This chapter is an entry for The Hunt Challenge by Steampunk (Halloween Vault Prompt #20)

Word count: 500

A pair of red eyes and static hums are enough declaration of its arrival.

The Terminator reveals itself from the dense trees. Its barren skull contrasted to its obsidian surroundings, and its creaks are enough to reach a deaf ear.

The temperature of the shallow pond I'm in decrease a lot afterward.

Crunk. The Terminator's scanning around with its futuristic features.

I stare at the glowing aquamarine bracelet binding my wrist, which is a cue whenever it's near.

I flick my gaze to a certain log on my far right, where I hid my squirrel puppet.

"Copy and begin," I said to my puppet, whose mind is linked to mine.

An appearance as formless as a shadow shift between the trees. And soon, an eerily similar Terminator slashes out of the debris, a glowing orb in its hand.

The original's machinery turns aside in the roughest of clangs, interest piercing through the bloody glare.

A chilly fog erupts, leaving everything blindfolded except for my decoy and me—which is a part of my trickeries.

The original Terminator's hand transforms into a cannon in a typhoon's speed.

And with a static whizzing, a hole appeared on my decoy's palm and out flew a horde of tacks, aiming the armor.

One shot at the skull is all it takes for my computer bug-tipped tacks to infect and kill it.

But though I'm the one with a clearer vision, I'm still the one under-dogged.  
At once, my body was lifted to the air, and a sharp pain injects both my eyeballs.

Golly!

There were no responses to my helpless cries. Instead, at the moist ground, my decoy lay sprawled in its squirrel form. Unmoving. With brown liquid seeping out of its head, and the tacks backfiring at its flesh.

A tear slips out of my eye at the criticality of my companion.

"You hadn't explored my skull in its entirety." The malice in its unclear voice is bloodcurdling.

Curse this wasted rust!

"And you thought it was a clockwise hunt."

I paid it no heed because I found something worthier of my attention.

Still stuffed in my pocket from last New Year Eve are two explosive firecrackers. To light it up, I have to risk silently burning my cloak.

"It's the age of steel. The beginning of a century without humans."

The ignited sparks bite my fingers. I count for the perfect timing to insert them into the gaps on its skull . . .

"Now watch our rise from the dead, Wizard Wu."

I slam my armed hand to its forehead, and at the sudden contact with the heat, the metal melts—crawling down. As the sparks destroy its features, I recklessly slither back to the shallows.

It's as if having a blade slicing open a wound on my face. As water claims me, a red substance trickle down my eyes.

There were furious clanks, an ear-splitting explosion, and a fading glow of my aquamarine bracelet before my eyes surrendered to the torture.