Shards of Moonlight || A Short-story Collection

The Hunt - SciFi

Click. Dun data data dun.

Another round rattled through the trembling silvery fur, making high-tech metal chatter. A discharge pairing rapid typing on a typewriter with merciless thunder reverberated through the vast savannah in a mind-wracking manner like a chair being scraped over wooden flooring. The sound faded to utter silence, revealing the spark atomizing remainders of the Altruin. "Utterly worthless," a young man sporting army boots, a camouflage-colored soldier's suit, and poison-green hair carelessly flipped the cosmic-black hunter's rifle over his shoulder in a fluid motion. "What a waste of time," he hissed through gritted teeth before giving the remainders of the dog-like figure an aggressive kick, making it crunch and screech underneath his foot. The hot-head snarled, pulling back his fist to let his punching bag feel all his frustration, as a higher-pitched voice chimed in.

"Kain. Don't waste our time. Once the sun comes up, we're toast. Quite literally," a woman of about 2 feet and 7 inches with jet-black, wavy hair falling to her waist, rubbed her elbows. Covering up her indisposition and a gut in knots the woman chewed her bottom lip and tapped a code into the software embedded into the back of her left hand. 0:23:40. Figures in the color of the soft blue of infant's eyes appeared, steadily counting down. "Kara, you're such a fun killer," the evident macho rolled his eyes, yet pulled his hand back and straightened his back. Kara just raised an eyebrow at Kain's ridiculous behavior.

"It wasn't her that wasted an entire round on a bean bag," a man with marine-blue, spiky hair wore a mocking grin, while lazily throwing his daggers from one hand into the other making them twinkle in the reddish glow emitted from the three moons dominating the night sky at this hour. "What's your problem, freak?", Kain growled, predatorily stepping towards his predetermined comrade that equanimously leaned against a withered, black tree. Under the claw-like branches reaching towards the endless, sickeningly red sky, Kain grabbed blue-hair by the collar of his plain shepherd's coat. "Who're you calling a freak, poison hair?", his vis-à-vis let out a short breath, a condescending smile forming on his lips.

"Boys, time and place," a fatherly voice ringed out, making the young men jump apart in a heartbeat. "Apologies, sir," sea-clutter-hair lowered himself like a soldier kneeling in front of his king. The ruler of his thoughts. Kain on the other hand just slightly bowed his head. "Saint Henry that can do no wrong. Just a spoiled orfan like always," Kain muttered in envy. "You want to say something to my face?", Henry smiled calmly. "They're at it again, Sir Frederic," Kara groaned. "Let us not forget our objective," the evident commander smiled gently, motioning towards a pile of rusty metal compiled behind a couple of throny bushes. "Nooo. Not charity work again," a girl with stunningly beautiful, short blond hair whimpered throwing her gun to the ground in exasperation. "Fiona, stop the whining," Kain rolled his eyes, "you probably won't get dirt under your precious pink fingernails like last time. Honestly. If the gun had been uncocked, you could have shot me!"

"It's a laser instant-gun and they're red, douche-bag," Fiona grumbled, but picked up the gun again, training her eyes on their leader. "And I thought we could already get a head start back to the tavern," Kara sighed tiredly rubbing her eyes. "Sir? - Hey, what's wrong?", Henry's concerned, deep voice rang through the humid air. Fiona blinked in confusion as all of a sudden, the elder man with a bloody bandana wound around his mouth and an eye patch over his right eye grabbed his head with both of his hands. He fell to his knees in obvious, still silent, angst-inducing pain.

Images flashed before his eyes.

A space shuttle in the depts of the cold eternity of the universe. Soldiers standing strictly straight in front of a preaching man, that grew stiff the moment Frederic caught a glimpse of the figure. Suddenly the hooded person spread his arms like Jesus himself.

"There is not a place in any galaxy you can think of where you could hide from me," a voice thick with italian accent chuckled sinisterly. The image steadily moved away with every passing second to the soundtrack of ferocious laughter worthy of any Disney villain.

"Kentorio...He's close," Frederic gasped, his left eye fluttering open. The two boys, for once working in unison, had caught his body and prevented it from tilting over. With the help of his fellows' supporting hands, the old man got back to his feet again, breathing heavily. A blanket of shock covered the squad in silence.

"You're always so dramatic, Rick," Fiona yawned before brushing a stray green hair off her blouse. She halted in mid-motion. A shrill, deafening alarm made everyone temporarily deaf.

"Miss me, darlings?", a familiar accent sounded, making the heads of the five turn. "Bu,but the time -," Kara stuttered looking down at the countdown on her wrist frozen at two minutes. "Oh didn't he tell you? What a disobedient lad," Kentorio winked at the soldier, burning up with shame at the disappointed looks of his crew. "Kain what did you do?", Cedrick thundered, horror digging into the creases of his wrinkled face.

"I ended the chase," Kain whispered nearly imperceptible to the human ear.

All of them knew in exactly that second, that they would not make it to their teleportable hide-out in time. Best case scenario: they would bleed out in the unforgiving rays of the sun, surely not nicknamed 'White Halo' for pleasure. Worst case scenario:...

A horde of high-tech suits appeared out of thin air with the whoosh resembling a drone flying overhead.

...they would die right now.

"Seems like the only thing left us will be our radios calling out squad 1, squad 1, come in," Fiona stated sarcastically. "Not if I can help it," someone stated from behind the enemies' back, having circled the squad in the blood-red, hot sand.

"Billie!", relieved sighs echoed whilst the first shots fired. "The fight isn't over," Kentorio grinned in delight, "it has only just gotten interesting."

"RUN!", a ear-splitting scream sounded before the earth rumbled. Sand flowed through wide cracks opening underneath in the fissured packed ground.

The hour of the Bull finally struck.

Blue letters blinked.

Chance of survival: 1 %