Hours later, armed men in combat attire designed for the cold white desert left the small ridge with one of them pulling a body bag. One of them questioned:
"Boss, shouldn't we have killed her?"
"Don't worry about her, she is already dead within. Women really lack resilience. Didn't you notice that she stopped reacting at some point even if I bet she enjoyed the experience. What's more, with the knife wounds I gave her, she won't bleed out and the cold will help there but that will just prolong her sufferings. Even if she survives the hypothermia and is not eaten by anything, the trap I put beneath her is enough to do the job and take out those who will come for her. No matter what, her death is assured and she will take with her any proof of what happened there. Anything else will be a bonus."
The one who raised the question praised:
"Hahaha... Boss, you were so thorough. I thought that you were just torturing her for fun."
"Of course, being thorough is the least I could do. After all, I didn't expect her to have kept her virginity till now, just to give it to me. I was wrong about her, maybe she used her other holes to get information for her country. Hahaha..."
"Hahaha..."×4
Their noises faded into the distance. Left behind were only the usual silence of this desert and their victim with her last thought before closing herself up, life and death unknown:
'If only I had not been incapacitated, I'm confident in taking out those men with the result of my training that put me above most, or at least die with dignity while trying. If only I had been more attentive, I could have spotted the clues and prepared a plan, both for surviving and taking revenge.
If, if only..."
********
'Antarctica, Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, or the Antarctic Ocean, it contained the geographic South Pole. It was the fifth-largest continent, about 40% larger than Europe, had an area of 14,200,000 sq km (5,500,000 sq mi) and was mostly covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
Antarctica is, on average, the coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and it has the highest average elevation. It is mainly a polar desert, with annual precipitation of over 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica, which, if melted, would raise global sea levels by almost 60 meters (200 ft). Antarctica holds the record for the lowest measured temperature on Earth, −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). The coastal regions can reach temperatures over 10 °C (50 °F) in the summer. Native species of animals include mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Where vegetation occurs, it is mostly in the form of lichen or moss.'
Lucas remembered what he read on the search engines online about his destination as he stayed still and felt the reaction of his body.
When he disembarked previously, despite being still more desiccated than before, he felt what could be the confirmation of having made the right bet. Unfortunately, he was not alone at that time so, taking his ride, he drove inland for a few kilometers before stopping and going outside to understand what happened.
The winds were cold, the ground was soft and the lack of noise, or rather, of unnatural noise was calming. Unlike the torrid desert where the heat would make one irritable, even if it was better in his case, the cold here slowed the body metabolism and would have made this desert a good place for meditation and introspection if not for the extreme conditions.
Focusing back on what he stopped the car for after a shake of his head, he felt that while he was still weaker and less energetic than previously in the Sahara, it was as if something in his body was revolting against what might be its opposite, like how one's blood would boil at a provocation. It was coming from where he changed the most after almost dying: his bones.
He felt a surge of heat that was only enough to give him warmth in the cold weather. However, there was a certain stubbornness and ferocity in there like it would scald him and burn the cold, only lacking the fuel and something he couldn't put his fingers on.
He would have dismissed that sensation as an illusion if not for his circumstances. Shelving it in the back of his head since he didn't know what to make of it for now, he resumed his journey.
"First time getting that kind of reaction or any reaction at all so I should have nailed the first hint. Now I just hope that my plan will get me the desired result so that I can avoid becoming a piece of torrid and sandy desert in the middle of an ice desert if the old man's nonsense is to be believed."
He lowered the windows to bathe in the cold and what it stimulated in him.
"On another note, I bet if I die like that I will give a headache to the searchers here. Desert sand in Antarctica, hahaha..."
Laughing at the imaginary situation, he checked his compass and map to confirm the lack of deviation.
A few days later, he didn't meet anybody as he was closing in on where his fate would be decided, but with a wind coming from the front, he detected a very faint smell of blood, making him raise a brow.
'Human blood...'
He became more used to blood after bathing in it up close in that town in the desert and with his nose sharper than before his death, he noticed the difference. He couldn't judge the distance, only that somewhere in front of him, there was a wounded or a dead.
As he continued his way, the smell was becoming stronger, from 1% to 2% kind of stronger. Soon, he saw a small ridge as he was about 100 km from his destination. When he passed it, he spotted a woman, naked in the cold, in a weird position and seemingly tied to something on the ground.
Taking a moment to process the revolting sight he just witnessed, by the time he drifted to a stop, displacing the snow into a cloudy background, he was more than 50 m away. After all, he was going fast and only thanks to his improved eyesight with a good dynamic vision did he capture the image there.
He was not a good Samaritan, but he also did not have enough apathy to ignore what he just saw. And, if it was what he was thinking, those who could stomach doing something like that could be a threat to him if they were in the vicinity.
When he went back, he first circled around after a glimpse at the figure on the ground. He didn't see any track in the snow, nor any footprints.
'Those who did it either didn't have a transport or they left quite a while ago. A transport would have left tracks that would survive the winds longer so the only way to now determine the time stamp and get more information would be the state of the woman.'