Wandering Weaylen

Slowly getting up, groggy, the feeling of thirst riddles my body as I stand up and realize I am stranded and have no recollection of what happened this past month. I notice a shack, a little way in the distance, and slight burn marks on the sand around me as I try to make sense of the immediate area. Limping as I walk, I begin to realize the warm feeling of blood dripping down my left leg. I notice a few lacerations on my upper left thigh, but nothing too severe as I continue towards the shack to try and get out of the searing sun. I stumble up the three steps onto the porch and through the front door; I make it to the bathroom and stare into the mirror wondering how I got here and what to do next. I check the medicine cabinet to try and see if I can find any first aid equipment but to no avail. I grabbed some of the toilet paper I found on the counter and try to rip off a plank of wood from the side of the shack. I find some old duct tape under the bathroom sink and proceed to make me a tourniquet to make walking easier.

Still groggy and thirsty I try to find a way to get some water next; make my way to the kitchen to look for a cup but the cabinets were all empty. As my vision started becoming clear I start to realize that the shack is completely ransacked and deserted. Not a soul in sight but once back outside I see multiple footprints disappearing into the burn streaks on the desert ground. I completely circle the shack and cannot make out anything in the far distance, no sign of another person or civilization nearby. To keep from panicking I make my way to the porch and sit on the steps to try to remember what happened this past month or at least the last few hours.

“What are you doing Weaylen?” I say to myself as I slowly try to psych myself up.

“Get up and start walking. You need food and water...!” I mutter out loud as I start to walk slowly towards sunset.

After a few miles behind me and a lot of hours seemingly wasted walking towards nothing, I lay down and rest with my back against the sand. I turn over and get lost in the sea of wonder that the sky is showing. A pink and navy-blue sky with three moons lined in a row, one behind the other, and stars that shine so bright it competes with the sun. Such an amazing night sky I almost forget about the dire situation I’m in. As the last gleam of sun escapes my grasp, I begin to hear the roaring sounds of Dust Surfers, jet scooters meant to hover over the desert sands at high speeds. I get up hoping to spot at least one person that can help me, that’s when I hear more and more Dust Surfers revving up and getting closer and closer to my location. In a matter of seconds, I'm surrounded by 20 people riding Dust Surfers, circling me as if they were on the hunt and I was their prey.

“Looks like we got ourselves a live one boys!!” some woman had yelled, her posse in an uproar chanting “PREY, PPREY, PREY” as they continued to circle me.

“I-I-I need some help. I’m injured and haven’t had water for hours!” I try to yell to them.

Immediately they all stop, three people proceed to approach me with barbaric clothing and spears, knives, and swords at their waists yet barefoot and unclean from head to toe.

“Prey does not speak unless spoken to!” the woman from before said as she was only centimeters from my face and stared into my eyes with a predatory gaze.

“My name is Victoria, and I am the Warrior Chief of the Dune Hunters!”

“CHIEF, CHIEF, CHIEF!” the rest of the crowd chants.

I proceed to fumble my next few words out of fear that they would kill me if I said something wrong to their chief.

“My name is Weaylen and-and-and I’m lost and need some help.”

“Why am I supposed to care prey. We need food and you’re the first thing we see out here in the desert! My men are HUNGRY!!” Victoria yelled as I frantically try searching for a way out.

I begin to slowly walk towards the weakest point of the circle around me. Every Dune Hunter chanting, “CHIEF! CHIEF! CHIEF!”, while raising their spears and revving their Dust Surfers loudly throughout the desert night. As I make my way to the edge of the inner circle of people a young woman jumps right in front of me and starts growling like some type of feral animal. Her teeth looked sharpened, her hair a mess, looking like it wasn’t washed in ages, and wearing some type of beastly animal carcass as clothes. She continued to growl, walking on all fours and pushing me closer and closer back into the center of the circle. Once I’m back within the chiefs’ line of sight, the girl kneels on one knee and bows her head as a sign of respect.

“Warrior Chief, I have brought back our prey.”, said the girl.

“That’s right everyone, today is her hunting ritual! Today this young hunter earns the right to get a name and rank among the clan!”, Victoria said vigorously to her people.

“RITUAL! RITUAL! RITUAL!”, the clan yelled eagerly.

