Chapter 55: So This is Why it’s Called Blazing Sands!
[You have died.]
[Regression Activated.]
"I insist. You need to sleep. I’ve got this."
Mark’s voice came again, exactly as before, and Lucas staggered slightly at the flood of memory crashing back all at once — the pillar of fire, the jacket, the blackened hand still curled mid fist, the sand closing over his head like a grave that had been waiting for him.
He shuddered, fingers closing around his neck as he remembered what it’s like to have no way to breathe...
He could still taste the sand, and somehow still fell like he was choking even though he was standing here in a body that had never actually suffocated at all.
[Player has returned to designated checkpoint.]
[Checkpoint has been restored to the last stable moment prior to death.]
’We can’t stay here.’ he thought, his mind racing... ’Whatever happens, happens fast, and it happens right when we let our guard down...’
"We need to move," Lucas said, before Mark could settle deeper into his watch position.
Mark blinked at him. "What?"
"Now. Tonight. Wherever we make camp, we can’t stay in one spot too long." Lucas kept his voice level despite the urgency clawing at his chest. "Trust me on this."
"You want to keep walking? In the dark? Through a desert we don’t even know where we are?" Mark’s brow furrowed, more confused than annoyed. "Lucas, we’re exhausted. All three of us, you especially."
"I know." He said... "I still think it’s safer than staying still."
Lucas clenched his teeth. They were running out of time. Each extra second spent here pulled them in closer into something they might not survive. And Lucas knew, with every fiber of his being that he didn’t want to experience what had happened to him again.
Mark studied him for a long moment, clearly unconvinced, before something in Lucas’ expression must have tipped the scale, because he exhaled and shrugged. "Fine. Your funeral if you’re wrong." He turned toward Pyra, who’d been watching the exchange with open curiosity. "Pyra. Change of plans. We’re moving."
"Moving where?" she asked.
"Away from here," Lucas said, his voice sounding more urgent than he wanted it to. "That’s the whole plan for now."
They walked for the better part of an hour, boots sinking into cooling sand under a sky thick with unfamiliar stars, and nothing happened. No heat. No tremor. No warning of any kind.
Pyra kept glancing between the two of them, clearly unsure whether to be more worried by Lucas’ certainty or Mark’s growing skepticism. "Are we looking for something specific? Or just walking until you feel like stopping?"
"Honestly?" Lucas admitted. "The second one. I just know staying put feels wrong."
’Terribly, horribly wrong...’
"That’s not exactly reassuring."
"Sorry. It’s the best I’ve got right now."
She stared at them for a moment before finally standing up and walking with them...
***
"See?" Mark said eventually, stretching as they reached the top of another dune, "nothing. Just us, walking in circles, wasting energy we don’t have to spare."
"Maybe. We just have to get as far away from here as possible..."
"Or maybe you had a bad dream and panicked." Mark’s tone even though it was light, carried a certain frustration in it...
Then he sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "Happens to the best of us. I’ve had nightmares about Elle’s cooking before. Doesn’t mean I wake up and evacuate the fortress."
"This is different."
"Everything always feels different to you lately," Mark said, not harshly, though something in it landed with more weight than he probably meant it to.
Lucas didn’t answer, scanning the sand around them with a wariness that refused to ease no matter how uneventful the walk had been so far.
They settled again near a larger sand dune, the closest thing to shelter the endless desert landscape had offered in miles, and Mark had barely settled down before the ground beneath them erupted.
A pillar of hot flame tore skyward a few feet from where Pyra stood, and her scream tore through the night as she scrambled backward, claws bursting free on pure instinct.
[Ding!]
[Warning: The Blazing Sands is currently undergoing the Flame Cycle]
[Objective: Survive until daybreak, or escape the Blazing Sands zone entirely.]
"So this is why it’s called Blazing Sands!" Mark bellowed, diving clear as a second pillar erupted directly where he’d been standing a moment earlier.
"Shit! Move! Keep moving!" Lucas was already sprinting, dragging Pyra by the arm as a third column of flame roared up behind them, the ground itself splitting like an open mouth.
"The fire’s not even the worst part!" Lucas shouted, the memory of his own death screaming flooding his mind. "If the fire erupting subsides, don’t stand still, the sand will bury you alive!"
"Bury us..." Pyra’s voice cracked with pure panic, claws still out and eyes wide with terror. "How do we even survive this?"
"We don’t stop moving!"
Another pillar erupted just behind Mark, close enough to scourge the edge of his jacket.
"FUCK!"
He cursed loudly, sprinting harder to close the gap between himself and the other two.
"I owe you an apology!" Mark yelled, leaping clear of a fresh eruption. "Terrible timing, but I owe you one!"
"Save it for when we’re not dead!"
"This isn’t survivable if we just keep running around!" Lucas shouted, fire and sand exploding up around them from all directions now, the entire desert floor seemingly alive and ready to detonate anywhere at any time"We have to get out of this zone completely!"
"And how far is that?!" Mark shouted back, dodging another eruption by inches.
"I don’t know! but staying here is not an option!"
They ran, the desert blowing up with fire and collapsing sand around them.
The once quiet desert was now a hellscape with flaming pillars and three exhausted survivors fighting against a desert night that had every intention of trying to kill them all before the first light of dawn...