Pearson huffed and puffed in the dry air as he sprinted up and down the seemingly endless sand dunes.
For some reason, scenes of his life were flashing in his head. Such great memories! He knew as a child he was never one of the rich or privileged ones. But he and his brother was the only kids in school that didn't eat the gross cafeteria food. The orange soda pop he bought both of them everyday walking to school was so delicious.
The horizon was a shimmery blur, but sticking out from the mirage were two silhouettes.
Jake and Marilyn, two people he's known for as long as he could remember. They were never friends with each other, just were acquainted from the school system inside Crater. All three had opted to scout ahead in the island, searching for more possible places artifacts could be stashed. When they reached the wall, a door had seemingly appeared from thin air. Both Jake and Marilyn warned that they shouldn't proceed any further, but Pearson was curious. The wooden oak door led them first to a room that was designed like a dirty bathroom. The white tiles were stained with black muck and mold. The mirror on the wall revealed a message that was a clue for them to figure out they needed to flip the bathtub upside down, and find the key embedded in its underside. They used that to walk through another doorway, leading them into a dance studio, which then led them into the desert.
Marilyn was the first to disappear, as she had opted to take a break in the shadow of one of the dead trees that sparsely scattered the area. Before it happened, she had been stomping her foot, trying to get a pebble from her shoe.
The sand beneath her feet started churning, and before anyone knew it, she was gone. One second, there, the next, poof.
Jake said he heard something then took off running, with Pearson sprinting after him. It wasn't long before the sand exploded around them, and Jake was gone too.
As Pearson ran towards the two people on the horizon, he heard a shifting in the sand behind him. That's when he felt it… 'They're both energy users! They're both using energy! They've gotta know what's going on!' A pale yellow energy began burning around him as he used his power to sprint faster across the land. Outrunning, briefly, whatever was in the sand behind him.
He crawled up the tall dune, collapsing in front of the two.
The backs of Kaly's and Ivy's heads blocked the sun as they peered down at Pearson curiously. He huffed and gasped. His lips were so dry that they cracked.
"I told you," Ivy looked at Kaly and gestured down at him.
Pearson hopped to his feet, pointing back, "There's something coming! It's in the sand!" He started to run again, but stopped, when he noticed they weren't following. He whirled back around, "Wh-what are you doing? It's going to kill you both!"
The sand shifted at the top of the dune, almost causing a land slide. Kaly and Ivy were able to hold still, calmly sliding along with the sandy avalanche.
Something began thrashing in the sand, as it was exposed to the sunlight.
The massive gooey white egg sac on its abdomen quivered as its legs thrashed, covering itself with sand as well as attempting to block the line of sight to itself. Ivy charged energy into her eyes as she slid past, trying to get a better look. Staring at the egg sac, which was slowly turning red because blood and chunks of meat began to fill its placenta so the eggs could extract its nutrients.
"There's a finger in there," Ivy said to Kaly, who was sliding down the dune next to her.
They watched as the steely, insect-like creature submerged, then made a direct path toward Pearson.
"Now it's my chance to say, 'I told you so,'" Kaly said.
"What do you mean?" Ivy asked.
Pearson's energy crackled and sparked, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he saw it approaching. A line in the sand being drawn as it tunneled and burrowed. With a yell, and in his hand appeared a long metal staff with a large bell on the end. 'I can't use my ability to its full capacity since there's no walls around us! The ground is probably too soft too…' He gripped his weapon tightly, holding the bell directly into the air, and the air began to vibrate as the bell rang.
With a yell, Pearson jammed the end of the bell's staff into the ground at his feet.
In a large circle around him, spanning several yards, the sand shifted and spun.
"That thing follows movement." Kaly said. "Or at least your steps or something. We have barely moved and it went right past us to that guy," she gestured at Pearson. As the creature barreled down on him, it seemed to stop once it went into the circle. It began thrashing in place, spinning in circles.
Pearson's arms shook violently, as he held his bell-staff motionless in the ground. "Kill it!" He gasped. "I can't hold it there forever!"
Needing to hear no more, Ivy extended her trident, sprinting toward the insect, stopping at the edge of Pearson's circle, stabbing right in the middle of its jumbled mess of writhing legs. Yelling as she did so, Ivy pulled back on the trident, slowly lifting the skewered creature into the air.
