The desert at night was a different world. The oppressive heat gave way to a profound, biting cold that seeped through X's thin clothes.
The sky, free from the haze of the sun, was a breathtaking canopy of stars, so bright and numerous they seemed to cast a faint, silvery light across the landscape.
Under Jacob's guidance, he moved with a steady, ground-eating pace, his footsteps muffled by the sand.
Jacob was a master of this nocturnal world. He navigated not by sight alone, but by the feel of the ground under his feet, the direction of the cold wind, and the subtle contours of the land, which he seemed to read like a map.
He spoke little, conserving his energy, but when he did, his words were practical and direct.
"Stay in my tracks," he would murmur. "The ground is firmer here." Or, "See that ridge? We'll rest on the far side. It'll shield us from the wind."
X followed, learning to mimic his long, efficient stride, to breathe through his nose to conserve moisture, to keep his head on a constant swivel, scanning the darkness.
The pendant around X's neck was a cool, solid weight against his chest.
Occasionally, it would seem to pulse with a faint warmth, a subtle thrum of energy that made the fine hairs on his arms stand up.
Each time it happened, X would scan the shadows, a primal instinct screaming that he was being watched.
On the second night of his journey, the wind began to change. It lost its steady, cold whisper and began to rise, coming in sharp, violent gusts that carried a sting of sand. Jacob stopped, sniffing the air like an old hound.
"Storm's coming," he announced, his voice tight. "A big one. We need to find cover, now."
The sky to the north was no longer clear. A vast, churning wall of black was rising, blotting out the stars.
It moved with an unnatural speed, a solid mass of wind and sand that seemed to be devouring the world.
A low, deep roar began to build, the sound of a million tons of sand being thrown into the sky.
"This way!" Jacob yelled over the rising howl of the wind. He broke into a run, heading for a cluster of large rock formations they had passed a few minutes earlier.
X followed, head down, shielding his eyes from the stinging sand that now filled the air.
The wind was a physical force, pushing and pulling, trying to tear him from his feet.
They reached the rocks just as the full force of the storm hit. It was not a storm; it was a cataclysm.
The world dissolved into a screaming, chaotic vortex of sand and wind. Visibility dropped to zero. The roar was deafening, a solid wall of sound that vibrated through X's bones.
Jacob shoved X into a narrow space between two massive boulders, pressing himself in behind.
The rock offered some protection, but the wind still tore at him, and the sand, fine as flour, found its way into everything be the eyes, nose, mouth , and clothes.
"Cover your face!" Jacob bellowed, his voice barely audible over the tempest. They huddled together, two small, fragile beings against the unbridled fury of the desert.
The storm was an elemental rage, a reminder of how utterly insignificant they were in this harsh, unforgiving land.
Hours passed.
The roaring of the wind was a constant, mind numbing assault. Trapped in the tight space, X felt a wave of claustrophobia, a desperate need to move, to escape, but there was no escape.
There was only the storm, and to calm the rising panic, X focused on the pendant. The obsidian was warm now, a steady, comforting heat against his chest.
The humming was more pronounced, a low thrum that seemed to push back against the chaos outside.
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the storm's roar. A high-pitched, scraping noise, like metal on stone.
It was close. Very close.
Jacob heard it too.
He stiffened, his hand tightening on the stock of his rifle. He put a finger to his lips, then pointed towards the opening of their shelter.
A shape appeared in the swirling sand, a dark silhouette against the maelstrom. It was tall and unnaturally thin, its limbs long and spindly. It moved with a jerky, twitching motion, its head turning from side to side as if searching.
It looked like a desiccated corpse animated by a malign will. Another appeared behind it, and then a third. They were drawn to the shelter, their movements slow but relentless.
"Ghouls," Jacob breathed, his voice a ghost in the wind. "The storm stirs them up. They feed on the lost."
One of the creatures reached the opening. Its face was a stretched, mummified mask of skin over a skull, with empty sockets that glowed with the same sickly green light as the Ripper's eyes.
It raised a long, clawed hand and began to scrape at the rock, trying to get in.
Jacob raised his rifle, but the space was too tight to get a clear shot.
The ghoul's claws were inches from X's face. Without thinking, X reacted. A surge of energy, hot and electric, coursed through him. It felt like the same instinct that had guided him against the scorpion, but stronger, more focused. X's hand shot out, grabbing the ghoul's wrist.
The moment X's skin touched the creature's, there was a flash of brilliant blue light. The ghoul shrieked, a sound of agony and terror that was ripped away by the wind.
It recoiled as if burned, its hand smoking, the flesh black and charred. It stumbled back into the storm, and its companions, seeing what had happened, hesitated.
They chittered at each other in a language of scraping and hissing, then melted back into the swirling sand.
The immediate danger was gone. X stared at his own hand, which tingled with a residual energy. There was no mark, no burn, but the feeling of power lingered.
'What was that? Where had it come from?'
Jacob was staring, his eyes wide in the gloom. He looked from X's hand to the pendant hanging around his neck, which was now glowing with a soft, blue light of its own, its warmth spreading through X's chest.
"What… what was that?" Jacob stammered, his usual gruff composure completely shattered.
"I don't know," X whispered, the answer becoming a familiar, frustrating refrain, but this was different from the combat reflexes, different from the knowledge of hieroglyphs. This was something else.
Something active and powerful. The storm raged on outside, but inside the small shelter, a new and far more personal storm was brewing in the heart of the amnesiac survivor.