“You must release your prey, hunt them down in less than 5 minutes, and carve the name you want into their back; that way they are forever yours until the dunes flow rampantly with water. Some of us have eaten our prey, hahaha, but others have learned to coexist and procreate. Are you ready my daughter of the dunes?”

“Yes Warrior Chief!”, said the girl as she pulled out her bow and arrows from her Dust Surfer.

At this point I am on the verge of having a panic attack, I put my hand to my chest and feel my heart beating faster and faster, sweating uncontrollably that it started to blur my vision, legs tensing up ready to either risk it all n a full out sprint or collapse from the fear of death. The clan begins to roar as the chief counts down, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1….HUNT!”, she says. Instantly I am running with every ounce of energy I can muster, in any direction I could, just to get away from the girl that was hunting me. I serpentine as much as possible to try and give her an unsteady aim. I’m running for what seems like 3 minutes and I am already out of breath, but I continue to run, even if it is slow, I run. After a little more time has passed, I look behind me and I see no one is chasing me, I don’t know if I should be happy or concerned about what may happen next.

I stop and try to take a breather, but as soon as I bend over an arrow is shot right at my feet; I immediately look up and see that it is the girl, standing at the top of a sandhill. I rub my eyes to make sure that what I was seeing was real, but when I went to look a second time she was gone. I head into a little sand cave I see at the bottom of the hill and try to head out in there until the last few seconds run out. Sitting there, in complete darkness, I still feel relief, especially knowing that I have a wide field of view and there is only one way into this cave. I lean back and close my eyes and try again to catch my breath, wishing I did not leave the safety of that shack. That’s when I feel an agonizing pain in my left leg again; it was my wound, it had opened again because the tourniquet had failed in my haste.

As I reach down to try and repair the tourniquet, I feel a sharp blade on my throat and I hear the girl say in the darkness, “Caught with only 5 seconds to spare, now lay on your stomach before I slit your throat prey.”.

“M-M-MY leg is-”

“LAY ON YOUR STOMACH NOW!”, she demanded.

I struggle to turn over and lay down but proceed to do so because I still have a lot of questions that I’m hoping she would answer for me. She sits on my back and starts to carve the name she wants to be called into it; I scream as I rave in agony from the constant pain of a blade cutting through my flesh. After what seems like an eternity, she is finished carving her name into my back. She then pours some suspicious hot liquid onto the carving; I knew it wasn’t water because it smelled of odd flora and fauna, I pass out from the pain of my skin feeling like it was melting from the outside going in.

“How, how long was I out?”, I say as I wake up grabbing my head because it felt like I was run over by a train.

“Just a few hours, I also cleaned up and rebandaged your left leg as you were sleeping.”, the girl had said while she was cleaning and sterilizing her blades in an open flame.

“Thank-thank you umm…”

“It's Sara, Sara of the Dune Hunters, rank Senior Hunter 1st Class!”, she said standing firmly.

“Thank you, Sara, of the Dune Hunters. Whatever you did, healed me up almost perfectly, what was that liquid stuff?”

“A concoction of plants and herbs found on this planet, each pet makes their special brand at the age of 5 for when they start their training.”, Sara said as she doused the fire and proceeded to put me over her shoulders as if I was just a ragdoll. I try to make conversation as she starts going further and further inside the cave.

“Why are you going further into the cave?”

“We need to make it back to the clan before the Demons spot us. You are injured so I am carrying you to save time.”, she says as she starts running in a full-on sprint across the desert sand barefoot-like its solid ground.

“What did you mean by pets earlier and what are the Demons and also, how do I make that-”

“You sure do ask a lot of questions…”, she says as she cuts me off.

“Pets are what the children are called if they are still under the age of 5. The Demons are these massive lizard-like beasts with a head made of a dark, tough scaley skin only covered by a small mane; no eyes but a nose that can smell even the smallest drop of blood in the sand, and ears that can hear for miles. The rest of its skin is a mix of black and dark green scales that are tougher than even our strongest weapons; it only hunts at night and lures its prey with some of the scales on its back. They tend to be reflective of the bright stars in the sky; clueless and curious individuals tend to mistake that little light show as a sign of civilization and get eaten.”

I am shocked by what she is saying that I almost loosen the grip I have on her as she is carrying me.

“What star system is this?”, I say timidly into her ear.

