Symon's gaze dropped down from the foreign suns to the distant horizon. For as far as he could see, there was nothing but rolling dunes of white sand. When he stood up and spun around, the same was true in every direction. There were no plants or animals, buildings or other signs of civilisation.

"This is all wrong..." Symon muttered to himself. Clearly, the multiple suns were out of the ordinary, but as he considered his surroundings further his confusion only grew. The sand was a bright white and looked like salt, although he knew it wasn't thanks to how much he'd inadvertently swallowed. Symon was hardly a desert expert, but he'd never heard of a place like this before. The suns reflected so harshly off the sand that everywhere he looked stung his eyes, so he elected to sit on the edge of the shallow hole he'd just dug himself out of and shut his eyes.

With nothing helpful in his immediate vicinity, and indeed his not-so-immediate vicinity considering it looked like he could walk for days without encountering anything new, he cast his mind to his recent past for clues. He'd been in the midst of something oddly spiritual, communicating with strange beings although, for the life of him, he just couldn't remember what had been said.

He remembered pain at the end, soul-wracking agony that went on for an indeterminable amount of time before he eventually woke up in the sand, but that was it. He thought for a moment that he'd lost his memory, that perhaps interacting with whatever those things were broke something inside of him, but with a force of will he pushed his mind back further.

He focused on his name first and used it as a lynchpin to sift through all his memories. He was Symon Reid, and he'd just started his first day as a fully-fledged paramedic. He was a survivor, even though the doctors had told his parents that it was unlikely he'd make it to his 12th birthday. Sure, he'd hit that tree on his first shift, but no one had ever really thought he'd make it that far anyway.

He still couldn't remember much about what had happened between there and here, but that was okay. He'd never given up on struggling to survive before, and he had no plans to start now.

With renewed determination, Symon opened his eyes and began to stand up, before freezing. There were words written in the sand.

[Ledger-Soul connection successful]

He frowned, staring at them long and hard. It was as if someone had snuck up on him while he was meditating and used a stick to draw cryptic messages in the sand. With the uniform colours and lack of shadows from the bright midday suns, he had a hard time reading the words. Still, he was sure he would have noticed them if they were present earlier considering it was the only disturbance in the smooth sands, excluding his freshly self excavated grave. His brows frowned even deeper as more words slowly appeared before the first set.

[Beginning class selection sequence...]

[You have been granted: Cursed Healer]

Somehow, his frown intensified even further. He was sure he hadn't selected anything, and he was certain he'd never seen talking sand before.

"Errr, hello!" Symon offered hesitantly. "Can you... understand me? I think I need a little help."

[ Status:

Name: Symon

Class: Cursed Healer

Strength: 0.63

Constitution: 0.87

Acuity: 0.68

Intelligence: 0.72

Will: 0.95

Vessel (Vitality): 3/7 ]

Symon felt like he'd been doing a lot more confused staring than usual, and this moment was no exception. The words had continually etched themselves into the sand and, as they went, he felt like they became easier and easier to read. Symon hadn't played many video games in his life, but this weird message was vaguely reminiscent of some that he'd played. He waited patiently for the text to continue, but it seemed the sand had nothing more to say.

"Hello? I don't mean to be a bother, but it's kind of an emergency. You see, I'm thinking that there's been a bit of an accident and I've ended up somewhere I'm not supposed to be. Do you think you could give me just a little information on wh-,"

[ Abilities:

Idealise (0): Consumes Vitality to return a living target to its peak state. This ability automatically applies to the wielder and cannot be disabled.

Seize (0): Absorbs Vitality from a target and stores it in the wielder's Vessel. This ability automatically applies to valid targets and cannot be disabled.

Titles:

Blessed by Order

Blessed by Chaos

World Traveller ]

Well... shit.

If the multiple suns in the sky hadn't been enough for him, that final title made things clearer. Whatever had happened to him, he was a long way from home. Most people would take this opportunity to scream out in anger at the unfairness, cry knowing they're so far away from their old family, their old life. For better or worse, a lifetime of living with a terminal illness hanging over his head had given Sy the incredible ability to simply ignore things he didn't like.

A psychologist would probably have a big fancy word for it and lecture him about how repressing and compartmentalising traumas just allows them to fester, but what was he to do? Maybe this was all a hallucination and he was locked in a padded room, maybe he was in a coma after the crash and this was just a strange dream, or maybe he really had been brought to a new world and given magical powers by some talking sand.

