Get up! A voice rang through Karth's head. He could hear it faintly as if it struggled to find him through the deepest parts of his thoughts.
Get up! He heard it louder this time. Karth felt it snaking its way through his thoughts.
Get up you lazy motherfucker! The assassin's eyes fluttered open. Somehow in his unconscious state the swirling sands turned him over to his side. He took a moment to assess his surroundings as he painfully pushed himself off the grainy ground. He had lost his weapons and knapsack somewhere in the never-ending storm.
Shock filled Karth's body as he limped through the heated sand. The sun was still scorching and blinded him as he tried to shield his face by ripping shreds of materials off his shirt he wore to comprise of a makeshift hood. Dried blood soaked a leg of his pants and scratches covered his face and chest.
Inch by slow inch, the assassin crawled or hobbled or limped his way toward one of the abandoned buildings he saw half covered with sand. He needed some kind of protection while he figured out his next move. Winds blew diagonal as he continued to lose footing. Sand creatures big and small scurried and dug their ways into the sand around him. Most stopped to smell in his direction but shortly carried on, as water and survival were more important than curiosity.
The hours rolled by slowly and painfully, until finally the sun settled in behind some dunes, and one by one stars started to pop into the sky. Karth scoured the Wastelands until he came across a pallet buried in the sand. He started digging with his hands until about few feet down the wood ended and started to his right. After digging for another hour, Karth revealed that he had dug up a wall of the abandoned house.
Sweat dripped down his body and found its way into his open wounds and stung him causing him to yelp softly and swear under his breath. Now that enough sand was cleared, Karth could sit himself in between the wood boards comfortably. Within minutes he was asleep as sand pelted the outside of the boards.
Sometime during the night Karth awoke to the sound of sand shifting all around him. The moon wasn't enough to light up the desolate Wasteland, as his eyes slowly made out the darkness. In the distance, little blue orbs started dancing in the darkness as one by one they popped up all over the dunes. Closer and closer they got. Pop! Karth was startled as he saw the space above his head start to glow blue.
Slowly a weight on his head pressed in more and more until Karth buckled under the weight and fell to his back. Bouncing off his head was a short creature. In the darkness, Karth could make out scales that covered its entire body. The creature wasn't over three feet tall. A long curly tail extended from its body and big eyes opened wide as it glanced at Karth.
Scurrying into the darkness, its blue light fading into the sand dunes. As quickly as they appeared, the creatures disappeared, their light flickering out into the sand. Without hesitation, Karth got up as quickly as his wounded body allowed him to as he limped after them.
He noticed that they all disappeared into a central location and headed that direction. It was a thousand feet from his shelter. The sand was warm when he arrived. Karth approached cautiously as his hands slid across the smooth hard dune. He felt a pulsation from the other side, like a heartbeat. It came in steady rhythms as Karth put his ear onto the dune. Nothing. Just warmness. He pushed to lift himself off the sand when he heard it. Breathing followed by murmuring.
Karth fell back in shock. He couldn't believe that the sand was alive. He sat half buried in the sand trying to catch his senses. Creepily the wasteland shifted. First right. Then left. Karth struggled to get up against the moving earth but the sand had other ideas as it continued to breath and with each breath, Karth sunk farther down. Sand piling on top of him.
He felt low hums under the sand, as within minutes the last of the moon became as dark as the night. Swallowed by the hot sand, Karth fought and struggled to find a way out but he didn't know which way was up. The weight and pressure he felt on his body told him he was sliding deeper down.
Dehydration and starvation took over his body as the barren desert started to swallow him up. Struggling with the heat, Karth fell to his knees sinking into the sand dunes that surrounded him. With his eyes rolling into the back of his head, Karth watched as the world went black and he fell face down into the sand dunes as the hot breeze blew sand across his body.
He would not let his body give in to unconsciousness. He felt every sharp dagger of sand as he kept sliding further and further into the sand. He had no idea how he was able to breath but he would try to assess that at a later time if he ever stopped sliding.
The assassin finally came to a stop as heavy breathing and hot breath greeted him. No light greeted him, just eternal darkness as he came face to face with a pair of big red eyes. The pair of eyes jumped onto his face as Karth felt claws dig into his cheeks as the red eyes got bigger and bigger until they touched his. The creature was close enough now that he could see yellow jagged teeth and smell rotting breath. The creature mumbled something that Karth couldn't understand. The creature's language sounded like claws digging into a chalkboard and high piercing.
The creature screeched a few more phrases, then suddenly jumped off Karth and burrowed into the sand. Like an hourglass, grains around him started sliding in a downward spiral. It started with his hands, then his feet as he slid down with the sand. He was squeezed into a small tunnel as his waist got stuck and Karth had to slither his way down with a grimace so the weight of the falling sand didn't crush him.
Within minutes the sand stopped falling but Karth kept falling until he landed on his back onto a pile of green and brown moss. In a flash his surroundings changed. The sand dunes lay quietly above him as he lay sprawled inside a tree trunk. He lifted himself to his elbows as he looked around.
Dark red oak surrounded him as he was in the middle of a vast room. It ran thirty feet in diameter with oak dressers and pillows that lay scattered across an interwoven silk rug. Books ran the length of the far wall as a small bed say unused in the corner.
Karth had just gotten to his feet when a large black door swung inward causing him to jump sideways to avoid getting hit. Out from the floor a creature crawled into the room, muttering quietly to himself. Unlike the other creatures, this one had blue scales that ran down his body. It took a few minutes for the creature to notice Karth standing there towering over it as the door slammed.
"Woah! Who are you and what are you doing in my home?" the creature's voice was high screeching but Karth could understand it.
"How am I able to understand you and not the others?" Karth was still standing over the creature.
"I know not what you are talking about stranger, but you are in my home. Leave!" The creature hobbled into a corner and started to glance at a book that he picked up.
"When I fell into the sand, one of the creatures mumb…."
Karth was cut off as the creature was now in his face. The same yellow jagged teeth and rotten breath. "We are not creatures, we are Dwellers," he hissed.
"Mumbled something." Karth finished, not phased that he offended the dweller. "I couldn't understand him but I understand you. Why is that?"
"Well stranger," the Dweller was still flustered. "I have been around humans on several occasions for some…um…business transactions. So, I picked up some words and the rest was easy."
"Ok Dweller how do I get out of here?" Karth now paced around the room.
The Dweller stared deeply into Karth's eyes as if trying to read his soul. "You don't. You are our prisoner."
As soon as the last word was spoken, two Dwellers marched up to Karth. They were much larger than the ones he saw before. Gold scales covered their bodies as bulging veiny muscles struggled to be covered. Their tails were equipped with a four-prong mace and long pointed fingernails expanded from their hands.
"Come with us," they said in unison. Their voice was icy and rough.
Karth charged them shoulder first but the Dwellers were quick and side stepped grabbing him by the shoulder. Blood dripped and a scream escaped him as one of the Dwellers dug his nails into Karth's shoulder causing flesh and tendon to rip and tear.
Immediately Karth fell to his knees as the Dweller let go of his shoulder while the other hit him over the head with a closed fist. Karth's vision became blurry as he slumped to the ground. He felt his body being dragged as doors closed behind him and his eyes rolled into his head.