Hunters

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Zi faltered suddenly, the memory of a warning snapping her out of pace on what was beginning to feel like an endless journey. She stopped moving, trying to recall where she had heard that before, and upon realizing that she was alone, decided to wait for her sisters to catch up. By the time she could make out two figures on the horizon, the sun was almost gone. On its slow descent, lingering streaks of auburn seemed to fuse into the muted copper earth, creating the most unusual sunset. In a few hours, the desert would be pitch black and frigid, with only a crescent of obscured moonlight to keep them on trail. The night in front of them promised danger, so Zi savored the residual warmth above her head pouring out of the taupe sky like paint on a murky canvas, its glow reminiscent of daylight. The brief moment of quiet broke quickly with the sound of footsteps catching up. Turning to face the approaching hunters, Zi gave them a quick once-over. Seri, the oldest of the group, wore an irritated expression, opening her mouth to speak the moment she stopped walking.

“You could have waited for us, you know. We’re supposed to be a team, remember?”

Zi sighed internally. Hunting with her sisters was never a painless event, and tonight obviously wouldn't be any different.

“I just wanted to make sure the trail was still there”, she reasoned. “Only one of us had to do that”.

“And it had to be you?", came back the frustrated reply. To their left, Gya was quiet as usual. Under Zi’s pleading look to back her up, the youngest hunter promptly made herself busy fastening the sack of supplies they had brought. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Zi felt for her own sack, a small brown pouch slung around her shoulder, its only occupants being a hand-engraved hunter’s knife and a wooden slingshot for the smaller prey. These were the only tools she would need. This was a desperate hunt, but Zi was sure that fact would be the reason they succeeded tonight. “We should get a move on”, she murmured, effectively changing the subject.

“Are you guys ready?”

With a silent nod from Gya and an exaggerated salute from Seri, the trio set off, treading further past the village boundary. Although there was still a trail intact on the Outskirts, it was never used. Their rubber shoes marked a new presence on the granular carpet of sand, freshly swept off of any trace of past wanderers by the wind- clear of those who had braved this journey before and not made it back. To the knowledge of all who were left, there had never been one who had trekked past the desert’s Edge and lived to return. Until now, Zi thought. Not only were she and her sisters going to return, but they would go back with capture, proof that all the animals were migrating east, as Gya had suspected.

A couple of months ago, when the hunter community was growing frustrated with the low catch, Zi’s younger sister had proposed her theory of migration. Gya had speculated that the animals were seeking a milder climate, as with scarcity of prey came to their village colder nights and more brutal winds, and they may have sensed that it was warmer past the Outskirts. The older hunters had ridiculed her theory, saying that if her little sister wanted to be torn apart by sand demons, or sucked into the abyss of space past the Edge, then that was her choice. Zi had shut the conversation down until a few weeks ago when the entire village went without food for 3 days because there was nothing to hunt. Finally, she decided that starvation was a worse fate than whatever lay beyond, and began planning an expedition with her sisters; nobody else in the village was willing to go. There was no gravity beyond the Edge, and according to the scrolls kept by the village elders, ground somewhere outside of the Edge gave way to a strange opening into the dark expanse of space. Zi figured the prey had moved somewhere just before the point of zero gravity, and convinced herself that if they could just inch their way past that point, they could observe whatever lay beyond.

It’s freezing out there, I’ve heard. Isn’t that why they say sand demons eat our flesh? They use our blood for warmth.

Zi winced, rubbing her frontal lobe in a pitiful effort to get that voice out of her head. Now at her left, Gya shot a concerned look her way. On her other side, Seri tilted her head. The two paused in silent question. Realizing she had stopped moving as well, Zi let her hand drop.

“I’m fine”, she assured, eyes downcast. Over her head, Gya and Seri shared a look.

“If you need a minute-” Seri started.

“Seriously”, Zi interrupted. “I’m good. We need to keep moving.”

No matter what the stories said, sand demons did not exist. Whatever doubt was springing up in her now, right before they breached new ground, was pointless. There was nothing left for them in the village, she knew that. And even without the food shortage, any hopes of settling in that community of hunters, all of whom had become more vicious and untrusting with time, had died with their parents. And yet…

Zi gazed forward into the territory ahead, where the howling of the wind was becoming louder in the increasing absence of light. She needed to keep walking. Taking a step forward, she ignored the second look her sisters shared before following her wordlessly.

In the distance, a creature watched three figures approach the Edge for the first time in what felt like forever. How curious, It thought.