Time passed slower than ever. The amazing feelings conjured by new sights and smells died away too fast for our liking. My feet ached horribly and I can assume that the others felt the same way. We stopped and ate, finishing off the first half of our rations. Nutrition tasted worse than ever being a few days old. It became clear that we all wanted an end to the journey.
“Why haven’t we found anything?” Peter moaned.
Lace shook her head. “Maybe we went the wrong way.”
“They’re hiding, just like we do.” I said.
“Then how are we going to talk to them?” Morome asked. He seemed to be angry with me again.
“Should we wait?” Dala asked.
“No, let’s continue.” I said, looking around the field of grass for any sign of human life. “They should come out eventually.”
“I can’t believe we made it this far without being seen.” Morome said.
“Unless we are always being seen.”
“I have a feeling we’re being watched.” Lace said.
“We’re always being watched.” I said softly. “If anybody sees or hears anything then warn the rest of us quickly.”
Dala sighed. “The guns would really be coming in handy.”
The grass soon disappeared, being replaced by stone. After a while it started to rain. We all slipped on the stone ground at least once. The rain stopped before too long. I bet we looked pitiful. Out there in the middle of nowhere soaking wet, I hoped it would lead the Cityers to think we were only there to seek shelter. It was a long shot, but I needed to hope for something.
“Stop!” Lace whispered. We did as instructed. “I thought I heard something.”
My heart was pounding faster than ever. I could sense that she was right. In the distance I could see a long line of trees. Woods, that’s what the books I read called it. Or maybe a forest, I really wasn’t sure what the difference was. “I think we should run. I see trees up ahead.”
“Agreed.” Morome said. “Ready? NOW!”
We took off at full sprint. The moment we started people sprang up out of the ground all around us. We didn’t dare stop; I could see weapons on all the ones that I dared to see. It was so sudden that we ran infinitely faster with no concern about anybody else. I couldn’t feel my body, only the fear and expectations of pain. But it never came. The trees grew gradually closer and within a minute we had traversed the entire area until we were hidden by their trunks.
When we felt safe we stopped, about one hundred yards into the woods. I collapsed to the leafy ground and tried hard to catch my breath. The others did similar. Once we regrouped we all hid behind the same tree and looked back, no one had followed us.
“They didn’t attack.” Peter exclaimed.
“What were they waiting for?” I said. It was strange. They had us right there, and didn’t even try to attack. Don’t get me wrong, I was relieved they didn’t. There must have been some reason for it, but what? Were they scared? No, they never were scared of killing our people before. I couldn’t think of any reason. I was just amazed that we were still alive.
Morome laughed awkwardly. “I call that lucky.”
My mind ached with a decision that I didn’t want to make. But then again, we were so close to fulfilling our mission. I was feeling really nervous about it all. “I want to go back.”
It wasn’t the first time they looked at me like I was crazy. “They had weapons.” Lace protested.
“This is my chance.”
“To do what, get killed?” Peter said.
“I wanted to talk to them, and there they are.” Outwardly I was trying to defend my decision, but inside I wanted to start running again to put more distance between us.
“They sprang from the ground carrying weapons.” Lace said again. “I vote we wait for friendlier ones.”
“They are just defending themselves.” I started back towards the Cityers before my mind could send my feet deeper into the trees. I shook so bad, it must have been visible to the others. They didn’t follow.
At the edge of the woods I stopped and looked out. There was nobody in sight. I grabbed the metal rod Dala gave me and stepped out. Each step was chosen carefully. I was expecting someone to spring out of the ground with every step. I made it back to around the same area we were at and searched the ground, feeling a little safer since nobody had attacked. There were several small metal squares on the ground, clearly where the Cityers had come out from. I poked at one with the rod but nobody answered. This was even stranger. First they didn’t want to attack and then they wouldn’t even come out. It was as if they were scared of me. It hit me that that may not be as strange as I had originally thought. They probably knew that it was the Humurom’s that destroyed their town. That hadn’t been proven yet, but I was sure of it.
I returned to the others, who had not moved a single pace. They were surprised that I was still alive. “They’re gone.”
“Good.” Lace said.
Dala looked intrigued. “This whole thing is fairly odd.”
She was right. Everything that had happened since we had left Humurom was fairly odd. The worst part was that we didn’t have any idea what was really going on. I thought I was sure that Humurom burned that town, but there was some small part of me that couldn’t believe it.
“Let’s go then, I have a feeling we are close to some animals.” Morome took the lead again. I didn’t care enough to protest, my mind was slowly filling with new and horrible ideas as to what was going on.
I wasn’t much into conspiracies, but I had to go over all of the possibilities. The first thought was that Humurom was secretly engaging in terrorizing Cityers in response to years of hunter deaths. That sounded most likely to me and was the one that I believed. Another was that the Cityers were killing Humurom’s hunters in response to their town’s burnings. That was just as likely but for some reason I was skeptical. And those were the only two possibilities that I could think of. I felt slightly better after realizing that there were only two possibilities. I didn’t even bother thinking about any others.
“Lace?” I decided to stop thinking about all that other stuff and just concentrate on getting to know my team.
“Yeah.” She slowed down a bit to walk with me.
“How long have you been a hunter?”
She smiled. “About three years.”
“Did you volunteer?”
“No, not at first; I was chosen. Before that I was in the Residence Office as a medic.”
I tried not to think less of her because of that. I realized medics had it hard since there wasn’t much they could do. “So what made you want to come out here?”
She sighed. “I didn’t want to see the Hunting Office close. Nobody does.”
I pointed at Morome. “What about him?”
“He doesn’t want to see it close either.”
“No, I mean what did he do before becoming a hunter?” I could have asked Morome myself, but I didn’t think he wanted to talk to me.
“Morome has always been a hunter. He started about eight years ago when he was sixteen.”
“Wow.” Most people didn’t start in the Hunting Office. The leaders liked to see how they did other places first and then switch them over.
“I can’t believe you didn’t know him. Humurom is not very big. Didn’t you ever come to any of the Hunting Office parties?”
“There was only one when I was a hunter, and I skipped it. I found my time better spent in the library.”
“You read a lot?”
“I try to. It’s been hard recently, so much on my mind. That’s why this trip has been good; it makes me feel like I’m really doing something.”
She nodded slowly, thinking it over. “I wasn’t sure of this plan – actually I’m still not – but I admire you actually trying something. Most people don’t care.”
“Do you?”
; She sighed. “I don’t know yet. Sometimes I still feel like it’s all a mistake, but you have gotten me this far, so why not a little farther.”
“Hopefully that’s all it will take.”
“I guess we’ll see.” She said.
“What’s your plan for when we get back home?”
“I guess it all depends on what happens out here, I don’t want to think that far ahead.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“Hey you two,” Morome called, “hurry up.” We had ended up a good ways back, not even noticing that we fell behind.
The forest seemed never ending. I read that they can take up a large area, but I never really thought about how big an area they meant. We might have already left the Cityer area. That was a thought that really got me going. If we could actually find the end of their area then maybe there were other people beyond. There could be whole civilizations that might help us in our cause. Then it hit me, if there were other civilizations out there then how come they never came before. It’s not like Humurom was in the middle of a huge forest and they couldn’t find us. It made me mad just to think about other people not wanting to come to our aid. I dropped the idea.