The sun was slowly drifting below the horizon as Zayn walked up and over the large hill. He walked past the markers of the earliest graves. He almost stopped to say goodbye, but he wanted to be out of sight of the village as fast as possible.

So he moved past them without slowing down. He simply waved to them as he passed by.

“I’ll find a way to bring everyone back.” He promised no one in particular.

With that, he left everything behind. The wasteland was a long and barren stretch of sand and rock. He had only been walking for an hour or two, keeping the sunset at his back before he realized that there was nothing around him but the endlessly flat expanse of land.

It was a bit harder to navigate the desert at night, but it was still fairly easy. It wasn’t easy to use the stars to find where he was, but he had a good idea of where the stars in the sky were at this time of year. So he was reasonably confident about which way was east. As long as he kept going in the right direction, he wouldn’t get lost.

Eat regularly, drink well, and stay out of the heat.

It wasn’t that difficult, as he had spent the majority of his life in a similar place. So that meant he should be fine assuming that the desert wasn't more than four or five days across and that there weren't any large animals out here. If the desert had any lions or tigers, there was a good chance that he would quickly get in trouble. He didn't have anything to help him deal with something like that.

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"There aren't any animals in the deep wasteland," Azarik growled.

"That's the only explanation. I know some men who have walked around the northern edge. It isn't that big. You can walk around the edge in a week." [] didn't really think that it was animals, but he and Azarik had often gotten into this debate as they would sit on the roof drinking while watching the rising sun. Zayn had stayed up with the men that night and had found the argument completely fascinating. They argued about all sorts of things, but the simplest fact was that there were almost no animals here.

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Zayn blinked and shook his head, "Did I just hallucinate?"

Hallucinations were seriously bad. That meant that the heat of the desert was getting to him and it wasn't even that hot. The night had already begun to cool down, but it would get a lot cooler before he reached the end of his day's walk. He scanned the skyline, wondering if there were any places he could find shelter from the heat of the sun. It was all flat and empty, stretching as far as his eyes could tell.

The wind blew, cool and refreshing on his face.

Suddenly, his feet sank into the sand. Zayn looked down at his feet, pausing in his long walk. He knew how to spot the differences between sand and stone. It was more difficult to walk on sand, and he had carefully checked to make sure his path wouldn't go into the sand. Here he was in the sand deep enough to sink into it.

He looked around, checking to find the actual ridge of stone he had been walking along. It was an almost perfect stretch to the east, and he knew it would get him a lot farther than this. It didn't take too long before he spotted it. The actual path was to his left.

"How did it get there?" Zayn checked his orientation against the stars. The bright star in the north was right where he expected it to be. The path had changed somehow, stretching to the northeast.

He had a choice, follow what should have been a truly eastward ridge that had somehow drifted to the north or follow the stars.

He sat down, catching his breath for a moment.

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"Don't you want to see the world?" Lyla asked sitting down next to him. She leaned up against him and he could feel her warmth.

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Zayn looked around. His side was surprisingly warm, and he could swear he could smell her in the night air.

"People don't hallucinate at night, right Dad?"

There was no answer, and he knew there wouldn't be one. It wasn't the roof of their house, and he wasn't talking to her before everything had gone wrong. Before he had brought death to his loved ones.

He felt the wind stir and for a moment he wondered if he heard Garzik's voice laughing on the wind. He summoned The Eternal Balance watching its faint outline drift in the night air. He stared at it.

"Is this real?"

He reached out and touched the ghostly book. It felt real enough, even if it didn't look like it.

"Can you touch a hallucination?"

There was a faint laugh in the wind, and Zayn looked for anything to indicate Garzik's presence. Shaking his head, he stood up and began walking again. The soft spongy sand was annoying, but he couldn't afford to be led astray from the east. It was too dangerous and the risk of getting turned around was a real threat in this place.

He made good time as he walked. Fortunately, the sandy area wasn't that big and he was soon walking on rock again. He would take breaks to drink or eat, but he was focused on finding a place to shelter from the sun. Even now the sunlight was warming the distant horizon. A small black shape marked almost dead center against the sunrise. He stared at it. It was easily big enough to be a mountain, but it was incredibly thin. It didn't matter too much, as it would make an excellent landmark to help him stay on course.