“You must be a refugee then. This is the 4th planet in the Serenity Star System, planet Sabaku, the desert planet.”

As she said that, some of my memories began to come back in flashes. Images of me and 3 other people, I cannot seem to remember, rushing onto a ship, scared. It felt like we were running away from something, but I could not remember anything else. While I’m still trying to rack my brain about what I just remembered we enter the Dust Hunters camp; greeted by a massive cheer and uproar of the entire clan. Victoria proceeds to walk toward us as Sara takes me off her shoulders and drops me on my ass.

“PREY, you must get on your knees and present your hunter to us, as per tradition.” Victoria had demanded.

Immediately on my knees, hunched over, I say, “I now give you Sara, Sara of the Dune Hunters, Ranked Senior Hunter 1st Class!”.

“CLAN, DO YOU ACCEPT SARA AS YOUR SISTER?”, Victoria yelled.

“YES! CHIEF DO YOU ACCEPT HER AS YOUR DAUGHTER?”, the entire clan responded in unison.

“Yes, I do. Welcome to the Dune Hunters Senior Hunter 1st Class Sara!”, Victoria had said as every member of the clan behind her had kneeled on one knee and bowed their heads to Sara and Victoria proceeded to kiss Sara’s forehead.

“WELCOME TO THE DESERT SARA!”, the clan yelled in unison.

Sara then bowed down to Victoria and screamed out, “Thank you Warrior Chief!”.

“FEAST UNTIL THE MORNING!!” Victoria had bellowed out to her people. Everyone began cheering and walking up to Sara to congratulate her, some even gave gifts like top-quality knives, clothes, arrows, and even their versions of healing liquid. I am still on my knees with my head firmly on the ground as the Warrior Chief walks up to me and says in my ear, “She chose to spare you the blade, treat her as your goddess as your own life is in her hands. You will eat after she has the first bite, but you will not move from this position until everyone is at the eating dome in the center of camp.”.

As I hear everyone around me heading toward the center, I look around me to see if I can find a way out, but the sentinels at the front had their eyes on me like a hawk. I weigh my options and bide my time until I have a safe way to escape. Everyone makes it to the center of camp and I hear Sara call my name to come and join them.

“Prey! Come join me and feast!” Sara had demanded.

I immediately get up and run towards her side, excited to finally get some food in my belly and some water down my throat. Too eager that I start to scarf down what I thought was some type of chicken, but it turned out to be Demon jerky dry-aged for weeks. I also make the dire mistake of eating before Sara, and that was greeted with severe consequences. I turn to apologize and she swung a club as hard as possible across my face and proceeded to pummel me until she felt tired. Once all was said and done I could barely move my face let alone my body.

“AHHHHH, HOW DARE YOU EAT BEFORE ME! I should kill you right now and feed your bones to the new class of pets then tear your heart out and suck the juices out for my dessert.”, Sara had said while holding my limp body up by my hair.

“What will you do with him my daughter?”, said Victoria as she looked upon me with utter disgust.

“We can’t reward the weak with mercy. CLAN, WHATS OUR MOTTO!?”, Victoria yelled.

“THE CLAN IS ONE, THE REST ARE NONE!”, everyone shouted.

“I-I’m sorry Sara, I-I-I didn’t mean to eat before you…”, I say while gasping for even just the slightest bit of oxygen because my throat was filling with blood.

She drops me on my face and as I’m there laying in agony I stare at the exit of the camp, hoping by some miracle that I would be rescued from this nightmare or that I would be able to get out of here someday. I start to cry, my master Sara then scoffs at me, spits in front of me, and tosses a bowl of scrapes in my face. I inch slowly forward by sliding across the temple floor and use my tongue to grab what little scrapes I could to eat. Hearing the glee and cheer of everyone around me as they stuffed their faces made me hungrier, but right now I was just lucky to have my life and these scrapes. After hours of eating and celebrating everyone goes back to their duties and the night hunting crews go to their huts. Sara carries me over her shoulder to her place and tosses me on the floor.

“Dress your wounds and drink this when it's done boiling; it will heal most of your internal injuries by morning, but if anything is broken, that will take weeks.”, she said as she went to bed.

