At first, Sam stood frozen for a couple of seconds before the realization hit him. A drop of sweat slowly trickled down his forehead. The hand covering his mouth pulled away.
'What the hell?'
He turned around and in the moonlight saw Jade's pale face, just as it had been when he left. Fear was etched on her face. How was this even possible? If Jade was behind him, then who was in front of him?
Sam swallowed hard. His heart began to race. He removed the girl's hand from his shoulder and signaled for them to back away. Jade was taller than Sam, but somehow she managed to hide behind him. As he took a few steps back, he heard that familiar cheerful voice mimicking Jade.
"Huh? Where are you going?"
Sam panicked slightly, but plastered a fake smile on his face and responded.
"Just... going to take a leak before bed."
No response followed, but Sam didn't expect one. Within a minute, he and Jade had moved out from under the shelter and circled around an orange rock, making sure to stay out of sight from whoever was under the shelter.
Breathing heavily and coughing slightly, Sam crouched by the rock and looked at his hands. They were trembling. He figured it was just the exhaustion catching up with him. After all, he hadn't expected to find himself in such a situation—a situation that was, to say the least, completely abnormal.
Jade didn't look any better. She slowly sat down to his right, pulling her knees close and wrapping her arms around them. Sam decided to speak first.
"What was that?"
The girl slowly turned her head towards him. Her eyes were bloodshot, showing signs of extreme exhaustion. Then again, maybe the recent sandstorm had something to do with it.
"I... I don't know. I think it's an anomaly," the girl croaked and buried her face in her knees, beginning to doze off.
Sam immediately placed a hand on her shoulder, feeling uneasy. The girl was ice-cold, like a corpse. He bit his lip, studying her, and noticed something strange but decided to ignore it.
"You're really cold... We need to... We need to get out of here. We can't stay if this is an anomaly. Who knows what might happen next? What if that thing using your voice comes out from under the shelter and attacks us?"
Sam didn't even want to imagine what was there. He doubted he could fight properly right now—his body was shaking, he felt cold, and his eyes kept wanting to close, threatening to drag him into the blissful realm of Morpheus.
The girl raised her head again but didn't look at him; instead, she gazed up at the endless sea of stars.
"But I think you're the one who's really hot... In the literal sense, I mean."
Sam chuckled slightly. Sure, the girl corrected herself, but he knew he was hot—in more ways than one! Though, now wasn't the time to dwell on that. But as for being literally hot... Sam felt that too.
For some reason, he was burning up, sweating, even though it was fairly cool out. Maybe it was just his extreme exhaustion, not the aftermath of the storm. But what if... he was sick? No, that was ridiculous.
Yeah, he had some quirks in that regard. In his previous life, he would get sick more often in the summer than in winter, though he had no idea why. But getting sick in a desert, where it was so hot? Wait... he did breathe in all that sand and dust during the storm. Could that be the problem?
"It'd really suck if we both got sick from the storm. That's the last thing we need."
The girl smiled, but it was... strange? But as if responding to his thoughts, her smile reverted to normal. Something... something was off. Could the anomaly be distorting things?
Jade was acting slightly strange, and that weirdness he noticed earlier was starting to press on his mind. He felt even hotter, like he had a fever. The strangeness was that the girl was breathing too evenly.
And there it was again—just as he thought about it, her chest began rising and falling less evenly than before. Why was he even looking there?
And why was he so damn hot when the temperature clearly wasn't that high?!
Everything was wrong and strange. Sam made one important decision. They needed to get out of here as quickly as possible.
"Hey, get up, we need to—"
The girl suddenly turned her head towards Sam, staring at him with her tired eyes. But this time, he sensed something else... something more in that gaze.
"I know what you want to say... No. Let's stay here."
She spoke, turning her head back up to look at the sky.
"What?! But... Why?! We have to leave if we're in an anomaly zone! It's dangerous, don't you understand?!"
"I didn't see us getting attacked. You're just imagining things. We need to stay and rest because I'm not sure you'll be able to drive us in... your condition. You look awful."
She was right about Sam looking awful. Though, it was a bit disheartening to be complimented on being hot, only to be called ugly right after. Sam shook his head, brushing off unnecessary thoughts.
He sighed heavily. Indeed... The anomaly hadn't interacted with them while they were here, not under the rocky shelter. Maybe the girl was right, and he was overreacting? Yes, he didn't want to stay here because this place was unknown to him, and the anomaly was unclear.