Either way, Sy did what he did best by ignoring the variety of horrific possibilities and began walking towards the tallest sand dune he could see. Things would come crashing back down on him eventually, sure, but in the mean time he'd try and get some questions answered.

Behind him, the sand filled in the letters, leaving only a perfectly smooth dune.

----------------------------------------

While Symon had decided to simply accept these strange happenings as real and postpone the panic to when he was somewhere safe, he still needed to understand what the messages in the sand actually meant - he needed to make use of any possible advantage to find his way out of this lifeless desert. There was some type of intelligence in the sand, listening to him and responding to his questions, albeit in an oddly structured manner. Perhaps he could get further information on what the different parts of his so-called status meant? Some aspects, like Strength and Intelligence, were obvious enough, even if he was a little offended by how low the numbers were.

It's kind of objectifying to rate someone with numbers like that... still, couldn't I at least get to a whole number?

"Sand, can you tell me what a vessel does? It holds vitality, I assume, but what does that actually mean? Am I going to die if it empties?"

He stopped his slow trudging through the sand, his work boots already filled with said substance and his dark blue paramedic's uniform doing an excellent job of absorbing the intense sunlight -- he unbuttoned it, not that it made much of a difference. He waited a few moments with no response. "At least tell me how I'm supposed to know it's getting low without having to check with you every ten seconds. That's gotta be annoying for the both of us." The sand silently reacted to this, although this time an imprint of a hand appeared on its own. No words accompanied it, although Symon didn't feel he needed this explained to him.

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With a hesitant shrug, he knelt down and placed his pale hand into the indent. It fit perfectly, as if it was made for him, and the gentle breeze slowly blew the surrounding sand over top of his hand. He expected maybe some magical feeling, a clicking sound like the opening of a lock perhaps, but nothing happened. After an embarrassingly long time hunched over waiting, he pulled his hand out only to immediately notice a difference.

Symon spotted what looked like a tiny white tattoo in the shape of a simple, unadorned chalice on the back of his left hand. It was the same stark white as the sand around him, as if he'd received a tattoo made from sand instead of ink. He rubbed it gently but felt neither pain nor the sensation of anything being under his skin. While subtle to the point of likely being unnoticed by most people - not that Symon had noticed any signs of humanity -- the chalice was a little under half full with sand. As he tilted his hand around, he watched in wonder as the contents sloshed around while refusing to spill, as if it had an invisible lid.

He asked the sand to show him how much vitality he had, and glanced from the subsequent message in the sand to the chalice on his hand. The fraction displayed matched what was represented in the chalice. Maybe the sand refused to explain anything about this system, but at least it was happy to make things he already knew more accessible.

Even though Symon hadn't travelled very far from where he woke up, trudging through the sand was a slow and strenuous process. While he was by no means an athlete, he wasn't out of shape either - still, he found it strange how he wasn't tired after nearly half an hour of travel. He was uncomfortably hot, his eyes were sore from having sand in them when he was buried, and from the continual glare of the alabaster sands, and yet he still felt energised. The bad news was that though he had barely been in the desert for an hour, he already wanted some water - and it wouldn't be long before that want turned into a need.

I'm pretty sure Bear Grylls said you could go 3 days without water. I wonder how accurate that is when you have three suns beating down on you...

Symon didn't think his last near-death experience was very cool or noble, but dying of thirst in an empty desert was much worse. His first order of business would therefore be to finish his march to the top of the large dune and use that vantage point to look for food and water, or really just anything new.

As he walked, his mind was focused on his two so-called abilities present in his status; what kind of names were idealise and seize? It reminded Symon of an old university friend who had taken a philosophy elective and started using all these fancy words. When he arrived at the base of the dune that was to be his temporary lookout, he was pondering if there was a reason why both of his abilities were automatic - was his intelligence so low that he wasn't even trusted with his own magic? The sand near his feet began shifting as if on cue, so he stopped and waited for the message.

And waited. And waited some more. He noticed that no letters had formed, and yet the disturbed circle of sand was slowly expanding. In fact, now that he was focused on it there was a steadily increasing vibration, almost as if something was-

"SHIT!" was all he could cry out as he threw himself backwards, the massive mandibles slicing through the air with a whistle in the place his neck was just moments ago. He bounced and rolled down the dune a few times before landing on his back with a thud. Symon's eyes snapped to where he'd just been standing, to the creature in his place. At first, the shell made him think it was a crab, but when it fully extricated itself from the sand with an awful undulating motion he saw it for what it truly was - a monstrous centipede-like creature almost half as long as he was tall, with a mottled orange carapace and six-inch long mandibles.