He walked a while longer, following the small black needle as he walked into the sunrise when he discovered the crevice.

It was a little small, but it was facing the north and it should be relatively sheltered from the heat. The only question was if there were any little creatures inside. He waited for the sunlight to fill the sky and blot out the stars before he crawled in. He had a good look at what was inside and it seemed empty enough.

He slept well enough.

He woke up to the heat of the day, it baked the sand with a sizzling popping sound.

It wasn't helpful to move, so he ended up with nothing to do but read. So he pulled out the tome and began to skim through its contents. The section he read about was focused on the anatomy of bone structure. It talked about the various functions that the bones provided to the body, and different ways to artificially create those same effects. It was a pleasant enough way to pass the time. Once the sun had set, he began to walk again. The pack's weight dug into his shoulders even though it was lighter than the day before.

He looked at the strange needle in the distance. It was still very black, and it didn't make any more sense in the setting sun's light.

He made good time, and he was fairly certain that he was getting closer to whatever it was. But the fading light of sunset left no certainty about how it was doing.

The night was almost identical to the previous one. Occasionally he would lose track of his placement and find himself unexpectedly in the sand. Almost every time he would hear faint laughter, as if he was missing some form of joke.

By sunrise, he was able to tell that the strange object was closer; but it wasn’t nearly big enough for the amount of walking that he had already done. He had been walking for an entire night, and he knew that it should be a lot closer.

He stared at it. It definitely didn’t look right for a mountain or natural formation.

It was getting brighter, and so he began looking for another place to spend the day. It took an hour, but eventually, he found somewhere to get comfortable and he drifted to sleep.

“Ow…” His voice croaked as he spoke and he looked around as he tried to figure out where he was. He looked around the darkened space and couldn’t see anything but rocks and sand. Despite having checked it before turning it in he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was in there with him. He spent a minute checking at the small recess for any signs of life.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

It was still hot outside of the hole, but the shadows were already rather long. So he prepared to wait until things cooled down. The minutes dragged along, and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was there. Every now and then he would spin around and check the small space and discover that it was still empty.

His mind drifted back to his friends and family and everything that had happened. The strange green stone, hidden in his pack, and the powerful creatures he had never imagined seeing before. It was then that he remembered his mother cooking over a large pot. He had forgotten what she had been doing, and he remembered nothing of the food that had been in it.

“Strange how I forgot about it.” He muttered to himself. He lay his head down thinking about all the meals that he had eaten. The sweet fragrances of the different meals that she had cooked to celebrate someone’s birthday. The subtle tones she had worked into the daily meals. He hadn’t eaten her food every day, as that was too wasteful; but he had always loved it when she prepared the meal.

“I’ve survived Mom. At least I have escaped.”

“You think you have escaped?” A light voice spoke up.

Zayn looked around, trying to see who had spoken, “Who’s there?”

“You can’t escape. We won't allow you to.”

“Who are you?”

There was the sound of laughter and the wind picked up blowing sand around the small crevice.

“You can’t recognize me?”

Zayn struggled to pinpoint the voice, but he still couldn’t place it coming anywhere in his vicinity.

“Stop hiding.” Zayn snapped at the voice.

The laughter picked up, stirring the sand and swirling it around him.

“No, no. I can’t have you spoiling things.”

“Spoiling what?”

The voice didn’t respond. It just laughed and faded into nothing.

Chilling fingers wormed their way into his spine, and Zayn scrambled out of the shelter and into the blazing heat of the sun. His eyes hurt for a moment as he struggled to adjust to the brightness and look into the dark crevice. All he could see was the same empty space that he had crawled into.

A sudden burst of laughter from behind him caused him to spin around. For a brief moment, he thought he caught the glimpse of cloth growing from a small cyclone of sand, but it was gone almost instantly.

