Stone, stone, glass, earth... Flat! Now it's time to run. I feel the burning wind in my hair, I don't sweat, I can't. I ran out of water because I was at the ceremony with my ancestor (fuck, I don't remember him!), I walked aimlessly, out of habit, to where I was digging, there I picked up some pieces of food that we hide in case we are attacked in the village (not many, because the girls need to eat); I went down towards the forbidden areas, it's safer here, I told myself, and for a while it was, I could admire huge constructions without sense. There is a lot of rubble and it is certain that I would find many treasures digging, if only the girls would lift this beam... You don't work with that anymore! You are dead and so are they!
The first night and I feel the loneliness,
No moans, no gasps, the occasional muffled scream from a girl who had the misfortune to have a very large or disrespectful partner, but there are many sounds, scratches guide me and although I have no meat tonight, I have a varied assortment of insects, they are crunchy and regain a little moisture on my lips. I toss and turn to sleep, remembering my community, my people, my mother as a hunter, the day she couldn't have any more children, the day we ate her.
About two hours before dawn I am startled by a whimper, they are talking, it is the language of the hunters, I keep what is left of my food in my hair and roll my knife into attack position, the edge down, this is no joke, there is a prey and it is me.... The enlightened can go and eat iron! Sure they are your pets, I knew there were dangers in the desert, but these beasts are more than anyone can face, from time to time one or two escape and we need the strength of all to stop them (there is not all, only you), so I better run, because they do not understand reason, there is no truce, their only function is to kill, eat and fuck in whatever order they come up with.
The distance I lead them is diminishing alarmingly. It is true that I could work all day climbing treasures, but it is not the same as running in the open under the sun with killers chasing you by nature. It will still take more than ten shots from my jala (a flexible piece of metal with a hole in the tip that shoots a rod) for them to reach me, but I won't be able to throw them off, I know because the old man told me so... but all is not lost, I just hope he wasn't lying about this one too.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
The area is clearer, it allows me to run freely, there are whole areas of a black stuff that is very hot, but circling it allows me to be close to my destination. It's four in the afternoon and I'm close to the end of the last heresy; in the background, cutting into the concrete desert, is a cursed construction, it has not a single crack. White and gloomy, it looks at me and I can see the eyes of death, the ancestor told me about them, at a certain distance that you dare to violate, a light will disappear a part of you, my only hope is that it also eliminates the monsters.
I have smelled their stench for so long that when they attack me, I do not feel them. Only a scorch mark on my skin warns me that they have touched me, as I climb up the rim of a crater that is huge and, according to my people, hides my reward. The fucker who attacked me has a flat head; he is taller than any of us and I am sure he can carry one of the boxes full of parts (called engine), but he has long nails, a red one, there swinging near my foot that has a wound that dyes color to this demon; I swing my head with practice, my braid of more than 1.92 mts and mom's bone tip is stuck in his eye, I stop for a moment to regret the loss of so much water, first from the eye and then from the blood Wow it bleeds! It makes my dangling ankle look like a joke, better not look at it, I have to get to the top!
I'm two meters from the edge of the crater... Agh! It burns. My belly burns, it was two fuckers, it just took out a part of my belly and only my hand keeps what's inside from coming out, I kick it and a dark elongated head looks at me with hatred as it rolls down; the last stretch is a small slope, the sun doesn't seem so strong anymore, but it's not that, seeing my pursuers I notice how the world is turning and darkening. The one without an eye has already recovered from his pain and his gait on two legs and two hands is determined. If they came to catch me, now they come to eat, at the moment I reach to see a wasteland, after the crater, a huge view and of a strange color awaits me, a fire mark sends me to the ground, before something happens I reach and detach my last defense; mom, I know that eating you was not the best, but I won't die without using your rib, your heritage; a shadow rises in the sky; I scream, I say nothing, it's just a complaint to the world, I feel the impact of my hand against his skin... that's all.
Recording 3.
Access perimeter defenses 0;
Eliminate male life forms; Dispatch emergency drone; Stabilize female;
transport to sanctuary;
Execute.
Hope I make it in time... don't die, Paulina. End recording
Save Delete