He scrambled backwards as the creature rushed down the hill towards him, dozens of small but razor-sharp legs impaling the ground and launching itself towards him. With panicked eyes, he looked around for anything that could help him, but saw only sand, nothing he could use as a weapon against this thing. Although he'd only taken his eyes off the creature for a moment, by the time he glanced back it was almost on top of him. With no other plan, he reached down and grabbed a fistful of the sand - his only companion thus far - and flung it in an arc towards the centipede's face.

It did nothing but make the creature more mad.

With a vicious hiss, it scrunched up before launching out like a spring, shooting through the air in a flash with its twitching legs held out to the sides. Too slow to avoid the deceptively fast creature, Symon instead swung his arm out in a wild backhand. His forearm connected with the creature just below where its head joined to the rest of his body, but instead of being launched away like a baseball, a half dozen of its legs stabbed deep into his arm and refused to let go.

"Fuck! Get off me!" he screamed, flinging his arm with the centipede attached into the air before slamming it down, whipping the centipede's back half into the ground. This only caused Symon to curse the soft sand as the deceptively light centipede bounced off the ground ineffectually, pulling him off balance and bringing them both to the ground in a tangled heap.

The centipede reacted faster, painfully climbing its way further up his arm before releasing him with its front legs and reaching for his face and throat with its too-sharp mandibles. They snapped shut and barely missed taking out an eye before its body adjusted its grip on his arm to stretch out even further, preparing for a second snap attack. Simon was on his back with one arm fully extended, attempting to keep the monster away from his face while the other arm delivered a series of ineffectual punches against the side of the thing's head, unable to get any leverage to deliver a proper blow.

Pulling his fist back, he saw the jagged chitin had done more damage to his hand than he'd done to the creature. By this point, his constant cursing and shouting had devolved into a hoarse scream, the situation not helped by a sudden burning pain in his stomach.

The centipede's head was snapping at his face, its body was latched onto his arm, and now a stinger on its tail was being driven into his gut. To make matters worse, the burning pain in his stomach had turned into a creeping numbness, rapidly spreading through the rest of his body. Already, his abdominals had begun to lock up, making it hard to maintain his half-sitting half-wrestling position.

With his punches doing more harm -- specifically to his knuckles -- than good, he changed tactics, grabbing onto one of the creature's many legs and yanking on it as hard as he could. Surprisingly easily, it separated with a gentle pop. He quickly flipped it around and plunged it pointy end first towards the creature's back. It skittered across its carapace before catching a seam between sections, and with a white-knuckled grip, Symon began forcing the leg between the plates.

He had ceased his screaming -- or if you were being generous, his battle cry -- focused entirely on penetrating something vital before the creature killed him. In truth, he couldn't make any noises even if he wanted to, the venom seizing up his lungs.

Seemingly realising the danger, or perhaps just reacting to the pain, the centipede ceased trying to bite his face and curled around on itself, redirecting its front half to try and get at the hand currently stabbing its back. This brief moment of comparative safety allowed Symon to go on the aggressive, slamming the centipede onto its back and clumsily, with stiff muscles, roll on top of it. The stinger made its return, this time plunging into his thigh, but he raised his claw dagger into the air before ramming it straight down, plunging right through the soft underside of the centipede's chest, or whatever its equivalent would be.

The centipede began thrashing wildly at this but rapidly weakened and, after only a few moments, stopped moving.

Symon struggled to draw air into his ravaged lungs in a victory wheeze. He'd killed the overgrown bug, but at great cost. His right arm was crisscrossed in slashes that wept a steady stream of blood, and almost his entire body was numb from the constant stings. Trying as hard as he could, his lungs simply wouldn't draw in any air.

He could feel his heart beating, much too slowly, especially considering how high his adrenaline was after the fight. Every few seconds, he felt the barest of fluttering thumps from his heart. It was all he could do roll off the centipede and onto his side, his vision greying and narrowing to a pinprick. At least his body was so numb he couldn't feel the pain, he thought.

He attempted to drag himself forward with just his arms, but they refused to respond to his commands any further after flopping down next to his face. The last thing he saw before he passed out was the bruised knuckles on his hand and the tattoo of a chalice, now filled to the brim.