I nod, understanding his logic. If we want to leave, it’s now or never. Shai-Hulud might wake up hungry from his nap.
After twenty minutes of excruciatingly slow walking, we’re a few hundred meters away from the ruins. We start going up an incline. Many slaves tried to escape through that route. There is blood on the sand. We avoid the deep trenches left behind by Shai-Hulud. The ground is treacherous. I can’t help but wonder if it’s about to cave in. This desert is his territory, and he’s turning it into a giant sandbox. I think I read somewhere that these lands used to be pastures for farm animals. But the end of the world, as our predecessors knew it, brought drastic changes to the continents. They were not smart enough to stop climate change, much less the reappearance of old gods.
After we walk for half an hour, the sand turns to stone, and we reach the top of a rocky hill. The mutant stops and surveys the desert at our feet. The ruins are back to their hollow state, albeit with a few more ghosts. On the horizon, I can see the Great Sand Dunes at the center of Shai-Hulud’s territory.
“Do you think there are any survivors?” I ask him.
“There’s you.”
“Yeah, but beside me.”
He shakes his head. “Maybe one or two. But they’re not my problem anymore. Just as you’re not mine.” And he walks away. I follow. “Stop it,” he says after a while.
“I’m coming with you,” I say.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
He groans. I can do this all day. At least, until he decides that he has enough and just kills me. But I have a feeling that he won’t. He must be a softy, deep down, to have come to the rescue of prisoners on their way to be sold into slavery.
“I can’t stay here,” I say. “And you seem to know your way around the desert. You won’t even notice that I’m here. And as soon as I find a settlement or replace all the stuff the slavers took from me, I’ll be out of your hair.”
There is no way I could cross the entire desert at such a slow pace as not to alert Shai-Hulud. It would take me weeks. I’m as good as dead. But maybe the mutant knows the best way through. He must have come from somewhere.
“I’m very useful,” I continue. “I can hunt, cook, and keep you company. I’m fast and quiet. I won’t be a burden. I have a wide set of skills.” He’s watching me intently. “I can… serve you in numerous ways.”
There. I said it. I dropped the hint that I had more to offer than simple company. The survival of the fittest rule also includes knowing what to trade to survive. If your only currency of exchange is your body, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time that I had to sell myself for survival.
And I can still find a way to escape if it comes to that.
The mutant watches me without saying a word. And when I’m about to run for it, afraid that he might take me for my words right there on the rocks, he nods.
“Very well,” he says. “But my home, my rules. If you disobey me, I will kill you. If you endanger me, I will kill you. Am I clear?”
His home? Does he have a caravan or something? The slavers’ caravans have been destroyed by Shai-Hulud.
“Am I clear?” he asks again.
“Yes. Your home, your rules.”
That seems to satisfy him. He turns and starts walking to the other side of the rocky hill. I say nothing as I follow. It’s better not to antagonize him too much.
Then suddenly, he stops. He raises his hands and waves them in the air, as if swatting a fly. I notice his nails are black and almost claw-like. I’m about to ask him what he’s doing when he opens a door in the empty space in front of him.
I stare in shock at the inside of a structure.
“What the fuck?”
2
Beet.
“TheRevival Projectwas our greatest hope and our biggest failure. On paper, it looked great. The science worked. We made mutants with incredible abilities by combining their DNA with those of thetitans—I loathe to call them gods. But our problem wasn’t the science or even the resources. Our problem was human in nature. Our subjects were humans. They were flawed, greedy, and unpredictable. After five years, the project was abandoned. We just created more monsters to threaten humanity.”
Audio transcription of an interview with Dr. Nolan Max, a scientist who worked on the Revival Project, 2047.
My savior jumps through the open door and climbs the steps, entering what looks like a portal to another dimension.
