We had left the village far behind, walking for what felt like hours.
The twin suns hung directly overhead, cooking us alive. It was the kind of heat that made your soul sweat.
I glanced down at my arms.
Damn.
Every day, my tan looked even better. Rich, golden, perfect. Thank you, twin suns.
I had to fight the urge to strike a pose right there in the desert. No way I could embarrass myself in front of the warriors. Not yet, anyway.
After another long stretch of silence, the Matriarch finally raised her hand, signaling us to stop.
"This is where the hunt begins," she announced, her voice steady. Then, her gaze locked onto me. "Keegan Carter, your task is to capture the Barbaki alive. They are vital to our textile production."
I nodded, relieved. At least they didn’t have to die. One less thing to screw up.
"But… why come all the way out here?" I asked, wiping sweat from my brow. "Aren’t there Barbaki near the village?"
The Matriarch’s lip curled into a rare, approving smile.
"A good question," she replied. "The ones near the village are part of the delicate balance of our ecosystem. They tend the soil, feed other life. If we hunt them, the balance collapses. Then, we collapse too."
Her smile faded. "Consider this your first lesson in restraint, Keegan Carter. If I catch you hunting near the village, I will personally see to it that you are fed to the elders."
…Oh. Cool. No pressure.
I swallowed hard. "Okay… but, uh… how exactly am I supposed to capture them alive?"
The Matriarch pointed calmly to the ground.
"Feel the energy flows. Pay attention. What you cannot see will reveal itself… if you’re patient."
She leaned in slightly, narrowing her eyes. "But beware. Barbakis will attack if they feel threatened. You must gather them without triggering that instinct."
She paused, letting that hang in the air for a heartbeat.
"And let me warn you…" Her voice dropped to a slow, ominous whisper. "... their sting hurts quite a bit. Best avoid that, hmm?"
Perfect. Of course they could kill me. I swear, was there anything on this damn planet that didn't want to tear me apart?
No time to complain.
I gave the Matriarch a stiff nod and crouched low, scanning the ground like a man searching for meaning in the crumbs of a burnt pizza.
It looked like… ground.
Dry. Hot. Dead. Empty.
Did I forget any adjectives? Oh, yeah, stinky.
I took a deep breath and flipped the cosmic noodle vision switch in my head, letting myself focus on the faint energy threads.
Nothing.
I pushed harder, thinking back to how the warriors had used the Desert Flow. If it mimicked the life here, maybe the Barbaki had a similar energy signature.
I concentrated so hard I thought my eyes might explode.
But still… nothing.
Until...
There. Tiny fluctuations. Barely there, like ripples on still water.
I leaned in closer, heart pounding.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
A Barbaki!
No… dozens of them.
I lowered my hand slowly, holding my breath, careful not to stir a single grain of sand.
Not a sound. Not a ripple of energy. My fingers closed around one of the tiny, disgusting, majestic creatures, and just like that… I had it.
Alive. In my hand.
I lifted it to eye level, marveling at its horrible, wriggling cosmic anus glory.
"What a marvelous—"
And that’s when the universe clocked in for another shift of punishment.
The sting hit me. There is no way to describe that pain.
Imagine a knife, heated in the heart of a dying star, shoved through your palm like your skin was made of wet paper.
My vision whited out. I screamed like a war crime.
And before I could stop myself, my energy spiked.
I unleashed a burst of aura so violent it turned the Barbaki in my hand into… well… confetti.
The Matriarch burst out laughing, her massive hand slamming into my back like a sledgehammer.
I swear I heard something pop in my spine.
"That was close, Keegan Carter!" she boomed, grinning wide. "The trick is to mimic the Desert Flow. Make the Barbaki believe it hasn’t even moved at all. Like it’s still part of the earth beneath it."
She leaned in, lowering her voice as the grin slowly melted away.
"But—"
Her eyes darkened like she had just remembered she hated me.
"Try again…"
Her smile vanished completely.
"… and if you kill another Barbaki…"
She leaned just a little closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than a knife.
