Many months passed in a blur of scorching heat and pain from the state of borderline dehydration that I keep my body in to conserve my dwindling water supply. The compass mother gave me still pointed east, giving no sign if I was any closer to this Worlds Gate then when I started this whole journey. My hope dwindled as my body began to shut down, my exposed skin long burned and blistered from the unforgiving sun.

It was getting ridiculously hard to find water to refill my waterskin with. I used to just go down into a cave below the surface to get water and rest during the day, But I couldn't find one anymore, and there wasn't any skinners around either to use their watersacks, so that painted the landscape pretty bleak if even the skinners stayed clear of this area. Now I was having to risk traveling at night just to find a puddle reforming from one of the few underground water systems left.

Having been scorched into oblivion by the sun during the daylight hours, it would slowly trinkle up during the night. But even that was coming fewer and further between, causing me to drink heavely when I finally found one, sometimes choking in my haste to quench my burning insides.

Another week was all I could stand. My short brown hair whipped around wildly in the wind, my green eyes long glazed over, seeing nothing as my feet dragged themselves one in front of the other in a semblence of walking, stuck in a pattern that I had long forgotten how to move too. Dehydration was taking its toll. I no longer had the ability to look at my compass to see if I was even going the right way, nor did I even lift my waterskin to drink. Not that it would've helped me anymore, the water was long gone, having ran out three days ago.

My mind was such a grey blurry mess I didn't even notice my goggles were gone, nor the terrian start to change. Rocks began poking out through the sand all around me. Slowly at first, but after a few miles there were many more, some too big for my feet to have even glided over.

If I was even semi-conscience I would've noticed the well sized rocks dotting my path and avoided them, but I wasn't even close to that state of mind. My balance immediately failed me as my foot kicked into one directly in front of my path. My legs crumbled underneath me, sending me sprawling into a larger stones shadow.

My conscience stirred slightly at the feeling of cooler air flowing over my burned and pained body. I barely managed to frown as my eyelids cracked open from the sensation.

Why was there cool air?

Confusion made me painfully lift my head and open my eyes completely. What I saw left me frozen in shock as my consciousness rushed back.

I had fallen into the shade of a large obsidion rock that was sticking straight out of the ground like a door, its top being semi-circular like an ovals. But that isn't what snapped me to attention. The strange markings covering the rock in some sort of pattern did. The markings were the same as on my compass. Hope shot through my chest. As I remembered what my mother told me I determinedly forced my practically dead body to crawl closer to the stone, my shaking arms giving out directly in front of it with a pained cry from me.

With extreme effort, I reached up and put my hand on the stone. The cool air I was feeling seemed to be pulsing from the rock itself. Struggling to keep my shaking hand on the rock I pulled my compass off my neck and opened it. The needle that had always pointed east was now spinning wildly.

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I was all aware of the intense pain coursing through my body, but I didn't know how bad my body really was, the pain seeming to come from more than the exstensive burns and dehydration. But even the pain didn't stop the excitement and awe that lit up my face. I looked up at the stone in wonder. It was real. The compass truly led me somewhere, it wasn't just broke after all.

This was it. The place I put everything on the line for. Gasping from the pain I lifted myself up and leaned my back onto the stone. The cool air flowing from the rock was an instant relief to my burned skin, but the effort left me panting as the pain seemed to double in intensity from forcing myself to move.

Bitting my lip I forced the pain down the best I could. I couldn't let myself pass out, I had the feeling I was lucky to be awake right now, so I couldn't let this opportunity slip by. I had to finish what I started. I had to find out if I really could have a new start at life like mother told me.

Blinking the sun out of my eyes I looked around for something, anything, that would allow such a thing.

Seeing nothing I frowned. This was definitely the place, it had to be. No other place had better odds then a rock that not only looked like a door but had the exact same strange markings all over it as my seemingly magical compass. Which still sounded freaking ridiculous, even too me. But there was the strange cold wind that literally poured out from the rock itself, so I'm pretty sure you couldn't get any more magically inclined then that.

After ten minutes of pain inducing movements I leaned my head agaist the rock in frustration. Trying everything I could think of to stimulate some kind of response from ANYTHING around me proved absolutely fruitless. Nothing stirred aside from the sand blowing in the wind. I closed my eyes in resignment.

Maybe my mom got that part of the story wrong. It was passed through our family for generations after all, I wouldn't be surprised if a few parts got exaggerated over the years for a little more entertainment value.

The magical rock and compass seemed legit at least. The rock was probably just some magical cooling device from back in the day or something, cause it certainly wasn't a ''life bringer'' of any sort. In fact, it seemed my death was innevetable now.

Licking my cracked lips with an even drier tongue I gave a raspy laugh as I closed my eyes in resignation. ''Pasaules Varti my ass.''

My eyes snapped back open as the ground suddenly began to shake and the markings on the rock started glowing a bright blue. Wincing at the light I raised my hand to my eyes in an attempt to block it out, failing to notice the source of it as I looked around wildly.

''What the-?'' My raspy voice gives out as many hands made of the same glowing light as the marks flew out of the rock and wrapped themselves around my body.

As I felt myself get yanked backwards and pass through the rock a burning white light engulfed me, then everything went black as I lost conscienceness.