Kael's body screamed in protest as he fought to rise, every muscle trembled under the weight of exhaustion.
"Urghhh!" he groaned, his voice dry and ragged.
His limbs felt like lead, drained of strength, as if his very bones had forgotten how to bear him.
Lethargy clung to him like a second skin, each movement felt like a battle against his own body.
"What a way to wake up, this is a pain."
After what felt like an eternity of struggling, gritting his teeth, and cursing under his breath, he finally hauled himself upright, swaying on his unsteady legs like a sapling in a storm.
Kael glanced down, and a grimace twisted his face. His skin was porcelain-white, cracked and dry as the desert around him, leached of all moisture.
Worse, he was stark naked, exposed in all his vulnerable, ashen glory. No clothes, no shoes, nothing.
"Fantastic," he muttered, sarcasm dripping. "Hope there's no audience to watch me suffer like this."
He scanned his surroundings, and his breath caught. The landscape was a vision of desolation, a wasteland scarred by some cataclysmic wound.
Whistle
"Damn, what a sight for sore eyes. What happened here?"
The earth stretched endlessly, its surface fissured with deep, jagged cracks that looked like the ground itself had been flayed open.
Blackened trees, skeletal and charred, stood scattered like mourners at a funeral, their gnarled branches clawing at a sky choked with haze.
Far in the distance, jagged mountains pierced the horizon, their peaks shrouded in a ghostly mist that blurred the line between the earth and the boundless sky.
They were the only landmark, miles away, their silhouettes both a promise and a taunt.
Behind him, the desert offered nothing but more of the same, barren, lifeless expanse.
The air was thick, heavy with the acrid stench of ash and decay, an oppressive silence broken only by the occasional, mournful wail of wind stirring clouds of dust.
All in all, it painted a picture of a landscape straight out of a painting of a battleground.
"That explosion wasn't a fever dream, then," Kael murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "How long have I been gone? I'm willing to bet it's been a while."
His gaze dropped to the ground beneath him, and his brow furrowed. A shattered stone cocoon, oval and hollow, cradled his footprints.
"What's this? Was I lying in this thing?"
Its base held firm, but the top had fractured, collapsing into jagged shards that glinted dully in the sunlight.
"That would explain my dilemma, and why I was somehow safe out in the open? That or there was nothing left to disturb my slumber."
It explained the numbness, the eerie detachment from his own body. He'd been encased in this thing.
He knocked on the solid cocoon, and oof, did he regret that.
"Ouch, and this thing is so sturdy as well...damn "
Stepping out of the cocoon, he hissed as the cracked, caked earth bit into his bare feet.
"Ouch! ouch! ouch! Fuck!!! Why is everything that I do so painful?" He steadied himself on the ground and took a moment to collect his thoughts.
The more he looked, the more he was convinced that he was in a desert. Bot, for some reason, Kael was sure that was not always the case.
This desert was very much artificially created, and he was willing to bet it was because of The explosion.
Dunes swelled and dipped around him, sculpted by relentless winds into crests and valleys of fine, stinging grit.
He took a few seconds to walk around a few metres, not too far.
Each step sent sharp jolts of pain through his soles, the ground a patchwork of sharp stones and dry, prickly soil.
"Mountains it is," he sighed, eyes fixed on the distant peaks. "Only shot I've got. Better be something, or someone left in this hellscape." He forced a dry chuckle, though it sounded more like a cough. "Gotta keep it together, Kael. No losing it now."
Clothing was a pressing issue. He glanced back at the cocoon, hoping for a miracle.
"No sign of my gear," he muttered, shaking his head. "Those shoes cost a fortune too. Figures."
With nothing to cover himself, he began his trek toward the mountains, each step a monumental ordeal.
His legs wobbled, fragile as glass, threatening to buckle. He paused to knead his thighs, scowling. "Feels like I'm a damn newborn, learning to walk."
The sun hung high, well past noon, its blistering heat a hammer against his exposed skin.
Heatwaves shimmered across the horizon, twisting the mountains into ghostly, dancing phantoms.
The air stung like a whip, searing his flesh with every gust. His feet, already bruised and blistered, burned against the scorching earth.
Hunger clawed at his insides, his stomach growling with primal insistence. His throat was a desert of its own, parched and raw, each swallow a painful rasp.
"Not gonna make it far like this," he croaked, breath coming in short, heavy bursts.
A sunburn bloomed across his body, his skin turning an angry red that pulsed with every heartbeat.
Dizziness crept in, his vision wavering as the world tilted. He stumbled, collapsing onto the unforgiving ground, dust puffing around him.
"Surviving that dark hellscape just to die out here?" he muttered, staring at the hazy sky. "That's rich. Embarrassing, even."
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself back up after a brief rest, driven by a stubborn spark of defiance. He wouldn't let the elements claim him. Not yet.
Eventually, after half a day of laboured walking, the inevitable happened. Night fell, and the desert transformed.
The suffocating heat gave way to a biting chill, the temperature plummeting as the sun vanished.
The stillness of the day shifted, replaced by an unsettling hum beneath the earth, subtle tremors that Kael, in his bone-deep exhaustion, barely registered.