I struggle to apply the bandages she gave me because my right shoulder was dislocated. I grab the bandages with my other hand and shove them in my mouth. I stand up, raise my right arm a bit with my left, and ram into the side of the wall as hard as I can; I scream as loud as I could from the pain, luckily, it was muffled by the bandages. I walk towards a mirror inside her bathroom and realize that my left eye is swollen shut, my right eardrum is bleeding and I feel a few broken ribs on my right side. Feeling pain, sorrow, and like low-life trash I sink to the floor, contemplating if I should just let them kill me or tough it out. While on the floor I smell something familiar, she had boiled some of her healing ointment for me to drink. Relieved but confused I crawled on the floor to the fire pit inside the hut and grabbed the ointment; I scarfed all of it down because it was also the only liquid I had today as well.

Throat burning like I just swallowed lava, I collapsed right beside the fire pit. When morning came I could feel that most of my injuries were completely healed; my shoulder wasn’t sore anymore and my left eye wasn’t swollen anymore. I jolt upward only to go back down to my knees because of the pain I was still feeling in my ribs. I forgot that Sara had said that if anything was broken it would take weeks, so it looks like I will be stuck for weeks if I want to try to escape fully healed. I lurk around the hut to see if I can find any type of map of the surrounding area or at least of the camp, but I could not find a thing. That’s when it hit me, where is Sara? I walk outside the hut and see scores upon scores of people moving through the camp like a bunch of drones. Everyone seemed busy like they had a specific task that needed to be done by a certain time, and I could also sense the fear in their faces as if the consequences were much worse than the task they were given.

“PREY!”, I had heard someone yell from the distance. “Your master is in the main temple getting her colors and brand, get over here and tie on her colors.”.

I urgently try to weave my way through the crowd of people to head over to the main temple on the east side of the camp. Once there I am greeted by 2 sentinels not willing to let me through until the Warrior Chief had come down and opened the gates. She begins to escort me to the center of a massive room that I thought was empty. The lights turn on and my head is pushed down to the floor.

“Who is this boy you have brought us Victoria?”, a woman had said.

“We don’t have time to pass judgment on disrespectful insects like him. I thought this was a Hunters Graduation Summons…”, another person had said.

“Yes Council, this is just the Hunters prey, she chose to spare him and make him her servant.”, Victoria said.

“Stand up hunter! He does not yet know the ways of the clan?”, the woman from earlier had asked.

“He is from another star system, a refugee that we saw lost in the dunes last night.”.

“He reeks of weakness and fear, why spare him, hunter.”, someone behind us had said.

“I’m saving him until he is of no more use to me.”, Sara had said.

I slowly try to lift my head to see what was going on when out of nowhere I feel a cold sword against my neck.

“The exalted ones are to never be seen, prey.”, said a man that seemingly came out of nowhere.

I turn to see who it was that was about to kill me, to my surprise all I see is a shirtless, barefoot man with only pants on and a scabbard on his back, but what scared me the most was the fact that he had everything from his nose to the top of his head bandaged up. I had no idea how he could have seen me but did not question it since the sword was still up against my neck.

“It's OK Daniel, he doesn’t know of our customs, but one more slip up, no hesitation.”, said the very same woman from the beginning.

“Yes, exalted one!”, Daniel had said while jumping up and disappearing into the shadows of the ceiling.

“Prey, I am Mera, and I am the leader of this council. I am the final say-so on everything that goes on here and in the 9 colonies of the dunes. You have been granted life, so now you must serve this hunter however she sees fit. What is your placement for him Hunter?”

“Guardian!”, Sara said.

“WHAT!?”, a man had yelled.

“This man couldn’t fend off our pets, let alone anything that tries to harm you. It's better if you procreate and kill him after the kids are born.”, he said.

“The clans' doctor had diagnosed me barren, so I cannot bear offspring, but I can still revel in fornication with this man. I chose Guardian because just like the clan, I too, do not pity the weak.”, Sara said addressing everyone.

“Oh, so you wish to run him through the same course that Daniel has taken. Your prey may not survive, mine almost didn’t, but I will approve your wish.”, Mera had said as she slammed a bone on her desk like a gavel.

“Now on with the ceremony, bring the cloth and the brand.”, Mera yelled.

A side door had opened to the left of us, 2 people completely covered in bandages with a robe over them came into the room. One carrying a goblet with strange liquid inside of it and the other was pulling an oven with a branding iron in it.