The moonlight from above illuminated the land below in an eerie, yellow glow as Kohr lead his party across the grassy hillside. Their bodies, which were the color of oil, seemed to absorb the light, making them seem almost invisible. When they had reached the crest of the hill that overlooked the giant house below, they paused and took stock of their surroundings. This world, where there was little to no threat of being attacked by another enemy, was extremely foreign to them. They came from a world where war was always raging, where you were born and breed to be a warrior. The fact that they encountered no resistance at all disturbed Kohr at first. He was expecting at any moment to be ambushed by something or somebody. But when it never came his confidence grew and he knew that capturing the girl would be the easiest thing he had ever done.
But he was wise, he had not been Shin Druns choice as leader without knowing that with confidence comes cockiness. And until he had the girl bowing before the feet of Lord Drun, he would never let his guard down.
Waving a taloned hand he signaled the two hunters, Kivis and Korvis, down the hill. Kivis was shorter than his brother Korvis, but that was the only difference between the two. Having been breed from the same queen, they were designed to hunt down their prey and kill them with quickness and efficiency. Their bodies were streamlined, sleak and were the only ones of their kind to be born with a tail. Like that of a velocer raptor, the tail extended from their back and ended in a sharp point. Their spike-covered heads were narrow and the eyes were close together, enabling them to see directly in front of them for long distances, but their peripheral vision was lacking. Using the five inch long, razor sharp talons on their four index fingers, they attacked any part of a creatures body that was vulnerable, tearing through the flesh like a knife through butter.
Moving as quietly as the wind, Kivis headed left towards the garage on the far side of the house, while Korvis ran around the right side. Halfway to the garage, Kivis paused in front of a window and looked into a room that was lit up by an overhead light. Breathing heavily, more from excitement than excersion, Kivis peered through the window and let out a low growl when he saw a giant figure moving around inside. The talons on Kivis’s left hand twitched involuntarily, his mind was locking onto its target and his body reflexively geared up for the kill.

On the opposite side of the house, Korvis caught a scent coming from an open window that attracted his attention. Moving slowly over to the window, he watched a flower patterned material sway softly from a breeze coming in from the lake behind him. Placing a hand on the window, he pushed himself up higher on his clawed feet, and slid the material out of the way with his other hand. Taking a look inside the darkened room, he almost fell backwards when he saw that right in front of him, only a few feet away, was the girl that they had been looking for sleeping soundly. He immediately jumped away from the window and slid into the shadows of a giant oak tree standing next to the shadows. His brain was designed for little more than killing, but he knew that when something seemed too easy, it probably was. He waited for a few moments in the shadows, watching his surroundings for any sign of an ambush. When none came, he slowly and quietly krept back towards the window.
Ripping the material away from the window, he threw it away from him and watched as it floated in the air for a few feet before falling softly to the ground. Looking into the room again, he saw that the girl was still asleep, a soft snoring sound issued from her mouth. He grinned widely, a sound like the purring of a cat rumbled in his chest. Lifting himself up and through the window with the agility of a gymnast, he landed on the floor of the room, barely making a sound.

