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“The sympathy in my mind is growing cold
Life is like the burning sand so I'm told
The time is coming near when solitude appears
Take the chains of oppression away.”

                                Iced Earth, Desert Rain

                By the time we stop for the night, I can barely think any more. My legs ache and my whole body is filled with pain. With a heavy breath, I collapse onto the barren dirt, my backpack falling off with the effort. I look across the tiny rivulet in the featureless ground as Slate sits down as well. The woman that was once an undisputable bar of iron is now cratered in on herself, her head low and her arms pulled in.

                I look around as the hot winds still skate over us. There’s still no sound at all. Even our own breath seems to echo against the world. And as the night slowly creeps across the sky, the unremarkable day disappears rather than sets.

                “What happened?” I ask. “While I was out, I mean.”

                Slate looks up from her depression, her hands holding her elbows. She looks down in at nothing, then kind of laughs. “You weren’t under for that long. They drugged you, as you probably figured out. And they put you in some kind of sensory device, so they could feed you stimulus.”

                “Why?” I hear myself ask.

“I guess so they could direct your thoughts. I don’t know.” She gives.

                “But why me?” I say. “Why just me?”

                “I don’t know.” She sits. “But after it started, just a few hours, the fighting began. I don’t really know how it happened or where it started. I just know that around sundown, that’s when I first heard the explosions.”

                “You didn’t see any of the soldiers going running away?” I ask. “I mean, what did they do with you while I was being . . . whatevered?”

                Slate’s quiet for so long, I think she might have gone to sleep. But when she looks up at me with her tear-filled eyes, I regret asking already. “Toren,” She says, sniffing back a tear. “Toren decided that you probably had everything he needed, so I was really redundant. So there was no real need for me to be around for what was happening. And so they,” She sniffs again. “Since there were so few female A-types at the base, he thought it would be good for morale if . . .” She sniffs again, her face twisting. “If, if . . .” And she breaks down.

                I watch as Slate erupts into tears, falling onto her side. I’m petrified as I watch her curl up on the side of the small gulley, shaking with sorrow. And there’s nothing I can do as she cries.

                With no stars and no moon, with no clouds or trees, the night’s a dark one. I considered looking around for something to burn, to make a fire. But even if I could find anything, burning it wouldn’t be that good of an idea. It’d be like a beacon to whoever was out there.

                But as I sit up, keeping watch while Slate dreams fitful dreams, I think about that. Toren said that they might be the last stronghold of humanity. Does he include Morcean’s city in that? And what would lead him to that conclusion? And if it was true, which I have a hard time believing, how would he know?

                As I sit in almost completely blackness, I let my thoughts guide my mind while my ears listen intently. Without any wind or movement, the smallest sound carries across the stale, hot air like a gunshot. I don’t worry about paying to close of attention. But I am worried about the direction we’re going. Somewhere out here, there’s a wooden shack with some mangled remains that I’d really like to avoid.

                I play over in my mind the events of the last week. My arrival at Argent Labs. Finding my way out. Figuring out the small town. Finding Slate. Dealing with the travels through the catacombs. Coming up in Morcean’s city. Getting captured. The night in the sleazy hotel. The interrogation by Morcean. Our escape to this place. The cannibal. The soldiers. Toren. And now this.

                I feel like I’m missing something. I look up at the sky, wondering about where the moon and the stars are, trying to figure it out. Something’s missing from my recollection of the last week. I can feel it.

                And then I can feel something else.

                The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I don’t jerk around, but I move slowly. I move as very carefully as I can, just enough to look over my left shoulder. And I don’t know if the wind actually changed or what, but suddenly a cool breeze breathes down my neck. And in the distance, in the pitch darkness, I see them.

                          Two                                                   Eyes

                For a moment, I don’t move. I just stare. They don’t move either. They just sit there, staring. Watching. Waiting.

                I can’t breathe. My chest won’t move, for fear of making a sound. The hot winds and the chill running down my back only make my shivers that more unreasonable. I consider grabbing up the tire iron, but I don’t know that I could find it without light without making some kind of sound. And I don’t know how far away that thing is. I don’t know if it’s even looking at . . .

                And it blinks.

                I think about grabbing up the flashlight. I think about yelling. I think about running. I think about so many different options. But I simply don’t know what it is, how big it is, or anything. I don’t know how far away it is or anything. I don’t know anything.

                So I do the only thing I can think of rationally doing. As quietly as I can, I shift where I’m sitting. I turn just a little, so I can keep an eye on the eyes. They don’t blink and I don’t blink. I put all my staring contest skills to use and we just stare at each other.

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