Abruptly, Darius woke up. It was his second day as a Hunter.

‘More like Hunter apprentice or something. Well, there hasn’t been a time to make proper ranks yet and everything is in experimental state. Currently, everyone who joins Hunter unit has a rank of a Hunter. A higher rank is Head Hunter, keeping eye on at least five hunting teams. After him comes Hunter Commander. The documentation I read said that there is only one and is in charge of the whole Hunter unit. What a busy man. Or woman.’

Darius slowly stretched his body and got up from the bed. With the help of the little morning light that managed to pass through the window, he found his phone next to the bed.

‘5:43 huh. Good. And I still have about forty percent of battery.. oh wait, how am I supposed to charge my phone here? Ugh, I will need to ask Beru later.’

With a practiced motion, Darius canceled his alarm (5:50). He always set one when there was something important so he wouldn’t oversleep, although most of the time he managed to wake himself up at the correct time without the alarms help. Or maybe he woke up because he didn’t want to hear the annoying alarm…

Suddenly, Darius’s body shook and got goosebumps.

‘It’s really cold here. Well, it is not really surprising. We are in a cottage in the forest and it’s morning aaand the winter is coming soon.. Fortunately, the blankets are thick.’

He quickly dressed up and exited from his room.

“Good morning,” said Beru, already dressed and looking wide awake. He was eating something, probably rations he cooked.. or more like heated up.

“Morning.”

“Good to see you are up, or else I would need to wake you up in five minutes. Everyday at 6:00 we receive orders from the radio. “

“Yeah, I read about it yesterday. I will.. uh, go to bathroom now.”

“Alright. I prepared some breakfast for you but tomorrow you will need to make by yourself.”

Darius nodded. After he relieved himself and recovered from washing his hands and face with a freezing water ( he forgot to look for the heated one and used the one from a bucket), Darius went back to kitchen.

Beru passed him a bowl full of heated food.

“For each day each of us has one C ration and two B rations. The difference between them is that C one is less healthy, but is quick to prepare. The C one is for lunch because we are expected to be out the whole day. But since you are new, we will come back to cottage for lunch and quick break otherwise you might not keep up. So, we will have the C one for breakfast and B ones for lunch and dinner,” announced Beru.

Darius understood why he made the changes and was grateful for his considerations.

Suddenly, the radio cracked up. Then a male voice was heard.

“Daily orders for Hunter teams. We have no casualties. N.U. for all categories except animals. In this category the slightly unordinary state continues, mostly for boars and foxes. Bears not confirmed, as well as eagles and other flying predators. Units 6, 13 and 35, wait for specific orders. Other units, continue with patrols. Repeating. Daily..”

Beru turned of the radio.

“Before you ask, we are unit 29. The naming starts from north of the area around the city and goes counter clockwise. Since you read some of the reports, you should know that N.U. stands for nothing unordinary. Memorize the categories after dinner,” explained Beru in advance.

“Alright. Are the specific orders passed by the radio too?”

“No, they are passed individually by transmitter, every team has one. We use it for our daily reports too. The reports are made at 21:00 or so. I just read it from the paper because we need to archive them. You also need to send a copy of weekly reports to the city each week.

Darius furrowed his brow.

“Why do you need to report by transmitter AND send letters at the end of the week?”

“Well it might surprise you but there is some logic to it. Our voice reports are recorded until our paper reports arrive. Then, they are checked if there is something different. After that our paper reports are stored in archives and voice records destroyed...I had a booklet about it somewhere.. hmm.”

“That still sounds complicated. Are the voice records not enough? “ asked Darius.

“Well, I am not an expert on this, but if you are searching in hundreds of reports for something, what would you choose, paper or voice recording form?”

“Oh. Well, paper probably.”

“There is also a new version! Honestly it’s much easier to work with them. They are more like a test you just need to answer. I will show them to you later, they are nothing like the old reports.”

“Never heard somebody be so happy about writing a test,” Darius could not resist to comment.

“Oh lad, you don’t know the pain from trying to start writing your report on blank paper. But enough. We will go in ten minutes so be ready.”

“Alright.”

The two of them started their patrol. Their first direction was east.

