Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Hunting

The leaves overhead rattled in a chilled autumn breeze. On Earth, the plants had adapted to the harsh winters, and so shed their leaves going sort of.... Dormant....through the cold season, assuming they had leaves instead of needles, and the forest floor was blanketed with the decomposing remnants bright red and orange on the top layer, and a dark moldering brown on the lower layers.

It was just barely warm enough for Krill to be outside of his enclosure floating softly through the air tethered to one of his human companions who crouched in the leaves. He was very silent predatory eyes facing forward into the trees. When he moved he moved unfathomably silently despite the leaves placing his booted feet on patches of open earth.

Two other humans ranged out to their sides slowly moving through the trees barely visible to krill, who couldn't make them out against the backdrop of foliage, especially not with the confusing patterned clothing that they wore which broke up their bodies and caused them to blend backwards into the foliage. He only caught a glimpse of them every so often as they moved silently through the trees.

Adam came to a knee on a mossy patch of rock hand braced against the ground.

Krill shivered as he watched the other humans fall into a similar position. He had always called humans predatory, and science had proven that long ago, but he had never expected to see it in action. Though it may have seemed unbelievable, on their planet, humans were some of the slowest weakest , and arguably the most useless creatures, but mentally there was no foil, and the evidence of that showed in the technology used to aid their hunting ventures. Camouflage to help them be unseen compasses to help them find the way, and the lightweight carbon-fiber contraption gripped lightly in his left hand.

The human crouched on the ground peering through the trees and adjusted the contraption to rest over his knee. It was strange, an oddly shaped length of carbon fiber, aluminum and fiberglass ending in a set of pulleys which secured a fibrous length of cord between the two extreme ends.

Slowly and with very deliberate movement, the human reached back and drew a long black shaft from an open tube on his back. The back end of the shaft had three foam patches on it two in orange and one in white, and the other end.... Had a flittering set of blades reaching an apex at a single point. The human slowly moved his hand down and set the back end of the shaft against the cord.

The two other humans with him turned and he motioned the one to the left with a wide turn of his hand motioning him to flank around to the side.

Krill watched in great fascination and unease as the hunting human slipped into the brush. Adam stuck a finger in his mouth and held it up to the air "Checking the wind" as he had explained earlier. From the slight drift Krill was getting, he would say there was a slight breeze heading towards them. Adam seemed satisfied and turned to motion his other brother, Jeremy, off to the other side.

David was nowhere to be seen.

Krill hid behind a tree staring around at the strange alien landscape, and the strange human hunters. He really had not wanted to come with them into the hostile landscape even less so when he learned he was going to watch them hunt and kill another creature, but curiosity had gotten the better of him, so he had accompanied the humans as they had made their way into the woods.

At first, nothing had seemed particularly off about the situation. The three men had walked together talking and laughing, Adam somewhat less than normal considering he was still recovering psychologically after a very hard few months, but still all had seemed well, and then, after a couple hours of aimless wandering, the group of men had stopped on the open side of a ridge peering downwards into a valley with contraptions allowing them to see further.