But Sam understood that people often feared the unknown. There was a plus side to this—it could help avoid potentially dangerous places or things. But in Sam's case...
Wait.
Why were the girl's words so convincing to him?
Sam looked at the girl, noticing that she was staring at him. Her gaze was now less tired. She was looking at him, and then her lips moved, and Sam heard something he never thought he'd hear from her.
"Listen... I'm really cold... and you're hot. Maybe... you could warm me up?"
Sam was stunned. Sure, the context wasn't anything unusual. She was just cold, and Sam had already mentioned it, but damn, how strange those words sounded in his ears.
"U-um... Look, I don't think we should go that far..."
The girl interrupted him by moving closer. She crawled toward him on all fours, almost closing the distance between them. Sam looked into her eyes—they were so strange... He saw his own reflection in them. His heart began to pound wildly, though he didn't understand why...
He felt even hotter.
But the oddities kept piling up. The girl wasn't blinking... He couldn't feel her breath on him. All of this made Sam even more anxious.
"Well? So, will you help me? Will you warm me up?"
Sam was silent, not knowing how to respond. It wasn't that he was inexperienced with girls. In his past life, he had quite a bit of experience, though... He never really loved anyone genuinely. And those he did love usually didn't reciprocate. At least, that's how he remembered it—more so the feelings than the actual girls.
But for some reason, he couldn't compare them now. The feelings he had now were not just something physical. No... He felt something different. Something that was in his mind. His inner voice was trying to tell him something, but Sam couldn't hear it, as if it were deep underwater.
The girl continued to inch closer. Sam noticed that she suddenly started blinking, but there was still no breath from her. Why?
Why was her chest rising if she wasn't breathing?
The girl attempted to press her lips against his, but instead met the cold, metal palm of Sam's hand. Sam's eyes widened in horror. The force she used to try and touch him was overwhelming. He tried to hold her back, but it felt as if she was barely meeting any resistance as she drew even closer.
The sheer strength of her push caused Sam to fall onto the sand. She simply sat on top of him, eliciting a slight reaction from Sam, but right now…
He understood something.
She was trying to distract him from his unsettling thoughts. She became more forceful whenever he noticed something strange about her.
And Sam didn't like that, not one bit.
"Stop thinking about things you shouldn't be! Now... WARM ME UP!"
The girl's voice rang out, her last words a shriek, and that was when Sam confirmed one of his suspicions and finally heard his inner voice. The girl didn't have time to react as Sam quickly reached for his holster. Swiftly drawing out the ancient pistol, he aimed it at the girl's face and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The recoil was surprisingly mild, even though the pistol fired a bluish plasma that burned a hole through Jade's head. The force sent her flying backward, and Sam watched as everything around him… started to melt?
When Sam blinked, he found himself staring at an entirely different scene than before. He was still under the rocky overhang. An unfinished can of crystals lay at his feet. But that wasn't what caught Sam's attention the most.
Before him, just a meter away, an unfamiliar creature writhed in pain on the sand. Its skin was gray, its body humanoid with long arms and legs. The creature was incredibly thin, its skin clinging tightly to its skeletal frame. Its head was shaped like a human's, but without eyes, nose, or ears. It resembled the shape of a brain.
Sam immediately recognized this creature.
It was a Sleeper—one of the most feared entities by anyone wandering the endless deserts. These creatures could force people to sleep and then kill them in their dreams. Sam realized that the rocky overhang hadn't been a safe place to rest after all.
No… This place was the lair of one of the most dangerous creatures one could encounter in the desert.
Sam quickly glanced to his right and saw Jade lying there, peacefully asleep. A faint smile graced her face. It seemed this creature had given her a pleasant dream as well… just like it had done to him.
But for some reason, Sam had sensed that something was wrong. He didn't know why, but it was as if something had helped him break free from the creature's dream. Now wasn't the time to dwell on that. Sam turned his attention back to the creature, which was now on its feet, facing him. It didn't have eyes, but Sam knew it was staring directly at him.
He stood up and realized that the ancient pistol was still in his hand. Gripping it tightly, he aimed the weapon at the Sleeper and prepared to fire.
'Seriously? The first thing I have to deal with after escaping slavery is an encounter with an anomalous creature? Just my luck!'