3000 years into the future, Humanity is once again fighting for it's very survival. There of course are those heroes who make sacrifices for the sake of others. Some have to sacrifice more than most people will ever know. Thanks to the Praetorians, our lives can continue...

“Synn!” He bellowed. She was his best agent, if anyone could do this, it was her. As expected she promptly strode into the room and knelt before his desk, head down. She stretched her arm out with her hand balled into a fist. It was a display of fealty ages old with it’s roots in the Asian culture. He pushed a button displaying a holo-image. “I think we’ve had enough disruptions to our plans, I think we should nip this bud before it blooms. Don’t you think so too Synn?” She raised her head just enough view the holo, then dropped it again. “Yes, My Lord”. He simply nodded “Good! I don’t care how you handle it, just see that this one doesn’t become a problem. “Yes, My Lord” she stood but kept her bow, then backed out of the room. When the door closed she stood straight and proud. Turning out of the secretary’s space, she left his office with a grin. “This should be fun”.

I stepped off the loading ramp of the shuttle for the second time in a 24 hour period. There was no shuttle bay, no landing pad, just a large open clearing. Their were only four buildings, and all four of them were simple buildings made out of logs. The buildings were arranged in a square so that the front door to each were facing each other. At the edge of the clearing was a tall fence with razor wire around the top, but the clearing wasn’t far enough away from the buildings. Several tree limbs stretched across the roof tops, lending shade to the buildings. There were no machines, no humming of engines, no street noises, it was…Liberating.

A sense of freedom washed over me. I had never experienced such a glorious feeling. I wanted to run! Run full speed into the forest and loose myself to it. Michelle nudged me, “You doing alright?” I just nodded. She looked like she didn’t believe me. “As I was saying, follow me and we’ll set you up. “ We walked towards the buildings and as we neared I could hear voices inside. “ Michelle, are you expecting anyone else here?” I asked. She frowned and shook her head. “no, we should be the only ones here, Oh! There is supposed to be a cook, I forgot about him.” A cook, but she said ‘him’ the voice I heard is clearly a woman’s. Odd, I didn’t think there were that many woman on the planet, yet in last day I’ll have met several already, two were in my barracks.

We walked into the largest building, it was obviously a mess hall. Inside stood a woman who was talking to a man who was apparently the cook. She wore a sleek black leather cat suit and had on soft leather boots and gloves, all in uniform black of course. She looked like a burglar in some mission impossible action film. She was defiantly a Praetorian, I could just feel it somehow, but she appeared to look human as well. That is until she turned to look at us, her face was ghost white and her eyes were slitted. Her mouth and nose jutted enough to make a short muzzle. It was a face I knew, hell it was a face almost everyone knew. Standing here before me was none other than the infamous Synn. She was the Emperor’s pet Praetorian, bodyguard and quite often the hand that did his bidding. Once again Michelle didn’t look too happy. I just sighed, did this woman get along with anyone?

“Michelle!, oh how very good to see you dear” Synn cooed.

“What the hell are you doing here Synn?” she fired back.

Synn clucked her tongue the Tsk’ed “Surely you didn’t think the Emperor was so blind he wouldn’t notice that for the first time ever we have a female aspect do you? Of course not! That’s why I’m here, to lend a helping hand, and show support to my newest sister.” She smiled, and no one believed for a second it was genuine. Synn left to her bunk, I made a mental note to choose the building she wasn’t in.

There really wasn’t much to look at in this place, two buildings with beds, one with tables, and another with half beds and half entertainment equipment. That was it, no training grounds, no watch towers, just four buildings and a razor wire fence. What the hell were we supposed to do out here? That was when I looked out the window and saw Synn with a beach towel and rubbing sunscreen on. What the hell? Was this some sort of vacation lodge? Why was Michelle so furious about being sent here? I decided to ask her and then tracked her into the mess hall, she was telling the cook her food choices.

“Michelle, what are we supposed to do out here? I only see these four buildings.”

She just giggled, “There’s only one thing to do out here, and that’s survive. During the day it’s not so bad, a few small predators here and there. Look out the window, see how low the sun’s getting?” I nodded.

“Well when the sun finally sets, we’ll have three days of darkness. Three days of battling for our lives. Three days of primal fear.” she quivered. “As I said, usually there is a class of 50 here. Even then there’s usually a few who don’t make it. The cook is a human, but at least he’s a Space Marine cook. Me, you and Synn, that’s it, just us. We are supposed to stay here for three night cycles. As much as I hate her, I’m glad Synn’s here, she’s the Emperor’s hand for a reason after all.”

After leaving I noticed Synn was still lounging around. Resting up for latter, I thought. Probably not a bad idea, it’s going to be a long night after all. I was thinking of where to lay down when I had the urge to climb on top of the roof. It wasn’t hard considering my claws, in fact it was very easy. Once there I saw the tree limb and decided I wanted to lay on the limb. Only took a second and I was happily lying down letting the breeze blowing through the shade to cool me.

It was the smell that woke me, ~prey~ my belly grumbled in protest. I crawled across the tree limb, searching. From limb to limb I crawled, and from tree to tree. I was now in the forest, but that fact hadn’t registered, I was hunting. Through the trees I moved tracking the scent, until I finally came upon it. It too was in the trees, and it too seemed to be hunting. It was crouched above a small animal on the forest floor, ready to pounce. Too bad I pounced first, my claws ripped through it like paper and the scent of blood filled the air. The smell was mesmerizing, and I almost succumbed to it. Something told me that it would be bad to stay. Grabbing my prize I ran back through the trees to the limb that overlooked the cabins.

