The sand burned their feet even through their shoes. After four hours of walking, fatigue finally caught up with them. Karma complained nonstop about the heat, how it ruined his skin, his hair, his entire existence, and he only grew louder when he realized no one was paying attention.
"Listen to me I tell you! Stop ignoring me, all of this is your fault! We would still be at the oasis if you guys didn't decide to explore this dead land!"
He shouted, annoyed.
Ren could put up with Karma's noise, but it was clearly getting on Rita's nerves. She looked one word away from punching him quiet. You could even hear her muttering to herself:
"Hold it in… he'll stop eventually…"
'This isn't going to end well..' Ren thought, watching the group.
Karma's relentless whining wasn't the only problem. The heat was wearing them all down. Ren needed more and more water, and Rita was on the verge of collapsing from the heat and her immense frustration with Karma. Eric, strangely, was the least affected by either, and the least fatigued of them all, even next to Ren, despite his bulk.
After a few more minutes, they found some rocks and greenery. They immediately crawled into the shade to rest. They hadn't even walked for a day, and they were already exhausted, burned and on the verge of blacking out.
"This is hell…" Ren said, laying himself down like a ragdoll.
"Couldn't agree more.." Karma answered, nodding.
Ren couldn't help but laugh at their slim chances of survival.
'At this rate, the heat is going to kill us.' He stared up at the sky.
"We can't keep going like this," said Rita.
Ren answered without bothering to look at her.
"Agreed."
Karma and Eric nodded along, but the question remained: what now? They couldn't continue in this heat, and going back to the oasis wasn't an option either.
That's when Eric spoke up.
"Couldn't we just… move at night?"
Everyone stared at him, dumbfounded that they hadn't thought of it sooner.
'The heat is really getting to us..' Ren realized.
And so it was decided. All they had to do was stay here and rest until nightfall. That was easier said than done. Even in the shade, the sand was still burning hot and uncomfortable, and it kept them from resting properly. Ren, though, managed to sleep rather easily. He could sleep almost anywhere, thanks to how tired he always was from gaming all night. Still, he slept with one eye open, since he didn't trust the others.
Eventually night came. It was cold, a sharp contrast to the harsh, unforgiving day.
'This is nice…'
At first the cool air was bliss on their burned skin. Before long, though, the cold wind brushing against them made them shiver. Even so, it was far more bearable than the day, so they kept walking.
Eric and Rita were at the front, talking and making conversation. Karma was right behind them, showering himself with praise that the two ignored completely. Ren stayed behind all of them, observing them and doing his best to stay off their radar.
After they had walked a while, Rita glanced back, and her gaze landed on him. She froze for a second, then asked:
"Hey, what even is your name? I don't remember you telling us."
Ren froze at the sudden question, and Karma quickly answered in his place.
"His name is irrelevant next to my person!"
Rita ignored Karma's antics once again, staring daggers at Ren.
"So?"
"It's not important."
Her tone shifted, irritated by his answer.
"It's only fair to tell us your name since you know ours, isn't it?"
"I don't remember asking for your names though?" Ren shot back, growing even more suspicious of how persistently she kept asking.
"Why won't y-"
Rita started to argue back but stopped short as she and the others felt something move beneath the sand. Most of them grew worried, but Ren went on immediate high alert, treating every sign of danger as actual danger. It was the right call, because it let him barely dodge something that burst out of the ground under his feet.
"What the he-"
Ren froze at what stood in front of him.
It was a huge worm-like creature, around two times Ren's size, so about 3 meters and 30 centimeters, with a round mouth lined with multiple layers of razor-sharp teeth, both around and inside it, and stone-like skin the color of blood.
Everyone was frozen. Ren was already working out how to escape, and whether pushing someone toward the creature would buy him enough time. Rita was too terrified to move or even make a sound, staring at the creature's bloody, putrid mouth. Eric stood still too, shocked by the unknown animal in front of him, not understanding what it was. And Karma stood there for a moment, the annoyance vanishing from his face the second his eyes landed on the creature. A few seconds later, he screamed and sprinted away as fast as he could.
"… a- AHHH!!"
The rest of the group quickly followed.
"SHIT!" Ren exclaimed.
The beast swam through the sand after them. It was slow, barely under the average human's speed. Karma wasn't a professional runner by any means, but he was definitely faster than average. Eric was surprisingly fast, even carrying most of the supplies and a still-frozen Rita, and he easily kept pace with Karma.
Ren, on the other hand, was only barely above average after spending most of his life rotting away at home playing games, going outside only for school or basic needs. His form was atrocious too. He was used to fast walking more than running, and his technique was far from optimal.
"Come on, move!!"
He was far behind the others and barely ahead of the worm.
'Okay, okay, okay. Think.'
The worm was by no means fast, but it probably had far more stamina than any human, which meant that outrunning it by speed alone wasn't going to be enough to survive.
After a few minutes, Karma was out of breath from all the screaming and running. Luckily for him, Eric, the gentle giant, noticed him slowing down and grabbed him to carry him alongside a now calmer Rita, who was scanning the surroundings for anything useful.
Ren, meanwhile, was still running as fast as when he started. Despite his lack of exercise and technique, he had been blessed with surprisingly good stamina.
"How long… pant is this.. pant thing going to… pant chase us??!"
After half an hour of running, Eric began to slow down, letting the barely-faster-than-the-worm Ren catch up with him. Ren was breathing heavily and could no longer talk, but he hadn't slowed down.
Just as the situation grew more dire, Rita screamed:
"Guys- There! A building! Over there!!"
She pointed to the right. Ren and Eric followed her direction and saw it too. Using their final ounce of strength, they ran toward the building, threw themselves inside and locked every entrance.
Ren and Eric collapsed onto the concrete floor, breathing heavily. Rita went off to explore, while Karma just went and sat in a corner, hidden in the shadows.
"You guys rest.. I'll go look around."
Ren recovered quickly and sat back up. He began to look around the room. It was some sort of lobby. His first thought was that they had finally found one of the bases they were looking for, but something was off. They had been told the bases would be occupied, yet this one was silent, dusty and filled with cobwebs. That was not a good sign. Before he could investigate further, Rita came back from her own search.
"This place isn't the one we're looking for, it's abandoned. At least that's what I managed to gather from it."
"No, you're probably right.. " Ren answered.
Dust coated everything. Cobwebs sagged between broken furniture, and several doors were punctured with jagged holes. For a place to reach such a state, it had to have been abandoned for a long time, which was what Ren was thinking when he agreed with Rita.
"There doesn't seem to be any… of those things in here at least.."
Rita said, trying to find a positive in their situation.
The fact that this place was abandoned was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because it gave them a safe place with no danger from those creatures or from other humans. Bad, because they were now stuck in an abandoned building with one of those things waiting for them outside.
"Fucking hell…"
Ren cursed as he lay back down in frustration.