"I will personally do to you what you just did to that poor creature."
She let the words hang there for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
I swallowed hard. She sure had a way with words, huh?
Message received, boss.
As if my life depended on it, which, let’s be honest, it absolutely did, I forced myself to focus.
I mimicked the Desert Flow as best I could, channeling energy into my arms, into my fingers, trying to feel the world the way the warriors had shown me.
Slowly… so slowly… I reached down and plucked another Barbaki from the ground.
My hand hovered, perfectly still. Sweat dripped from my forehead. My heart pounded in my ears.
I swear I clenched my butt so hard I nearly gave myself a hernia.
Seconds crawled by.
The Barbaki… didn’t move.
Holding my breath, I carefully cracked open the basket with my other hand and gently slid the creature inside.
I exhaled like I had just survived a boss fight.
"Oof… I did it," I whispered, wiping the sweat from my brow. "I did it… I DID IT!"
I turned to the Matriarch, grinning like an idiot.
She smiled back at me, warm and approving, like that death threat from two minutes ago had never even happened.
"Excellent, Keegan Carter," she declared. "You have captured your first live Barbaki."
I puffed out my chest, ready to bask in the victory...
"Now," she continued, "you just have to catch another thousand."
My smile froze. My soul left my body.
"A… thousand?"
I slowly tilted my head back, staring up at the twin suns.
Of course.
Of course it wasn’t over.
I closed my eyes in defeat, accepting my new life as a professional Barbaki wrangler.
The rest of the afternoon went by mostly without incident. Well, except for the part where I almost pulverized another Barbaki… but one of the warriors jumped in just in time, helping me stabilize my energy before I turned it into jelly.
The Matriarch shot me a glare so sharp it could have skinned a planet, but… she let it go.
Thank the twin suns.
Hours passed, or what felt like days, and eventually, I managed to gather all thousand of the squishy little bastards.
And of course, by the time I finished, the other warriors had already filled baskets on baskets like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Had I humiliated myself in front of them? Probably. More than once, actually.
But honestly? Working alongside with the group felt good.
Especially after years of isolation and clawing my way through that hellish wasteland.
It felt... good.
I had a purpose. I had a lot to learn. And above all... I wasn't alone anymore.
I glanced toward the horizon, sighing.
I missed Waldo, though. Damn stubborn rock kept giving me the silent treatment.
The routine didn’t change.
Mornings were spent getting my soul beaten out of me by the warriors.
Afternoons, I hunted Barbakis until my fingers went numb.
At dusk, I wrestled with the villagers' cursed blender language, guided by Abrak-Ith and the occasional terrifying grin from the Matriarch.
And at night?
Oh, at night…
I posed. I flexed. I admired.
For some reason, the more I trained, the more beautiful I became. It was almost criminal, honestly.
Oh, I wish I were on Earth.
Curiously, my muscles didn't increase in size. At one point, they stopped toning and growing, but instead... they became increasingly dense.
I’m pretty sure if anyone dropped me on a scale, it’d throw a fatal error and catch fire.
Everything continued in that same way. Same routine.
Days blurred into weeks.
Weeks stretched into months.
And months melted into years.
Eight years. Gone in the ninety-four million blinks of an eye.
I’ll be honest with you. By that point, I had almost given up on the idea of ever returning to Earth… or seeing my parents again.
Ten years. Ten long years in that cursed alien wasteland.
Ten years without a single clue about what happened to my family.
Were they still alive?
Were they safe?
Did they… miss me?
I had no way of knowing.
And that… that hurt more than I care to admit.
But hey, let’s not drown in misery, shall we? It's good news time. And this one might shock you…
After eight long years of getting tossed around like a training dummy, I didn’t just learn the Desert Flow, I mastered it.
I learned to control my aura better than any of the warriors, even if they still managed to kick my ass every now and then.
The martial arts part… well, that was still a work in progress.
But after all that? Get this.
I became the village’s first Shaman.
How about that, huh?