When I returned to my perch, I devoured my meal. The hot blood and warm meat that slid down my throat was… euphoric. This was the best I’d eaten in almost a week and all that was left when I had finished were inedible organs, bones, and fur. I took the remains back off into the forest a few trees away and dropped the corpse to the ground. I was certain something would finish the rest. I turned to head back to my limb, and as I was about to lye down I saw something slowly moving down on the ground. As I watched, I noticed the predator was slowly stalking Synn. She seemed not to notice or was sleeping. I leapt from the limb to the roof and bounced off it to the ground. I’d be too late. “Synn!!” I shouted.

Synn was quick, she rolled, narrowly missing the creatures attack and was on her feet almost instantly. Michelle came quickly out of the building I was next to and came to me first.

“What’s going on?” she asked. I just pointed towards Synn and the large dog like creature. It was about the size of a large dog, though to be honest it looked like a squirrel on steroids. Michelle, though was far more worried about me.

“where are you hurt?” she asked franticly. Huh?

“I’m not hurt at all, Synn’s the one in trouble” I tried to ignore her fussing. It was hard though.

I watched Synn, and gestured towards her. “She’s really good, her movements are very precise. I’d say she holds a black belt in Jujitsu.“ About then Synn was able to retrieve a knife by her towel and with a few feints and a final spin the blade sunk into the top of the beast’s head. “ Her movements are a bit sluggish though, kinda slow”

Michelle started laughing, hard. “Your covered from head to toe in blood and you still have a good sense of humor, Slow!” and she continued laughing. I was a bit confused at what she thought was so funny. “Synn has the fastest reaction time of all Praetorians, that fight looked like a blur to me! Slow!?” she went back to laughing and looking for wounds on me.

Finally I had to stop her, “Look, the blood’s not mine, but I do need a shower” then I turned to head to the showers. What the hell’s getting into me here? First I hunt down and eat some wild animal like some…. Well… Like some wild animal. Then I say Synn’s moving slow and cause Michelle to go into a fit of hysterical laughter. I feel as if the half hour I spent in the trees had changed me a bit, what the hell would happen if I spent a whole day out there? God I could still taste the flesh from that animal. What the hell’s wrong with me?

Quickly I got in the shower and watched as the water ran red into the drain. I must have looked like I’d been in a wreck, I had been soaked in blood. It’s no wonder Michelle had thought I had been wounded. The memory of the warm meat sliding down my throat almost made me vomit. Deep from within a sob wrenched was from my very soul. This wasn’t what I wanted, I knew my appearance would have changed but I’m not even human anymore. I sat there in the shower for god knows how long crying until I felt the embrace of someone behind me. “shh shh shh….it’ll be alright” she said. I hugged her and continued to cry for what seemed like an hour, though I’m sure it was only a few minutes.

Finally I looked up, it had been Synn holding me. “You doing better now sis?” Sis? Oh lord, I had forgotten about that part, but it seems so insignificant next to the beast that I’ve got inside me. Numbly I just nodded.

“You wouldn’t want to talk about it would you?” I could see the concern in her eyes. So much different from the person I met only a few hours ago.

I sighed, I guess I did need to tell someone, if not for myself then to at least let someone know. I mean my problems may endanger someone sometime. So I told her about my hunt, just before her fight. She never interrupted my tale, and didn’t so much as flinch when I described how I felt when I ate that thing. Then I told her my thoughts of her fight, and she got an amused smirk on her face when I told her I thought her movements were a bit sluggish. That smirk was almost devious I thought, then I was reminded of our first meeting. When she finally left I noticed that I still hadn’t dried myself, nor had I noticed that I was naked. My nudity didn’t bother me in the slightest, and I guess that was one more thing that bothered me.

I brushed my teeth and gathered up my soap and brush and packed it into a small hygiene kit. Then I padded naked over to my bed and took my duffel bag and dumped it into the foot locker at the foot of the bed. Wasn’t much just six changes of the same clothes, at least they were in different colors. Two were black, one was powder blue, a hot pink one, and two white sets. I wasn’t quite ready for the pink one yet, so I grabbed a white set. As I was getting dressed I noticed it was almost dark outside, perhaps now is not a good time for white. I put on the other black set, and rounded up my dirty laundry.

The center building was only half loaded with beds, the other half had a pool table, a card table, two washer/dryer sets, and a projection screen. Michelle, Synn and the cook were sitting at the card table, playing poker from the looks of it. I put my laundry in the washer and turned it on, no water was coming through. The cook stood up, walked over and flipped a switch.

“The pump was off” he said.

“Oh, thank you….” I paused.
He laughed and held out his hand “Richard” he smiled, he was cute when he smiled. No! bad kitty! What the hell was I thinking? That was probably the problem, I wasn’t. That smile was a weapon, he needed to holster that thing before someone got hurt. I shook his hand and hoped he couldn’t see my burning blush. Could anyone see me blushing with my new skin tone? Synn’s snicker told me at least she could. I walked over to the card table to join in the game. Synn’s eyes were dancing with laughter, but she kept her “poker face” We played cards and joked for a few hours, but as time dragged I was slowly getting anxious about something. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt like a kid on Christmas night, waiting in anticipation for Santa to come.

I jumped up and ran for the door, flung it open just in time. A flash of green lit the sky as the sun disappeared from a horizon that we couldn’t see. I heard Michelle swear softly “shit”. Then I felt it, it was a change in the air, as if a pressure had been lifted. The predator in me was fully awake now. I couldn’t contain the feeling, and when I looked at my three companions I just knew I was smiling as if I was a three year old who just opened her present… and got exactly what she wanted. I was up and on my tree limb so fast even *I* wondered if I had materialized there. It was as if the whole forest suddenly woke up, everything seemed so alive!

Live things wiggle, live things squirm as you sink your teeth into them, live things bleed….

*Sniff Sniff*

Oh and there are sooo very many live things out and about tonight!