Kohr stood patiently on top of the hill with the silent Khana and the enormous Khran while he waited for a signal from the brothers to indicate that they had found the girl. He could here Khran breathing loudly behind him, his ogrish body seemed to grow larger with each breath. Kohr knew that the giant was resisting the urge to rush down the hill and pound the house into pummel with every fiber of his being. But this mission required stealth and not muscle, for now. So Khran would have to wait just a little longer.
Khana was silent and mysterious as always. It had been many, many years since they had fought side by side together, but this was exactly how Kohr remembered her. She never spoke, she only acted. And right now, she was crouched low to the ground, her eyes focused directly in front of her. Unlike the others who were all males, she was the only one with the ability to heal herself. On their planet, males were the dominant sex and considered expendable. For every ten thousand births, there was only one female and they were treated like gods. The fact that Khana was fighting alongside the males was something that almost never happened. In all the generations there had only been five woman warriors, the rest were hidden far below ground and spawned the males much like a queen bee. Because of this rarity, Khor knew that Khana was extremely dangerous.
As for Khor, he was himself an oddity. Males from his world were trained by their fathers, who in turn were trained by their fathers and so on. But Khor had been raised by a woman who taught him to be more than just a warrior. This woman, known only as Kri, was an outcast and had found Khor dying on the edge of his land when he was just a child. Keeping the child hidden away with her in the dying lands, Kri had raised him with kindness and compassion; two traits that had no place in the world of war. She was different than the rest in the sense that she used her mind for more than just strategic planning, breeding and killing. If she had been studied, it would have been said that she was the next step in the evolution of the species. But this did not happen and the lords of her land had feared her mind, thus casting her out. If she had been a male they would have killed her on the spot, but she was a female and the killing of a woman was out of the question.
So Khor grew into adulthood, never knowing who or what he really was. The only being he had ever known was Kri, who as time went on, he came to despise for keeping him hidden away while the rest of his brethren were fighting and dying. She tried to explain to him that he was worth more than that. That he didn't have to be a mindless killing machine. He could learn to live with love and compassion and be a part of the world instead of destroying it.
But he would have none of that. As much as she tried, there was no denying that Khor was a killer from birth. His blood and his mind craved it. Even though he had never seen another creature before other than the withering outcast he spent most of his life with, he still desired blood and death. And that's when Shin Drun came.
As if in answer to Kohrs prayers, a figure came stumbling across the desert on the verge of death. Kohr carried the injured warrior back to his cave and began tending to his wounds. When Kri returned to her layer to find Shin Drun, the epitome of evil lying facedown on her floor, she knew that Khor was doomed to the world of war. The look in his eyes when he turned to her said it all. And when the day came that Shin Drun was well enough to venture back out into the world, he took Khor with him and neither mouthed a word of thanks for what she had done for them.
Looking back on the woman that had raised him, Khor felt only pity for her. His mind was not adapted as hers was to things such as compassion. As much as she tried, those values had never truly sunk in. He was born a killer and Shin Drun had been the one to teach him who he truly was; a leader of the killers.

Standing on the hill, looking down at the house, Khor ran a taloned hand along his bald, scaled head and waited for the signal. Korvis crouched low to the ground, his eyes scanned the darkness for any sign of a trap but found none. Moving forward across the floor, his claws dragged soundlessly through the shag carpeting. His mind was focused on the task of trying to grab the girl and escape the room as silently as possible, but another part of his mind wondered why there were so many tiny corpses lined along the walls and scattered across the floor. A momentary feeling of panic ran through his body. If this girl had killed this many creatures and slept in the center of it all, who exactly were they dealing with here?? This was in no way an ordinary, harmless little girl. But when he picked one up off the floor and looked at it, he understood on a very primitive level, that this thing had never been alive. It was something made to entertain the girl. He grinned widely, the feeling of panic ebbing quickly from his body. Placing the thing back on the floor, he started to move forward again when he heard the thing that he had just put down start talking, “I love you Mommy”.
Startling him, Korvis jumped backwards and slammed into the wall behind him, causing the entire wall full of creatures to come crashing down. Picking himself up off the floor, he looked over to the girl and saw that she was sitting up and staring directly at him. Kivis sat in the shadows with his eyes glued to the dark figure moving around the lit up room. If the creature left that room at all, Kivis would jump through the window and kill it. But for now, he was more curious than anything. The creature was enormous, obviously designed for fighting, but what it was doing seemed unnatural. It was running round objects under a tiny waterfall of water, wiping them down with a white cloth and then putting them away in a box above its head. Kivis was a hunter and understood nothing about what it was doing. But its strange actions were hypnotic, his attention was completely focused on it. If not for the scream that came from the other side of the house which caused the figure to drop one of the round objects on the ground and go running from the room, Kivis could have sat there and watched it all night.
Snapping out of his trance, Kivis leapt from his hiding place and went crashing head first through the glass window in front of him. From the top of the hill Khor was taken by surprise when he heard the scream and then the sound of breaking glass. It wasn’t exactly the signal he was looking for, but it would do. Indicating that both Khana and Khran follow him, the three began running down the hill towards the house. Khor could hear Khran behind him growling with pleasure.

