Red did not have to drag Merin kicking and screaming on their path out of the desert the following day. The addled-brain woman meekly followed him as he led her on his chosen path.

The following days were spent walking whatever distance her soft legs could handle. The burning sun was too intense for her to endure, so they didn't walk during those hours. These weren't breaks, however. In between walking, Red coached her to use her magic. He no longer needed to swing his shovel to get her to tap into it.

Red guided the poison out of her body. Her recovery time was incredible, and so he was soon left out of a side job.

They slept, ate, and walked.

This pattern went on for what felt like endless days to Merin. Her cheeks were chapped, her eyes dry, and her hair brittle. Each heavy dry breeze stripped whatever moisture or joy her frame contained.

To make matters worse, her stomach wanted to heave with each step she took. She was walking on the dead bodies of destroyed people. Aram hadn't been as forthcoming about how it happened, not that he could help it.

To open one's mouth was to invite dry heat into it. It didn't feel good to feel coarse grains of sand in your mouth. Every part of her felt used and dried like smoked meat up for the chopping block.

She would never step into a desert if it was the last thing she did.

It was only a handful of days in, but Red knew something was following them.

They'd gotten off lucky so far and only ran into blueleeches and other low-level roaming curses.

There was something bigger and hungrier lurking, and he could feel it like a persistent itch just waiting to dive into his flesh.

Red looked down at his hand. The wound he inflicted upon his skin to grant the other man mercy hadn't fully healed yet. The dark scab would easily break off to draw forth fresh blood.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He might have to go on the offensive with what they would be up against next.

The only thing he could do was prepare Merin's magic because he had a bad feeling that he wouldn't be enough.

Whatever was watching them had been waiting for a straightforward reason; it needed to catch them off guard. That spoke of intelligence. That makes it worse than a simple cursed being whose job was to spread.

Merin had yet to learn why Aram was more distant than usual. The man could have been better at conversations but has been worse lately. She caught him scanning their surroundings with a passion he lacked before.

Anytime she tried to use her senses to pick up on what he could clearly sense, she came up short. Well, it was more like she became short of breath.

That all came to a head when she came face-to-face with what Aram had sensed.

It all started off innocently enough. Merin found a pretty pale blue rock. She bent down to pick it up, only to discover it connected to a stringy-looking thing.

And that string was connected to a giant row of teeth that roared out of the sand.

The foul stench of a thousand deaths smacked her in the face as countless rows of teeth gleamed at her. Merin was so used to welcoming death that she stared blankly at the giant bobbled sandfish.

"Could this be my chance to die?" She said, staring into the creature's throat.

She'd never had the chance to try her hand at death by digestion. The process of chewing was something she could survive. She knew by experience that her skin was resilient enough to. Could she survive the digestive acids of a stomach?

Merin would not find out that answer, sadly. Aram's trusty shovel was shoved in the mouth of the beast. That blasted thing kept the mouth from being able to snap shut. That meant that Merin would not find out if she could be eaten and live to tell the tale. She also wasn't brave enough to walk in because of the rank stench wafting from its throat.

He was yelling at her, no doubt for being a dummy who stood still at the threat of death.

"You should know by now that I don't care." She said.

He didn't acknowledge her words. Instead, he stepped in front of her and, in a move too quick for her to spot, used some kind of blade to slice the fish into four quarters.

Giant chunks of sandfish fell to the ground, hissing and making weird popping noises as they faded into steam.

Aram skilfully caught the shovel before it could fall. His palm was leaking blood after he did so.

"It was almost done healing!" Merin said, scolding him as she fussed over it.

Although she wasn't quite sure what happened to the sandfish, she had a powerful ally in Aram. If the two were going to get out of this neverending cemetery, they would have to rely on each other.