I cracked it! The trick was not to worry about providing context - this is event is just something that happens! lol. Enjoy Pt 1 - Pt 2 to follow either tonight or tomorrow :-)

Pt 1

“Ready, girls?” Mr Menzies stood with the starting pistol in his hand. “When I fire the pistol, you will have five minutes to get into the woods and try to hide. When you hear the pistol again, you’ll know that the hunters are coming!” The fifteen little girls, all aged between four and seven years old and all as naked as the day they were born giggled excitedly, waiting in the mid-afternoon sun for their signal to run. The woods was actually nothing but a small copse, run too far into it and you would very quickly find yourself out the other side! But it was plenty big enough for the game and provided plenty of places to hide or to dodge anyone pursuing you. “Okay, on your marks, get set, GO!” The old man fired the starting pistol in the air and the gaggle of small girls rushed off up the slight hill to take refuge in the trees. The adults and non-participating children who had gathered to watch clapped and cheered as they ran, many shouting encouragement to their daughters or siblings.

Next, the hunters stepped up to the line. These were the older girls, aged from eight upwards with the oldest being fourteen, most of them veterans of previous hunts both as hunter and prey. Unlike the smaller girls, the hunters were dressed in cammo fatigues complete with boots, ammo-belts and hats. Several also wore sunglasses to protect against the bright sun that they knew from experience could be quite dazzling if it unexpectedly broke through the foliage in the other gloomy copse. There were ten hunters in all, volunteers like the prey, all armed with low-velocity paintball guns which might sting but not cause actual pain or do damage unless fired at point-blank range, each loaded with paint pellets of a different colour.

After the hunt, the annual celebrations would continue with much feasting, girl-meat being the bulk of the food to be enjoyed. That was the whole point of the hunt and the rules were simple. The older girls, the hunters, were sent to stalk the younger girls, the prey, in the woods and try to shoot them with their paintball guns. They would have fifteen minutes to track and shoot the naked little girls and there was no limit to how many different hunters could shoot the same prey. At no point were they “out”, they could continue running, hiding and teasing the hunters for as long as the had stamina. Once the fifteen minutes were over, the starting pistol would be fired again, a noise loud enough to be heard in even the thickest part of the copse, and the hunters must immediately stop their pursuit.

All the girls, hunters and prey, would then come back down the hill to the party area where, in front of the excited revellers, the prey would be inspected. Should any be found to be paint-free, aside from the soles of their feet as it was recognised that this would more likely come from stepping in the paint rather than being shot, they would simply return to their families and get dressed. Next, the colour of the paint on the nabbed preys’ bodies would be compared with the paint that had been issued to the hunters.

The small girls who had been hit by the hunters would then be scrubbed clean and, in front of the watching crowd, beheaded, gutted and butchered ready to be cooked at the feast. Many, in fact most years, all the meat came from these younger girls, or “piglets” as they were known, but sometimes the attendees were treated to an extra-special centre-piece. If any of the hunters should have failed to hit any piglet at all, judged by whether or not their signature paint could be found on any of the piglets’ bodies, they would have to strip naked too and be cooked alive on a spit. Every year, those gathered to watch the hunt hoped there would be at least one hunter with a poor aim or bad luck that day!

“Hunters, get ready!” Mr Menzies shouted again over the general hubbub and the crowd quietened down in anticipation. “Thee! Two! One! GO!” He fired the pistol into the air once more and, to the whoops and cheers of the watching crowd, the ten hunters raced up the hill, each eager to bag their first piglet and to avoid ending up on the menu themselves!