“We will check the lake now. It is only about 15 minutes from the cottage. Every time you will patrol you will check the lake. There, we have the biggest chance to see the animals and spot any changes in their outlook or bearing. Then continue south, east or north. Today we will go south,” explained Beru patienly while Darius followed behind him.

“Also, try to stabilise your walking speed. It is good to get into a tempo, that way you will be less tired and believe me today is going to be exhausting. And tomorrow too, but that is still far away.”

“Alright I will try,” answered Darius, knowing that Beru really tried to help him. He also carried light backpack with supplies for both of them.

After ten minutes, they came close to the lake. They kept their distance from it so as not to scare the animals. Beru took two binoculars from the backpack and passed one to Darius.

“Have a look. Two female deers are drinking from it while third keeps the watch. We won’t disturb them, just look if there is something strange about them,” whispered Beru.

“Uh, I haven’t seen a real doe like this, so can’t be sure if there is or isn’t anything strange,” whispered Darius back.

“This is their normal state so try to memorize it for future references. If you are not sure about something then ask me.”

“I will.”

The two continued south from lake. Soon, they saw a dirt road.

“Is that the one I used yesterday?” asked Darius.

“Yes that is right. It continues east for about 25 minutes and then it separates into two ways, one goes southeast and other northeast. We wont’t use it today, lets continue south. “

After another 10 mintes.

“Stop,” ordered Beru.

Darius looked around quickly.

“Did you spot something?” he asked in a whisper.

“The important thing is if you did. What was the animal we passed 20 seconds ago? It was on your right side, ten meters from us when we passed it,” asked Beru in a teacher-like voice.

Darius mind went blank.

“I...don’t know, I only saw some leafs, branches, dirt, bushes.. wait, that small bush with red things?”

“Well at least you are not completely blind. Yes, the animal was right next to it and the red things are cranberries. Edible. Can you guess which animal it could have been? “

Darius went into thought.

‘Well something not too big but he probably wouldn’t ask about rats and mouses that would be too difficult.

“A rabbit?”

“Bingo. Just curious, how many medium sized animals do you know?”

“Lets.. not talk about this,” said Darius, embarrassed.

Beru grinned but didn’t tease Darius.

Half an hour later that felt like three hours.

“Hey Darius?”

“Hmmm?” answered Darius with bad premonition.

“Do you know what have both bird excrement and deer excrement in common?” asked Beru in a seemingly sweet voice.

‘Is this some lecture about hunting? Tracking animals maybe? He already saw that my basic knowledge is nothing much when it comes to nature so why ask something so “advanced”.

“No idea.”

“Both are on the bottom of your shoes.”

“…”

“Better watch your step next time.”

Finally, at 12:24 they arrived back to the cottage. Darius felt really exhausted and felt relieved when he could finally take off his boots.

“Keep them out I don’t want to have them in after everything they experienced,” said Beru with his nearly completely clean boots.

Darius just stared at them, not understanding HOW did he manage to do that? Sure at the start of their journey it was a bit cold and he could wash them in morning dew but later? There is no way he didn’t step into mud or something..

Lunch was.. nothing much. Darius was happy that he could replenish his energy. Beru even let him to nap for about half an hour. During that, he though about everything that happened that day.

Firstly, it felt really long. Even though it was only lunch time he felt that a whole day had passed! Maybe two. Another thing was that he was exhausted not only physically but mentally too.

He tried to imagine how he would explain to his friends about what he experienced based on something they could understand.

After some thinking he came up with basic idea. Firstly, imagine you are shopping with your mom or dad. And you are going from one shop to another. When you feel that that was really the last shop and you are going to turn and go to exit, your parent spots another shop. Lets have a look there. 'Ah, that bush seems suspicious, oh never mind just my imagination. Oh, from that little hill, there is a good vantage point lets have a look. And you see..’

Now, add into the situation that you are looking for something. But you don’t know what is it, how does it look like, just that is unordinary. Like looking for a christmas gift for someone you are not sure what he/she likes.

Have this all? Ok, now add into it you are trying to hide from this person so he doesn’t see you buying it and you feel that he may enter anytime and you have practically zero cover, other than throw yourself at the floor and hope he doesn’t look down or something.

“Hey, stop dreaming, time to go,” said Beru.

‘Uh, from one nightmare to another.’