Something tickled his chest.
Lucas groaned, barely conscious, his face half-buried in the cold sand. His body ached like he'd been trampled by a herd of stampeding trucks. Every muscle screamed, but that sensation on his skin—light, crawling, wrong—was what pulled him back from the void.
He cracked one eye open.
There, right in the center of his chest, was a fucking scorpion.
Small. Pale. Almost translucent under the black light of the moon. Its little legs twitched as it calmly walked over his skin, tail raised, stinger twitching slightly.
Lucas stared at it.
Then blinked again.
'Nope.'
He moved slowly, breath shallow, eyes scanning the sand around him.
His hand brushed something solid—a flat rock, half-buried.
Without thinking, he gripped it, sat up with a sharp grunt, and slammed it down on the bug with everything he had.
Crack.
The tiny body crunched under the rock, legs curling inward in a sudden spasm.
Lucas let out a shaky breath.
"Fuck that," he muttered.
His hand was trembling.
He dropped the rock, wiped his palm against his leg—forgetting for a moment that he was still naked—and looked at the squashed remains.
But something was off.
The sand was vibrating.
Not wind.
Not footsteps.
Something deeper. Heavier.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Lucas froze.
The sand around him began to shift—slow, subtle at first. Then faster.
A dry, grinding sound rose from behind.
Lucas turned his head.
And froze.
Something was rising from the dunes. Huge. Chitinous. Black and violet plates shimmered under the moonlight as the creature's bulk emerged from beneath the sand like a living nightmare.
A scorpion.
Not small.
Not normal.
Fucking enormous.
Its body stretched at least three meters long, maybe more. Thick armored legs slammed into the sand with heavy thuds. Its massive tail curled high into the air, ending in a stinger the size of a spear. Glowing purple veins pulsed across its carapace like molten cracks in stone.
Worst of all?
From its back, a dozen tiny scorpions scurried across its shell, like parasites—or bait.
One of them looked just like the one Lucas had killed.
'It was a fucking trap.'
The giant creature let out a low, dry hiss that echoed through the air like metal scraping against stone. Its front pincers snapped open and closed, testing the space between them.
Lucas took one step back.
Then another.
The monster's many eyes locked onto him, and for a brief second, everything stopped.
Then it lunged.
Lucas didn't think.
His body moved before his brain could catch up.
"Damn it, nope—"
He turned and ran, feet burning against the jagged black sand, arms pumping, lungs dragging in air like they were rusted shut. The hiss behind him turned into a chittering roar, followed by the thunderous thuds of something massive chasing him down.
The bastard was fast. Not cheetah-fast, but fast enough that Lucas didn't want to find out what happened if it caught up.
"Shit shit shit—fuck!"
He nearly tripped on a rock, caught himself, and kept moving.
His heart pounded against his ribs like it was trying to escape too.
He didn't dare look back. He didn't need to.
He could feel it.
Every tremor in the sand was a promise of death getting closer.
"This place is bullshit!" he yelled to no one, lungs burning.
"I just fucking got here!"
A ridge loomed ahead—a tall dune, steep and crumbling. Lucas scrambled up, slipping, grabbing at the sand like it could somehow save him. He reached the top, legs on fire, then threw himself down the other side, rolling and crashing like a sack of bones.
He hit the bottom hard and coughed, tasting blood.
Then he heard the scraping again—closer.
He forced himself up.
Still naked. Still bleeding.
Still running.
The next dune almost killed him.
He slipped halfway up, arms flailing, sand pouring down beneath his feet like water. The hiss came again—closer, sharper. It was behind him. It was right there.
Lucas clenched his teeth and pushed harder.
"Come on, move!"
His muscles screamed in protest, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
When he reached the top, he nearly collapsed—
—and then he saw it.
In the distance, breaking the endless ocean of dunes, stood a structure.
Small. Maybe four meters tall, partially collapsed. Stone. Rough. Ancient.
It looked like it had been thrown into the sand by something that hated it.
Lucas didn't care.
To him, it was a fucking castle.
"Yes!" he gasped.
No time to think. He slid down the dune and sprinted across the flat between them, ignoring the pain in his legs, the cuts on his feet, the burning in his throat.
The monster screeched behind him, a sound like metal tearing apart.
He didn't look back.
He just ran.
The structure grew closer with every step, half-buried in the black sand. He could see what looked like an entrance—half-covered by stone debris, but open.
'Please be hollow. Please be deep. Please be anything but a tomb.'
He dove inside.
Lucas stumbled through the opening and collapsed against the wall inside, chest heaving, sweat and blood streaking down his filthy skin. The interior was barely a room—cracked stone walls, half a ceiling, and a slanted floor buried in sand.
But it was shelter.
He was alive.
He blinked, then let out a low, broken laugh.
"Hehehehe... I'm safe. I'm actually safe."
His voice echoed off the walls like a madman's whisper.
His head fell back, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, until his throat burned again.
The thirst was unbearable. His mouth felt like it was lined with ash.
He looked around, desperate for anything—anything.
That's when he saw it.
In the corner of the ruin, half-buried in dust, sat a jar.
Rough stone, old as hell, cracked near the top but still intact.
He dragged himself over, hands trembling as he gripped the sides and tilted it slightly.
Something inside sloshed.
Lucas blinked. He tilted it again.
More movement.
There was liquid.
A deep, dark red. Thick. Slow. The color of dried blood in moonlight.
It clung to the inner walls of the jar like syrup.
'That looks like blood.'
He stared at it for a few seconds.
Then shrugged.
'Fuck it. I'm dying anyway.'
He lifted the jar with both hands and drank.
The moment it hit his tongue, he gagged.
The taste was metallic, sharp and heavy, almost like sucking on rusted iron. The texture was thick, viscous—like blood.
His body recoiled, but he forced it down, desperate for moisture. Desperate for anything that wasn't death by dehydration.
He wiped his mouth and leaned back, breathing hard.
Silence returned.
For now.