but this. this sickened him yet enthralled him. This fact only made him long for it more.
after four months of thoughts whispered into his head he could stand to be away the hunt no longer. He drowned his wife while she napped in the tub and pretended to be at
 the grocery store. His wifes pregnancy unbeknownst to him gave him an air of credability along with his recent scrape in Argentina.
But it was not enough. He still wanted more. Needed more. When he was alone with a student one day he pounced. Hit the boy over the head with a chair knocking him to the ground. The boy being on the wrestling team reacted the moment he touched the ground by rolling to the left and sweeping Yon's leg, hitting his head on the way down. Yon bled out on the floor before his student could get help.
Later the boy went home to his parents to deal with the loss of his favorite professor. Then it awakened. The longing. The need for the hunt.