Ivy didn't need to say it. Kaly was ready. She planted her feet in the sand, keeping herself steady as she aimed the pointer and middle finger of her left hand at the creature.
A ball of energy shot from her fingers and split through the insect.
"Oh no!" Ivy screeched, diving out of the way as a cascade of guts rained down, staining the sand where she was just standing with yellow and red.
"Holy shit!" Pearson collapsed to one knee, his energy deactivating, and his bell-staff faded out of existence. The sand around him became still.
Kaly walked over to the stinking, steaming, bisected carcass of the sand insect. She sifted through the contents of its stomach and egg sac, 'Yeah, Ivy was right. It ate someone.'
"Was that the only one?" Ivy asked.
"As far as I know, yeah." Pearson said.
"I think it ate one of your friends," Kaly said.
"Wait! I bet Jake is still here!"
"I dunno…I don't sense anyone else around here." Kaly looked at Ivy to see if she could confirm or deny, but she just shrugged.
"He has to be!" Pearson began running off, looking for Jake.
Ivy and Kaly found Pearson crouched over, who they could only assume was Jake.
Pearson had placed a jacket over his face to hide it, but the rest of the body was flat and mangled.
"He didn't activate his energy in time before he hit the ground," Kaly shook her head in disappointment. "I'm surprised he made it this far."
The sun was unrelenting, pouring down from a cloudless sky. They had been walking for what felt like hours, with no shade in sight. Kaly, barefoot, could feel the heat rising from the sand, scorching the soles of her feet with every hurried step.
"This is insane!" Pearson suddenly stopped, his cracked lips curling in frustration. He ran his tongue across them, but it only made them feel drier. "We've been walking forever—this is the definition of madness."
"What are you talking about?" Kaly asked, annoyed, pacing back and forth so her feet wouldn't get burned.
"Look around. We've been walking for so long! This should be impossible! We should be in a room which is inside a wall, right? The wall was pretty long, yeah, but the rooms weren't all that wide. This place we're in…it's unending…"
"I was about to ask," Ivy said. "We should've hit a wall by now."
"Look behind us! Right there!" Pearson jabbed a finger, "You see that tree all the way back there? The same tree that has been there this whole time while we were walking!"
"What the…" Ivy said, a bewildered look on her face, staring at the scraggly, dead stick in the sand that had once been a tree. "I…I guess I didn't notice."
Kaly's dumbfounded expression turned quickly to anger, "Are you telling me we've been walking in circles for…" She looked at the sun, and her angry tone disappeared. "Now that's just odd." She muttered.
"What's up?" Ivy asked, following her gaze but having to squint in the light.
"The sun has yet to move at all since we've been here."
"See!" Pearson gestured all around them, "None of this is normal!"
"So, maybe we're still in a room, inside this wall then." Ivy said. "Kaly, you were saying this whole place was just one big energy trap. This has to be something like that, right?"
Pearson spoke, "Well-"
"-Wow!" Ivy's eyes grew as large as saucers, and her face broke out into a massive grin, like she had the greatest epiphany of all time. "We might be in a time loop!"
"What are you even talking about, Ivy?" Pearson asked, annoyed. "You must be dehydrated. There's no way that's possible."
"No, no. I think she's on to something." Kaly said.
"She's not." He turned, walking toward the tree. When they got there, he examined it closely. Running his fingers along the dead bark. He reached up, breaking off a brittle twig from one of its limbs.
When Kaly reached out to touch the tree, instinctively, she recoiled as soon as she made contact. "I can feel it. Or well, I can't feel it. Every organic living thing has energy, right? This doesn't. It's inorganic, whatever it is."
"So this whole place is fake?" Ivy asked.
"We're stuck in some kinda real-life prison," Pearson said.
"What about the sun?" Ivy pointed.
"Yeah, let's try that." Kaly activated her energy, pointing two fingers into the sky.
"Stop! You don't know what'll happen!" Pearson said too late as the ball of energy flew from her fingers.
When the sun shattered, so did the entire simulation, The sky turned pitch black and the sand beneath their feet began to dissolve.
They felt themselves falling. The sand completely disappearing as they fell through the now dark void where the room had existed just moments ago.