Anch led us into the woods silently. We ran like ghosts, not making a noise. The sides of my vision blurred when we ran and I found myself having to slow down often for them to catch up. Anch suddenly stopped Andrew almost toppled past him.
"I want you all to listen and smell everything around you. Do it now, close your eyes"
My lids slid shut and I was overwhelmed. One set of breathing. Two. Three. Four .Five. Six.
Birds from hundreds of meters away sounded as though they were right in my face. A light wind rummaged the leaves to the west. A snake moving silently through the tall grass. It felt like I could almost hear the sun. And the smells.
Karen's scent and heartbeat mixed with the others, which was slightly unpleasant to have all mixed at once. The damp smell of moss, grass and mud. A stream was somewhere nearby.
Once everybody had opened there eyes, looking less grief stuck now, Anch spoke again.
"We are here to hunt. Yes, you must drink blood. And any blood will do the trick. Some may taste better than the others. And humans are off limits as they are protected by settlements. So we hunt animals. They are somewhat easy and don't taste nearly as good, but that's what we have."
"If you listened extremely carefully you could tell that there is a water source nearby. This means animals will come to drink" He told us to follow him and we moved until the stream was in sight. But it wasn't a stream, it looked bigger than a stream.
We watched from the brush as four Elk walked quietly to the stream.
"When I say go, we rush them" Anch whispered. Bal looked scares, I patted him on the back and gave him a smile. This was just as crazy as he was thinking it was. But I was hungry now. No. Not hungry. Starving.
"Go" He yelled. The Elk looked up and sped off in a startled run. But they were not fast enough.
The colours blurred as I picked one and chased it through the trees, darting around stumps and large amounts of foliage. I close in on the Elk with one last leap, and collapsed on top of it. I put its head into both of my clawed hands and twisted hard. A sickening crunch sound came from the twist.
With a swift movement I raked my hand across its neck and began to drink. It was pure ecstasy. The flavour was the sweetest and most salty thing I had ever tasted. I wanted more. I wanted an endless supply of this liquid gold. I drank and drank, an Elk has a lot of blood, as I now knew. The thirst was soon dulled, but still waiting in the background.
Amelia had approached behind me, empty handed. She hadn't been able to chase one down? Was she trying to take my kill? A massive snarl ripped from my chest. She looked scared, and backed off. What was I doing? I don't care if she wanted some, she's probably as hungry as I am. With the precious crimson liquid dripping from my chin, I backed off, and she moved in.
She made another cut on its hind leg, as I had drained the top half almost completely. When she was done she looked up at me and we walked back to find the others. They had caught only 2 of the Elk, and were sharing them. Anch wasn't feeding.
"One got away?" I asked.
Anch looked wary of me as he answered "Yep"
Wishing he would get that look off his face, I waited. Karen came to my side and when they had taken every last drop we set off. The blood in my stomach felt sloshy. But somehow it made me feel...stronger. Stronger than I had been. It made me want to do things. Anything to release this energy.
We eventually got back to camp. The sun was getting closer it the horizon, I assumed. The trees blocked any knowing. I didn't feel tired at all. I still felt the rush.
When we got to the Opening Joseph was waiting in the centre of it.
"Separate into pairs that aren't your buddies" He yelled.
I went to look around to find someone who wasn't K but Joseph was already at my side "Your with me, missy" He whispered. Creep.
"Can we do something already?" Andrew spoke out.
"That's the blood talking. Now listen" They glared each other down and eventually Joseph had to look away to continue his speech.
"You have probably noticed you're not tired. Stalkers need minimal sleep to be active. And we are also stronger at night" Huh. So they keep us out in the daylight why? So we can't overpower them?
"For the next week we will meet out here every morning to spar with one and another. You will hunt once every two days" Bal sighed. He still didn't look in any shape to be up and about.
Joseph proceeded to explain training routine and I continued to question what we were training for.
*
I asked both him and Alex about what we were doing here and what for over the next week. All seemed to be able to blow off the question so easily, or had somewhere else to be. The group grew closer the more we trained. It became easy for me to come out the victor every time any of us fought. When we sparred it reminded me of fireworks going off. They were so fast and so often cracks were heard.
One day I challenged Joseph and won. Both of us sat the next day of training out after taking such a beating. When he was walking away I heard him whisper to himself "How..." I don't think he thought I caught it, but I did.
We learned much about Stalkers and their territorial nature. None of us expected it to become so practical so soon.
