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“I messed up with Zorikan. That’s not something you do and then just walk away, unless you’re you, of course. I didn’t really have that many friends around, with Varan being… you know… and Rieka and Zorikan go hand in hand, so I just stayed with one of my friends. Name’s Terrel, good guy, but I got drunk, I think, and I really told him off. Don’t know exactly what happened. I don’t remember much, but I do know that I woke up on the streets, and the streets are Zorikan’s kingdom,” Deqar finishes.

“So, you decided to just hop on this bus, no idea where it’s headed?” I ask him.

“Yeah, pretty much,” he sighs. The bus jolts so much that we’re lifted off our seats for an instant. “What about you?”

I shrug. “Same thing. Kind of.”

“Couple of misfits we are, eh?”

I raise an eyebrow at him.

He gives me an odd, toothy grin. One of his upper canines is missing.

“This bus… has no air in it,” I comment. The grimy bus, though not completely full, has no windows open and invisible plumes of nasty exhales and farts swirl beneath the ceiling. “Can these windows open?” I ask, fiddling with some sort of black, plastic, lock-looking contraption.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Deqar mutters, as the window suddenly snaps open.

I’m blasted with harsh, fresh wind, but instantly stung by the sand. I swing it shut, panting.

“Yeah if you hadn’t figured it out, the Dunes’ve got a lot of sand,” Deqar tells me, cracking his knuckles.

“Wow. Never would’ve guessed.”

An empty soda can suddenly lands on my lap, then tumbles down between my legs and disappears under the seat ahead of me. I chorus of muffled giggles reach my ears.

“I think they like you,” Deqar says with the left side of his mouth stretched out.

I don’t even bother looking at the cramped city girls behind me, gossiping in hushed tones.

“Why don’t you ask them where we’re headed?”

“Maybe because they’re acting like they’ve got peas for brains?”

“Aww, come on.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“Alright then,” Deqar clears his throat, and rears up onto his knees, resting his arms of the back of his seat. “Hey there, ladies. Mind if you could tell me whereabouts this bus is headed?”

I can’t help but laugh at the awkward silence that follows.

He slumps back into his seat, exasperated. “I must admit, I’m not much of a ladies man, come to think of it.”

“Is that why you became gay?” I laugh.

“Nah, mate. Actually… kinda. I like to tell myself that I was born like this though,” he chuckles, heartily.

Not many people you can find that can actually make fun of themselves without getting defensive nowadays.

“Anyway, what happened to you, mate? Looks like you haven’t eaten in a week!”

I shrug. “I’m going on a diet.”

“Yeah? What’s it called?”

“Having no money and being too depressed to steal,” I mutter, reopening my window.

Deqar erupts into laughter, stomping his feet on the ground and clutching at his sides. “Shit man, what the hell? I thought I was bad, but you’re something else dude.”

I’m about to respond, when something catches my ear. Above the rattling noise of the engine, and above the sea of chatter that surrounds me, is something else. “Hey, you hear that whistling?”

“That dude at the front whistling “Ol’ Barge Man”?”

“No, I can hear something else. Something-”

And explosion rips through the front half of the bus, tossing the fifteen-tonne vehicle into the air. The bus lands sickeningly, levitating me before slamming me into the side again as it rolls down the dune. For seconds, I’m tossed like a rag doll within the bus, hitting the roof, window edge, floor, seat and other people before the back of my head hits an edge, and wind rushes all around me. I’m momentarily suspended in the air, hurtling like a dice for a brief, dizzying second before the world turns to sand. Bright, burning hot sand.

I cry out, a sound between a roar and a groan, clasping my head. I feel wetness though my hair. The sand burns my bare stomach, forcing me to roll onto my side and literally writhe. Pain spiderwebs through my skull, but is suddenly overwhelmed by nausea, sending my on my hands and knees of barfing out my insides. I retract my scorched palms from the fiery sand and slump back onto my haunches, instinctively reaching for my pills. I tap two of them into my mouth, and forcefully fight them down my parched throat. The world is a dizzying abstract painting of beige and blue, spinning like a casino roulette. I clasp my head in my hands and force it to stop spinning, until eventually I manage to blink clarity back into my hazy eyes.

I’m staring up a dune, with a strikingly bright blue sky as my narrowed horizon. I turn and see pure carnage.

