Creatures On Fire

The Huntress And Her Mate (Predator)

Guan-luar-ke

It has been some time since I came to planet Earth to hunt. It's indeed interesting to observe oomans and their behavior. Something we have in common, something is entirely different from our kind. One thing I've noticed for sure: unlike us, oomans rarely go hunting which for us is a must to earn respect and higher rank in our society. But if that happens, I saw almost always males do this job. That's where oomans are similar to us. Most of Yautja hunters are males; the females rarely are into this. But there were cases when a female continued her training and became a huntress. And this is about me. I am one of the rare females that truly wanted to hunt and show that females are as good as males in it. Our Code of Honor requires hunting only worthy prey, and it means never attacking the unarmed ones or the females that soon will become mothers. If any of the rules is broken, a hunter may earn a shameful mark of bad blood, and I know that no one wants to suffer the fate of a bad blood. I have always kept that in mind and chose to hunt only those who could provide me some challenge. Those were always males. Ooman males seem to be stronger than females which, and that is also different from our race. But what truly angered me during observation is that ooman males often use their strength to dominate over females against their will. Those males had no idea what honor meant. In our society this is absolutely unacceptable. So in these cases I did what I considered right. I attacked the unworthy ooman males from the back, piercing their bodies with my wrist blades, watching their thwei spilling on the ground. I saw fear in females' eyes when one of their kind was killed right before them by something they couldn't really see; and sometimes I heard them mutter something like "a ghost killed him", although I have no idea what a "ghost" even is. I have never deactivated my cloaking device and showed myself to oomans, so no wonder they found skinless bodies handing upside down from the tree branches and never knew who did it. But that's what we do to the unworthy prey. If we consider the prey worthy, we hunt it down and take its skull as a trophy. I have gained a few so far and I'm going to achieve more.

But then something unexpected happened. During my observation next to the area of dense forest one ooman male attracted my attention. He lived there, so much I understood. He wasn't a warrior or anything, just an ordinary type like many others around him. But I felt enthralled by him for some strange reason that I couldn't explain. It has never happened to me before. Of course, there were cases when our males claimed ooman females, but it wasn't my business and I never mixed myself into that. One I knew for sure: it was hard for me to understand why ooman females attracted our males; but now when I feel so strongly attracted to a male that is not of my species, I think I might begin to understand what they felt.

And so I sat on a thick tree branch in the forest near the area where this male lived, lost in thoughts when suddenly I spotted him again; I guessed he was going back to his place. I tensed and watched his every step, constantly staying hidden with the help of my cloaking device. But this time it seemed that he wasn't really alone. I saw three more oomans following him. I stayed sharp and watched what was going to happen until those three finally caught up with him and surrounded him from all sides. I saw them grabbing him and dragging him deeper inside the forest. I felt anger rising inside me; the first instinct told me to come down instantly and attack, but I decided to wait and see.

***

Jeffrey Clarke walked back from the college right after the studies were over. All he wanted to do now was to get home as soon as possible and to take a rest. Today he got into another heavy argument with Morgan Jarrett who became his enemy since the day he saw Jeff walking and chatting with Mary Woods, his course mate. Jeff knew Mary since childhood she lived in his neighborhood, but even since they grew up they remained good friends and neighbors. Mary never considered him to be anything more than just a friend, and so did Jeff. Soon she began dating Morgan and everything seemed fine in the beginning. But in the moment Morgan saw them together, it almost ended with a fight. And no matter how many times Jeff tried to persuade him that he and Mary were just friends, that narcissistic bastard didn't listen. It looked like he listened only to himself. In fact, Morgan and his company mocked Jeff since the beginning, but Jeff ignored him, not wanting to sink to his level. He knew that arguing with a fool pretty much meant making a fool of himself, so he chose the best strategy to ignore the offenders. Sure it was unpleasant, but still more or less bearable. But since he caught Jeff in a friendly talk with Mary, everything got only worse. Now every day in college became a mental torture for Jeff, and today it was no exception. He walked fast and felt that somebody was following him, and no wonder. He turned around to see Morgan and his two most faithful friends following his tail. He huffed with irritation and increased his walking speed, but short time passed until those three bastards caught up with him and dragged him into the woods.