Of Mice and Monsters

I had the pleasure to have most of my upbringing amid heavily treed land. From forests nearby to forests in backyards to forests behind schools, there were trees aplenty. As such, their presence was taken advantage of when it came to gym class, weekends, and spring break in the warmer months. From the taking advantage of this prime real estate emerged the introduction to my truest love. Manhunt. 
    During most of my school career I was reading The Hunger Games. This was due to the fact that I had read the trilogy thrice, and oh did it ever influence me when it came to manhunt. For those of you who don’t know, manhunt is akin to tag. One hunter searches for the prey and if you are tagged, instead of being out or being the new hunter, you join the original hunter’s pack. By and by the hunter gains more followers and the number of prey dwindles. When done during gym, a time limit of about forty-five minutes is allotted. In that time, you either win or you die. At least, that’s how it felt when playing this intense casualty-less battle royal. To be tagged was to be destroyed, doomed to re enter the school with immense shame that would undoubtedly haunt your family and it’s future generations for at least a century. 
The day my sixth/seventh grade teacher came into class wearing his classic “ask your teacher to go outside” shirt, we knew that day meant war. In high school the late spring would mean about about a month of forest activities including manhunt, another declaration of war. These times were known well enough ahead that you could prepare and strategize. Students-turned-soldiers would don black, dark, or forest colored clothing. Some would bring camouflage nets or blankets. A second pair of shoes would be taken to school specifically for this and thick layers of clothing as well to combat thorns and sharp underbrush. We would become one with nature on those days, prepared to fight for our lives at any cost.
Those forty-five minutes would be both the longest and shortest span of time and one had to make sure their strength was at its peak. I would hide with friends when we were prey. Being in numbers was risky but the company was optimal. Together we scavenged for huckle and salmon berries. I was told by some kid that the pink bark of cedar trees was edible so I would gnaw on that as well. Once, when hiding with a friend, we drank from a glorified ditch that ran beneath a wooden bridge. The water was running so it was safer for consumption. Granted, the teacher was not pleased when he heard about that. He advised us to go to the hospital if we ended up feeling sick. My friend had called me that evening to make sure I was still alive and we had a good laugh over estimating whether or not we would live to see the dawn. It might of been a  stupid thing to do but at the time, it was all about survival and water is needed to survive. Forty-five minutes was too much a risk to go without hydration. 
Depending on the location of the game determined all our moves. One place meant we would quickly battle stinging nettle to get to a hollowed tree trunk. Another place meant we would scurry to a natural rock crater and camp on a stone shelf some feet below the edge. A different location left us with few options so we simply settled behind a log and in deep ferns. With a good settlement, one could rest relatively easily. There would be close calls, but having proper clothing and a good location, we could just curl against the earth and remain unseen. Unfortunately, there is a chase every now and again, ultimately due to poor hideouts. The third location mentioned above proved to not be so ideal. We were spotted, three of us, after a bee had decided to stake claim on our land and drove us into a panic. The hunter charged and us prey scattered. I am a decently clumsy person, I think. I tend to trip a lot over nothing or run into things that should be easy to avoid. However, when I have to run in manhunt, I become a deer. When we were charged, I leapt away, hurdling over everything in my path as though my legs were long and light and not the dense, two-foot-in-length logs that they are. I galloped so fast from our safe place, failing to look back and see what became of my companions. Alas those are the harsh choices one must make to survive. I used my small stature to fold up and disappear into clumps of bushes and shrubbery as no decent hiding spots could be found now that the game had begun. I had survived that round, half of it spent in fear and lament as I grieved the loss of my friends. But I survived. 
There was tell that a student some years ago had shown up in all yellow and was thought at the beginning to be an easy target. No one deemed much of her and she was assumed to be a quick kill once the whistle went off. They were wrong. When the short time given to find hiding spots began, she made her temporary home in the scotch broom that grows abundantly at one of the locations behind our high school. She completely blended in with the yellow flowers and went the whole game unseen. For that, she will always be championed in my head for her wit and clever strategy. 
A boy in my class had been running from a hunter, I witnessed the whole thing from my secluded location. He carried out a brave gambit and thrust himself into a blackberry bush, wriggling backward ever deeper to further the distance betwixt him and his enemy. From my bushes I rooted for that lad, I prayed that he make it and live to tell the tale. Fortune did not favor the bold that day though. The hunter, after a pause of uncertainty, wadded in after him through the sharp branches and tagged the poor bastard who risked so much to get away. I still mourn that defeat to this day.
The grandest of tactics and endeavors are displayed during this fierce show of intellect, agility, and stamina. In those gym periods we ordinary students became olympians. Over a spring break, one week of it was spent playing manhunt behind our elementary school. Just wee children that lived in the same neighborhood. But that week we were not wee children, we were mighty, making sacrifices and battle plans that would rival the great generals of old. For my birthday two years in a row, I had a manhunt themed party where I invited all of my classmates. Though I don’t remember many stories from the games themselves, it was where a bond began between me and two others that remains to this day, they are my longest lasting friendship. I reaped both fantastic victories and friends from this sport-that-isn’t-actually-a-sport and for that, I will forever hold it dearly in my heart. 
I’m not very good at sports. In fact, I would say I’m comically average to bad at them. Manhunt though, manhunt I was good at. I was a graceful beast, a master at stealth. I was a contender in my own version of the Hunger Games and I was determined to not leave as anything but a victor. To the outside eye, it may seem nothing more than a bunch of youths gallivanting in the woods creating a wild ruckus. With a closer look however, it is a gruelling battle that is both terrifying and delicate. It is a testament of glory and mettle achievable by braving the mildly untamed wilderness and facing hidden foes.
When being a child merits few opportunities to be extraordinary without the title of “prodigy”, manhunt is there, where magnificence can erupt from even the most unassuming of humans.