The bus, or rather the rear end of the bus, lies on its side, smashed and battered from it’s tumble, and melted metal dripping off it. Flames that breath out the shattered windows are crawling down the last few seats before the end of the bus. The front half is a black smear on the sand, with bits of melted plastic and charred flesh.

Between me and the desolation, are scattered bodies, some of whom are either dead or unconscious, others are groaning and holding their heads like me. Most of them are the girls that can sat behind me.

I rise slowly to my feet and walk waveringly towards a small black piece of plastic that has caught my eye. Sunglasses. My sunglasses. I snatch them up, and slide them on, releasing a held breath as my eyes calm down.

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Shit. Deqar.

I run, or rather scamper down the dune towards the flaming bus, dodging bits of molten seats and groaning girls. “Deqar! Deqar!” I holler, charging onwards.

I’m half way there when the entire thing erupts in a spectacular explosion before me, blasting me with a heat wave. I dive out of the way as a hunk of flaming black goo arches though the sky towards me. “Deqar!” I scream at the top of my lungs, staring in horror as the near volcanic eruption reduces to a couple of licking flames.

“Kallix!”

I flinch. He’s alive. My eyes scan the wreckage and see a couple of the girls struggling to their feet, but Deqar.

“Kallix turn around you dipshit!”

I swivel and see him ten meters further up the dune. A sigh of relief escapes me. “What the hell?” I yell back.

“We were shot!” he hollers.

An icy feeling crawls down my spine as I see a figure, clad in military gear emerge from atop the dune, behind Deqar. The figure points a pistol to his temple. Deqar’s hands shoot up and his eyes fill with terror.

The girls that can still stand are scrambling away like rats. I’m about to join them, about to run from the only friend I’ve still got and become a cockroach in a sewer once again, when I hear, “Don’t move, or we will shoot him.”

We?

With my hands raised, I slowly turn back to the figure, who’s now been joined by several others, each of which are brandishing nasty looking firearms.

“Come here.”

I trudge up the dune, conscious of the blood trickling down the back of my neck. These are no policemen. This is the army.

“What’re your names?” asks the man in front to Deqar and I. His shoulder’s are broader than Kaloaan’s, and his biceps are as big as Dainin’s. He sports a blonde buzzcut, a strong, square jaw and cold blue eyes.

“Deqar Teskaniky.”

“Kallix Rane.”

He nods, affirmatively. “Well then, Deqar and Kallix, do you know why my friend Lorick over there just blew up your bus?” he asks, gesturing to a burly man with repulsively ugly face holding a massive RPG over his shoulder.

We shake our heads tentatively. From the corner of my eye I can see the last of the surviving girls making it over the nearest dune and disappearing.

“Because this is a warzone,” he continues, “And your people will be killed if they enter it.”

“What about them?” I ask, just before Deqar elbows me in the ribs.

“The Dunes are not a place you can simply walk through. There’s no point in killing those who the world will kill for you,” he continues with a faint, morbid smile. He inhales sharply. “Do you know why you’re still alive?”

“We’re lucky?” I suggest, receiving another blow from Deqar, this one accompanied by a hiss.

“Yes, and also because you look like people I could use. As you can see here, we’ve suffered casualties,” he sweeps his hand around the group. There are roughly ten or so of them. “With the two men back at camp, this is all we’ve got. I think you two have got potential. I think I might be able to make men out of you. What do you think?”

Deqar gives him one of his toothy grins. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to be serving you,” he says with a pathetic bow.

He turns to me.

“Is there an alternative?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says, switching the safety of his pistol back off.

I swallow. “Consider me of service.”

“Perfect,” he smiles. Not horrid smile of somebody who enjoys killing, but rather the stony smile of someone who has killed so much they no longer register it anymore than they do drinking water. “My name is Sergeant Blax, and this is corporal Janns,” he introduces.

A tall, curly haired man with an oversized gun snickers at us.

“I’m sure you’ll learn the names of the rest of our squad soon enough. We’ll equip you with uniforms and weapons as well as give you the briefing of what our mission is once we’ve arrived at camp. Move out.”

Deqar and I exchange shaky glances.

What the hell have I got myself into?

           ~

The military buggy hits a rock, making me nearly fly off my precarious seat on the edge of the vehicle. Blax drives like he’s being pursued by a T-rex, veering around bigger stones and launching them straight off the dune crests. The wind blasts my hair so it’s billowing like a flag, and I’m clinging to one of the thin metal pieces that make up the sides and roof of the buggy. Beats my brother’s car waiting claustrophobically in a traffic jam. Deqar’s on the place where the seat is, but instead of getting the comfort of a seat, he sits on top of a large metal barrel, that got priority over him. His head sticks out the top, between two metal bars in a way that if the buggy stops too quickly, his voice box would be shoved into his neck vertebrae, forcing him to protect himself with his hands.