"Moving's easier without the sun roasting me alive," he said, his voice hoarse as he trudged on. "How far have I gone? A mile? Two? Feels like forever."
The ground quivered, a low vibration that grew into a bone-rattling tremor.
Suddenly, a high-pitched groan tore through the silence, sharp and guttural, resonating from deep beneath his feet.
Vrrrmmm!
The earth shuddered violently, nearly knocking him over. "What the-"
Boom!!!
Before he could finish, the desert exploded behind him.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
He looked back to identify the cause of the commotion, and then, he saw it...
A colossal sandworm erupted from the ground, its massive form forty meters long, five meters wide, coiling into the night sky.
Its segmented body gleamed with iridescent, armored plates that caught the starlight, each one as large as a man.
Rows of jagged, serrated teeth lined its circular maw, a yawning abyss that seemed to hunger for the world itself.
Every thrash of its body sent tremors rippling through the desert, kicking up plumes of sand that stung Kael's eyes.
"What. Is. That?"
He staggered back, but then, another abomination emerged, its presence heralded by a deafening roar.
Towering at twenty feet tall, it was a grotesque fusion of nightmare and beast, cloaked in matted, reddish-brown fur that drank the fading light.
Its head resembled a gorilla's, but from its lower jaw jutted immense, curved tusks, mammoth-like, glinting with menace. It also had hind legs that resembled those of a horse.
A single, luminescent eye glowed on its forehead, casting an eerie, sickly light that bathed the surroundings in a ghostly pall.
It also had hind legs that resembled those of a horse, ending in clawed hooves. Each step shook the ground with seismic force.
How such a creature came to be was a mystery to Kael.
"What in the hell are these things?" Kael's voice cracked, raw fear surging through him.
His heart pounded, his battered body trembling as he looked at these creatures, far beyond his comprehension.
The air grew still, the silence a taut wire as the sandworm and behemoth locked eyes, their gazes brimming with primal malice.
The ground pulsed with their tension, small tremors radiating outward. Then, all hell broke loose.
The sandworm struck first, its colossal body lunging with terrifying speed.
Despite its size, it moved like lightning, closing the gap between it and the behemoth in a single, fluid surge.
The impact sent shockwaves through the desert, the earth buckling under Kael's feet.
He stumbled, barely catching himself as the tremors intensified, the ground groaning under the strain of the titans' clash.
The behemoth roared, a sound that shook Kael's bones, its hooves pounding craters into the sand.
It charged, tusks slashing as it grappled with the worm.
Claws raked against chitin, sparks flying as the behemoth's tusks gouged deep into the worm's armored hide.
The sandworm retaliated, its body coiling around its foe with crushing force, muscles rippling under its plates.
Each thrash sent violent tremors through the earth, toppling jagged rock formations and sending clouds of sand skyward.
The desert itself seemed to scream, the ground splitting anew with every seismic blow.
Amid the chaos, the desert floor came alive. Smaller abominations, grotesque scavengers erupted from the earth in a frenzy.
These creatures were nightmares in miniature, no taller than a man but far more menacing.
Their bodies were a grotesque patchwork of chitin and flesh, segmented like insects but with twisted, humanoid limbs that ended in barbed claws.
Their heads were eyeless, dominated by gaping maws filled with needle-like teeth that clicked and chattered in a sickening cacophony.
Some scuttled on six legs, their movements erratic and spider-like, while others loped on two, their hunched forms jerking with unnatural speed.
Their hides glistened with a sickly, oily sheen, reflecting the moon's eerie glow as they fled the titans' battle.
The scavengers' panic was palpable, their shrieks piercing the air as they swarmed in all directions.
They clawed over dunes, skittered across cracked earth, and scrambled over one another in a desperate bid to escape the tremors that shook the ground.
Some collided, tearing into each other with rabid ferocity, their claws rending flesh in sprays of dark ichor.
The ground vibrated ceaselessly now, each clash of the titans sending shockwaves that made the scavengers' movements even more frantic, their chittering cries rising to a fever pitch.
Kael's blood ran cold as a pack of these creatures veered toward him, their barbed limbs churning the sand.
"Damn!" he cursed, adrenaline surging.
He bolted, his battered body screaming in protest as he poured every ounce of strength into his legs.
The ground quaked beneath him, each tremor threatening to throw him off balance.
The scavengers were faster, their skittering forms closing the gap with terrifying speed, their needle-teeth glinting as they snapped at the air.
"Oh! I'm dead!"
His eyes darted frantically, searching for a hint of safety. There was a narrow crevice between two jagged rocks jutting from the earth, barely wide enough for a man.
"There!" he gasped, lungs burning as he pushed harder.
tch!-tch!-tch!-chrrrr!!!
The scavengers' chittering grew louder, their claws scraping the ground just behind him.
He didn't dare look back, knowing the sight would freeze him in place.
The earth shook violently, a fresh shockwave from the titans' clash nearly knocking him down.
Sand rained around him, the tremors making every step a gamble. His heart thundered, his vision blurring with exhaustion, but he refused to stop.
The crevice was close, ten feet, five feet.
But the scavengers were also almost on him, their hot, rancid breath grazing his back. Fifty feet, forty, thirty...