He spent a good minute looking around, trying to find out where the voice had come from. It didn’t sound like the being he had talked to at the pit, but he couldn’t be exactly sure. Standing in the heat of the sun wasn’t going to get anything accomplished, so he decided to grab his pack and get moving. It was about an hour until sunset, based on where it was, but he didn’t want to deal with whatever had happened in that crevice. Hopefully, it wouldn’t follow him.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. Every now and then he would hear faint laughter on the wind, or catch a glimpse of cloth pulled from the nothingness and vanishing into the sand. At first, Zayn was worried that this involved the being he had met at the pit. It had talked to him, like a voice on the wind and Zayn wondered if that was going to resume again. That voice hadn't actually talked to him, but it was always possible that things had changed now that Zayn held a stone. The behavior of this voice was very different and as things dragged on, Zayn was more and more certain that this wasn't the same entity.

When the sun drifted below the horizon, everything started getting worse. More and more times he would catch a glimpse of fabric, and it became clear that it was a dress of some sort. The delicate designs suggested whoever wore that dress was no ordinary person, but Zayn didn’t allow the swirling, laughing form to distract him from his long march.

Step after step, he marched towards the tower.

The sun had long vanished before he actually saw her. She was smaller than Zayn, so if she had been flesh and blood he would have thought that she was around eight or ten years old. It was hard to make out any of her details, she seemed to be made out of the twirling sand and her features were constantly shifting in the wind. Every now and then drifting bands of sand would break away, sparkling in the moonlight as they escaped her form.

She drifted along with him as he walked pretending to stroll along with him.

“Who are you?” He eventually worked his way to ask her, and she turned as if surprised that he could see her.

She stopped walking and stared at him angrily, floating along while he kept walking. He wondered if this was a mirage, but it made no sense that she showed up now that it was getting cooler. Still, the way she floated along made him feel like she was one.

“You shouldn’t be able to see me.” She pouted, “How are you doing that?”

“How would I know the answer to that? I don’t even know what you are.”

“I am a scary ghost trapped in between worlds.” She waved her hands as if trying to look as if she was haunting him or something, but it just looked strange. She stopped partway through and looked surprised for a moment as she floated along with him.

“Well, I think that I have a connection with ghosts.”

“Really?”

Zayn shrugged as he kept moving towards the distant object. He knew he shouldn’t be telling people about what had happened, but he didn’t think a ghost really counted.

“Yea, but I am not really sure,” He gestured to his backpack, “I got a strange stone now and I think I met the god of death.”

She vanished in a twirl of sand and reappeared in front of him, peering up into his face.

“Ooh, that is really cool. You are a diseased one then.”

“Diseased one?”

“Oh, it’s from an old story.” She held up a hand and drifted along with him, “It took place long before I was born. It was said that those born under a certain time are cursed with a terrible disease that leaves nothing but death in their wake. These cursed ones wander the world in service to the dark one.”

She stopped talking and tapped her chin as if she was thinking about something for a moment, “At least I think that is the story. It’s been a long time since I heard it. So what are you doing out here?”

“Trying to survive, everyone in my home is dead. A terrible disease ravaged it and left them all dead, and I needed to find a way to escape there. The only real choice was through this wasteland.”

She clapped her hands excitedly, and Zayn realized he couldn’t actually hear the sound of the clap.

“See you are a diseased one. Looks like you will have death and destruction following you wherever you go.”

Zayn didn’t know how to respond to that. He wanted to object, to disagree with the strange little ghostly figure’s statement. The problem is that it didn’t feel wrong. Something about it sounded right.

“Anyway, this isn’t a place you can escape from. All of those who enter this place are cursed to stay here forever.”

He wondered about the distant object, hanging over her ghostly figure, as he walked along. It really should have been bigger than it was, but it was still about the same size.

“Does that mean I am going to die?”

She laughed, “Everyone who enters this place dies.”

At that moment, he could hear his mother’s sweet voice, wracked with the disease and struggling to speak. She had said one thing.

“I can’t die.”

She clapped happily, “Oh goody! You don’t look like you have ascended. That is really neat!”