Sergeant Blax is in the front, the full seat to himself, and next to him is Janns, who nearly has the same comfort. Precariously half out of the ‘window’ of the buggy, with her legs laid over Janns, and her upper half on the outside, holding the frame to keep herself up, is probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s definitely older than me, probably older than Tauren, with smooth, dark skin, the most defined waist curve I’ve ever seen accompanied by perfectly thick thighs and a flat stomach. Her breasts are comparable to Tauren’s but she outclasses her with her long neck, sharp jaw, pronounced cheekbones, searing hazel eyes and braided pony tail whipping behind her. I’m entranced.

In the back, me, Deqar and, cramped on the barrel next to Deqar, sitting with an RPG between his legs is Lorick, who’s as ugly as the woman up front is beautiful. On the last seat, sit an old, probable veteran, who’s name tag, stitched onto his uniform, reads: Horgan, and tall thin woman called Weshleri. Both are fairly repulsive names.

The rockier landscape that sculpts the horizon dawns on us faster than I would’ve thought possible. Blax shifts gear and veers around a rock formation, forcing me to cling for my dear life.

After several heart racing minutes of videogame style driving through the rocks, the buggy skids to a halt and the doors pop open. I tumble out of the window, thoroughly sand blasted, and try and shake dust from my hair. Deqar’s mohawk has gone from deep purple to dusty pink, and his neck has been rubbed red.

The camp is little more than a couple, large camo tents pitched between the jagged rock formations and multiple metal barrels, like the one Deqar was sitting on, some of which have chairs around them. A few people come to greet us as the other buggy veers into the camp, halting perpendicular to Blax’s.

“I see you brought back a couple stray dogs,” comments a girl with a soft, slightly scratchy voice.

She’s short, fairly built, with long black hair that’s got blue, silver and pink streaks infused, alongside colorful feathers, beads, braids and plates. The camo army clothes don’t do her justice.

She trots over to us, a big welcoming smile on her face. “Afternoon, fellow relegated, name’s Sekera,” she holds her hand out.

Deqar takes it quickly, while I watch her with distrust.

She looks like she’s about say something to me, when Blax clears his throat. “Janns, show our new friends around.”

Janns, tall and curly haired, looks at us with disdain, like we just interrupted him playing a video game, then chucks a rock at the buggy. The stunning woman from earlier looks up, sees him, then shoots a questioning look. He jerks his head at us, and she looks back exasperated. He switches to a pleading face, and she sighs. “Alright. C’mon, let me show you around,” she says, exasperated.

To my annoyance, I fail to catch her nametag, but instead get an eyeful of the most brilliant, full, curved, rounded ass I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t help wondering what she’d look like if she wasn’t wearing the chunky military pants.

We follow her like sheep as she instructively points out all the parts of the camp. They slide past me as she continues to walk, I’m hypnotized by the rhythm. Utterly taken aback by the beauty.

Deqar elbows me. “Dude.”

“What?” I ask, huskily.

“You’re drooling.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Wipe your damn chin, idiot.”

I bring a hand to my mouth and am shocked to realize that he’s telling the truth.

“Did you say something?” she asks, stopping and looking over her shoulder as I hastily rub my shirt across my mouth.

“Oh no, nothing,” Deqar replies.

It’s a perfectly normal stance, but to me she looks like a playboy model, and I’m forced to pull my eyes up to her face, which is just as beautiful a sight. Their almond-shaped and speckled, and her nose is small and…

That’s as far as my analysis goes before turns back and continues the briefing. Eventually, she stops, turns to us and asks, “Any question?”

At last I can get her name. My eyes find her stitched nametag. Amethyst. What a name. Then I realize that her nametag is literally on her boob, so I quickly look up, only to find her looking me directly in the eye.

Her face changes from open, to a mix between humorous and disgust. I curse under my breath.

“Nope. We’re all good,” Deqar informs, happily.

“Nice. Tell Janns to give you the briefing of the ravine. And tell him I said bet’s off,” she calls, walking back to camp in a way that somehow looks both purposeful and nonchalant at the same time.

I’m dumbfounded.