The sandstorm blew itself out by dawn, leaving behind a world transformed. The landscape was scoured clean, the dunes reshaped into new, unfamiliar patterns. The air was still and cold, and a fine layer of dust coated everything.
As the sun rose, casting a pale, watery light over the changed desert, Jacob and X emerged from their shelter, stiff and weary. Neither of them spoke of what had happened during the storm.
The flash of blue light, the shrieking ghoul, the glowing pendant, they all hung in the air between them, an unspoken mystery that was too strange and too frightening to address directly.
Jacob would cast quick glances at X, his expression a mixture of awe and fear. X, in turn, was consumed by a profound sense of unease.
The power that had surged through him had felt both foreign and deeply familiar, another piece of the puzzle of his identity that raised more questions than it answered.
"The storm has pushed us off course,"
Jacob said finally, breaking the tense silence as he surveyed the new terrain. "The way to The Well is clear from here, but we have to cross the Grinder first."
"The Grinder?" X asked, the name sending a shiver down his spine.
"A deep canyon," Jacob explained, pointing towards a dark slash in the earth a few miles ahead. "The only way across for miles. It's… problematic." The reluctance in his voice was obvious.
"Problematic how?"
"It's not empty," Jacob said grimly. "It's home to the Sand-Worms. They're blind, but they hunt by vibration. The entire canyon floor is their territory. You make one wrong step, one loud noise, and they'll come up from beneath you. They don't just bite. They swallow."
The prospect was terrifying, but there was no alternative. Going around the canyon would add days to their journey, and their water supplies were already running low after the storm.
"How do we cross?" X asked, the practical question a welcome distraction from the turmoil in his own mind.
"Slowly," Jacob said. "And quietly. We stick to the rock, not the sand. We move one at a time, and we pray to whatever gods are left that they're sleeping."
An hour later, they stood at the edge of the Grinder. It was a massive chasm, hundreds of feet deep and nearly a mile across. The canyon floor was a mixture of deep, loose sand and scattered rock outcroppings.
A narrow, treacherous path of stone seemed to wind its way across, a natural bridge that was broken in many places, forcing a traveler to make short, dangerous leaps across patches of sand.
The silence was absolute, a heavy, expectant hush that was more unnerving than the roar of the storm.
"I'll go first," Jacob said, his voice a low whisper. "Watch where I step. Match me exactly. Don't carry anything loose that might fall, and for the love of all that's holy, do not run."
He took a deep breath and stepped onto the first stone of the path. He moved with an incredible lightness for a man his age, his feet seeming to barely touch the ground. He flowed from one rock to the next, his body a study in controlled motion.
X watched, memorizing the route, the rhythm of his steps.
When Jacob was about a quarter of the way across, he paused on a large, stable looking boulder and motioned for X to follow.
X's heart pounded.
This was a test of a different kind, it was not of power or reflex, but of pure nerve and precision. X took a breath and stepped onto the path.
The first few steps were nerve wracking. Every footfall seemed thunderously loud in the oppressive silence. X focused on Jacob's path, placing his feet in the exact same spots, mimicking his fluid, silent movements.
The pendant was a cool weight on his chest, its humming quiescent for now.
They made it halfway across the canyon, moving in a slow, tense leapfrog from one rocky island to the next. The sun beat down, and sweat trickled down X's back.
The silence was a constant strain on the nerves. Then, disaster struck.
As X was preparing to jump a small gap, the edge of the rock he was standing on crumbled. It was a small thing, a handful of pebbles and dust, but in the profound silence of the canyon, the sound of them skittering down onto the sand below was like a gunshot.
The reaction was instantaneous. The sand twenty feet away from X erupted. A colossal, cylindrical maw, lined with concentric rings of crystalline teeth, burst from the ground. It was a Sand-Worm, its pale, segmented body wider than a man. It thrashed blindly, its huge head sweeping back and forth, sensing the vibrations, hunting for the source.
"Don't move!" Jacob hissed from his perch ahead. "Not a muscle!"
X froze, balanced precariously on the edge of the broken rock. The worm was terrifyingly close. The sound it made was a deep, grinding rumble that vibrated up through the soles of X's feet. It swept its head past X's position, missing by mere inches.
The smell was appalling, a stench of decay and hot sand.
As the worm thrashed, its massive body dislodged a larger rock near Jacob's position. The boulder tumbled down the canyon wall, crashing onto the sand with a loud boom.
The worm immediately changed direction, its eyeless head swiveling towards the new, louder sound. It dove back under the sand, the ground swallowing it whole, and a moment later, it erupted again where the boulder had landed, swallowing the rock in its immense, tooth lined gullet.
It was the distraction they needed. "Now!" Jacob yelled. "Move!" X didn't hesitate. With the worm momentarily occupied, X leaped across the gap, landing silently on the next rock. He scrambled forward, fear lending him a desperate speed, moving from stone to stone with a newfound agility.
They reached Jacob's position, heart hammering, breath coming in ragged gasps.
But they weren't safe yet. The first worm's thrashing had acted as a signal. All across the canyon floor, the sand began to stir.
More worms were rising, drawn by the vibrations, turning the canyon floor into a writhing, hungry deathtrap.
There was no more time for caution.
They had to run. "Stay on the rocks!" Jacob shouted, and they bolted, leaping from one outcropping to the next, the path ahead seeming to shrink as the sand around them churned with monstrous life.
It was a desperate, frantic race against a foe that was literally the ground beneath their feet.