Zayn almost stopped walking to look at her, “What are you talking about?”

“You are immortal.” She spoke strangely, and it held the tone of someone trying to explain things to a child, “That means you can’t die.”

Zayn’s mouth suddenly felt dry.

Immortal.

The word resonated with him like someone had struck an enormous gong. He could feel the strange green stone resonate with him.

“I am not immortal yet, but I will do it.”

“So you aren’t ascended? I was hoping that you were going to mess everything up.”

“Mess what up?”

“Everyone here dies. If you can’t die then you would just get stuck. It would be nice to have someone to talk to for the rest of the time. It gets a bit lonely out here.”

“I just need to head east to cross the wasteland.” He pointed to the distant tower.

“Is that east?” She asked. Her face creased in a frown.

“Yes.”

She didn’t say anything but changed positions and floated to stay behind him. Zayn was tempted to keep talking to her, but he didn’t want to stop walking.

It started to grow quiet as he walked along, and he remembered that strange word she had used, “What do you mean ascended?”

“Oh, it’s a legend about how people can overcome death and become immortal. They can climb this tall mountain and become gods. Gods cannot die so they live forever.”

“Can people become gods?”

The girl shrugged, “I don’t know. My father thought he could do it.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died at the same time I did.” She laughed, “So I don’t think he is a great example.”

The silence grew as he continued to walk until he got hungry enough to eat. So he found a spot to rest and ate some meat and water.

The girl drifted in front of him, “Is that going to help?”

He nodded.

“I don’t see how it will help.”

“Why?”

She pointed to the distant object, “Everyone goes there and then they die.”

He looked at it, but couldn’t see anything special about it. Finishing his last bite, he stood and began walking again.

“Sorry, I don’t understand. What is it anyway?”

“A nasty old Sorcerer’s tower. He was really mean and now everyone is trapped here.” She sounded different when she mentioned the sorcerer, and Zayn could see the anger on her face. It was there for just a moment, and then it was gone.

“Can you really do it?” She asked excitedly.

“Do what?”

“Become immortal.”

“I think so. I struck a deal with the lord of death, so I think I should be able to find a way to live forever.”

“Wow. That is really cool.”

“You can’t die either. You are a ghost you know.”

She seemed surprised that he mentioned it, “Oh, I am a ghost, but…”

She trailed off and the sorrow vanished almost as quickly as the anger, “You are going to die here you know.”

“I don’t see why. I just have to keep walking to the east and I will get out of here.”

She giggled, “I don’t know why you think that is east, but it isn’t.”

It wasn’t very obvious, but Zayn could see a faint coloration in the distance that suggested sunrise was slowly working its way toward him.

“I can see the sunrise. It is over there. The tower marks the same direction.”

“So you haven’t turned? Not even once, not a tiny bit?”

Zayn started to say just that, but then he remembered how he had gotten confused by the sudden shift of the ground underfoot.

“I might have had to change my direction from time to time, but it was never that much.”

“Go in that direction for a moment.” She pointed to her right.

“Why?”

If a ghost could roll their eyes, she did so at this time, “Do you think you will magically lose sight of your destination?”

“No,” It was definitely getting brighter in the distance. Sunrise was well on its way.

“Just do it real quick.”

With the coming sunrise, it would be nearly impossible to get lost. So he turned and went in the direction she had gestured. He walked for about forty paces and then stopped to look for her. She hadn’t followed him but floated at where his tracks had suddenly veered to the right.

He stared at her and realized she was trying to point in the direction she had sent him. So he turned and…

The tower was in front of him. It was the exact same size as before, but now it was in the south. He turned back to her and then looked to the east and the south. The sunrise was still in the same position, and the tower was now in the wrong location.

The ghostly girl appeared in a twirling display of sand, “Everyone goes there.”

Zayn felt an unexpected chill, “I just have to walk towards sunrise then. I will be fine.”

The girl didn’t seem convinced, “I don’t think that works.”

“Why not?” He yelled at her, and she looked surprised.

“I don’t know, but I am pretty sure others have tried that exact same thing.”