When the girl started to scream, Korvis’s first reaction was to stop the screaming. And to do that he had to kill the girl. He started to move towards the bed with his claws extended and his mouth full of razor sharp teeth open wide, but then he remembered that she was not to be harmed and the idea of killing had to be forced from his mind. Being a hunter, that took a lot of effort. Instead, he planned to grab the girl and escape through the open window behind him.
Leaning over the girl, he looked directly into her face and was pleased to see that her eyes were filled with terror. She was scared and that excited him. He breathed deeply, inhaling the fragrance that rose from her like a wave of hot air. Flashes of blood and torn flesh raced through his mind. The claws on his right hand flexed, his body trembled from the effort of holding back the urge to kill. He leaned even closer to the girl until he was almost face to face with her. He was about to grab her when the door behind him suddenly burst open.
He turned around quickly and saw the silhouette of a giant standing in the doorway, a bright light shone behind him like a halo. Korvis jumped from the bed and took a swipe at the figure in mid-air, but missed and felt pain explode through his head as something hard slammed into it. He was rocked backwards and saved himself from falling by jamming the claws on his left hand into the wall. Giant chunks of plaster fell to the floor as he ripped his hand away. Moving around to the other side of the bed, Korvis watched as the girl jumped from the bed and ran to the dark figure standing in the doorway.
Anger coursed through his body and this time he allowed his killer instinct to take over.

Roland had no idea what was going on right now or what the fuck he had just punched in the head and sent flying across the room, but he knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t friendly.
Roland grabbed Raine as she jumped off her bed and slammed the bedroom door shut as soon as she was out. He heard a loud roar come from the inside of the room and saw the door shake when whatever was on the other side tried to break it down. Cracks ran down the middle of the door and grew larger with each impact it took. Roland knew that the door couldn’t handle much more of this, he had to get Raine out of here now.
Picking the girl up off the floor with one of his massive arms, he headed down the hallway at a quick pace towards the garage on the other end of the house. He was almost to the kitchen when he heard a low growl come from the darkened hallway to his right. He turned his head in time to see a creature resembling a large, disfigured tiger come racing at him.
Throwing Raine to the floor, he caught the creature by the wrists as it came lunging at him, the long, dagger-like claws just barely missing his jugular. Roland could feel the incredible power of the creature pushing at him as it snapped its jaw in his face. Hot air that smelled of rotten meat rolled over his body. Roland’s mind was in overdrive mode, all of his survival instincts were on high alert. He desperately wanted to know what it was that was trying to kill him, but for now, living was more important. Answers could come later.
Using all of his strength, Roland forced the creature back into the hallway and sent it flying with a quick kick to the center of its chest. Roland didn’t wait to see what the creature would do next, he didn’t care. He grabbed Raine by the arm as he raced by her and headed straight for the garage through darkened rooms that seemed to be closing in on him from all sides. In the distance, a few rooms down, he heard the door to Raines bedroom explode. Roland counted his blessings that he had made it to the garage without running into anymore of the creatures. He knew he should hesitate when opening the door to the garage, that he should poke his head in quickly to see if there was anything waiting for him in there. But when he heard the loud roar coming from a few rooms back accompanied by a second, he decided he would chance it.
Kicking the door open, he ran down the stairs, grabbing the keys to his Jeep Cherokee on the way by. Unlocking and opening the passenger door to the Jeep, he nearly threw Raine inside and then slammed the door shut. Racing around the other side, he barely had the door open when he saw a vicious face look down on him from the top of the stairs. Roland stared back for a second, noticing that the creature had eyes that seemed too human. There was intelligence in there, but Roland didn’t wait to ask it if it had a name. He jumped into the drivers side of the Jeep and plunged the keys into the ignition, listening to the engine explode to life.
He screamed at Raine to fasten her seatbelt as he slammed his foot on the gas and sent the Jeep crashing through the garage doors in front him.