The Hunting

Prologue

Ecosystem; a group of interconnected elements, formed by the interaction of organisms with their environment.

The world is a huge ecosystem, thriving off its inhabitants, always developing, always changing. Usually, this change is for good, like another season turning into the next or a bland bud blossoming into a beautiful flower. But sometimes there is a bad development, natural hazards, or hazards caused by human hands. Which humans are usually the cause for everything bad that hurts this beautiful ever-changing world.

These hazards changed our world. This hazard was caused by humans. Humans caused the destruction of our planet. Leaders of civilizations known as "countries" were big-headed imbeciles. They were power-hungry: dumping garbage into the ocean, polluting the air, polluting the minds of the masses. Society crumbled, it even got to the point where electricity turned off for good. Since the electricity shut off a lot of bad things started to happen. Some people lost their minds to insanity and took their own lives, and then the people who didn't turn insane died of diseases or natural causes soon after.

After three-fourths of the world's population diminished people decided to go to the main ideology that has helped the animal kingdom run smoothly for thousands of years; kill or be killed. With the limited resources to weapons and just resources in general, people often fought over these said resources. Trying to survive in a harsh environment where we lived in luxury before. Similar to animals, people broke up into the five groups similar to the different animal groups; grazers, browsers, burrowers, hunters, and scavengers.

In the world, there are five groups of organisms. The grazers who thrive off the vegetation of the land. The browsers similar to the grazers, just smaller, usually eating vegetation like shrubs or bushes. Then there are the burrowing animals who bury themselves underground. Then on the harsher side of nature, there are those who eat the animals who thrive off vegetation, usually called carnivores. One of these carnivores is hunters who hunt for their prey, and then there are the scavengers who eat off of dead organisms. Although the food chain is a harsh idea of kill or be killed, this simple principle is what makes the world work.

In the usual ecosystem, many of the animals stay in their groups, similar to how we humans are now. We could stay in groups, but the mindset of each group is different, which would just cause conflict. My people's mindset is like a burrowing animal, stay in one place, stay underground, and stay hidden.

The grazers and browsers stick together most of the time since their group traits are so similar. They tend to roam around a certain area, but the area is about a 30 to 70-mile radius. Every so often we meet up with the group that roams around our area, but the last time one group came was about two years ago.

Then there are the hunters and scavengers. Whenever I ask about them my mom goes silent. When I was little, apparently scavengers kidnapped and killed my father. I don't remember anything about my father, which drives me insane sometimes. Every year around the time of his disappearance people come over to our house and tell stories about him. The stories were about how brave, caring, and strong he was.

The only thing that I hear about scavengers is that they are savages, they have no control, and they kill just for the fun of it. I also heard rumors that if scavengers find you, they will kidnap you and hunt you down like prey. When I asked my mom about it she said that those were just stories that the adults made up to keep the young ones from wandering off; although, she says they are savages. I honestly want to know if they have ever seen a group of scavengers, because who knows what they are like.

Hunters are their own group. Apparently they stay in small groups and travel, with no boundaries. They are always on the move. Similar to scavengers they will kill, but only if you take something of theirs or hurt one of their own. In general, the rest of the groups are complete mysteries, except for the rumors. Every time I ask my mom or any adult in the village they just say rumors and speculations.