Page 2 of Deserted

Not down. Not up. There was no direction, no orientation, just the sensation of being stretched and compressed simultaneously, my body pulled apart at the atomic level and then slammed back together. Colors that had no name streaked past me, smearing across my vision like wet paint. The universe turned inside out, revealing its machinery—gears and cogs and impossible geometry that my human brain couldn’t process.

Time collapsed. Expanded. Folded in on itself.

I tasted copper. Smelled ozone. Felt my cells vibrate at frequencies that threatened to shake me apart.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

Tumbling, weightless, through a tunnel of burning light. I hit something—soft and sharp at the same time—and then heat slammed into me like a fist. Not Earth heat. Not even Sahara heat. This was wrong. Oppressive. Alive.

The sand here burned like fire. The air scraped my throat with every breath.

Two suns blazed overhead. No clouds. No shadows. No landmarks. Just dunes and a shimmering horizon and a sudden, deep, nauseating certainty.

I wasn’t on Earth anymore.

The realization hit me like a physical blow, driving me to my knees. My stomach heaved, but nothing came up—just dry, painful retches that left me gasping. My ears popped, adjusting to the pressure change. My skin prickled with sweat that evaporated instantly in the brutal heat.

This couldn’t be happening. Time travel, maybe. Hallucination, probably. But another planet? That was the stuff of bad sci-fi movies, not real life. Not my life.

And yet.

Two suns. Two fucking suns hanging in an alien sky that wasn’t quite the right shade of blue—more teal than azure, deeper and more intense than Earth’s atmosphere. No moon. No familiar constellations. Just vast, unforgiving space stretching above me like a cosmic joke at my expense.

“This isn’t real,” I wheezed, my voice sounding strange in the thinner air. “This is a heat stroke dream. Or someone drugged me. Or?—”

My pack was still on my back, heavier now in what felt like slightly stronger gravity. I fumbled for my satellite phone, though I already knew it was useless. No satellites here to connect to. No cell towers. No internet. No nothing.

I was alone in a way humans had never been alone before.

I staggered forward. My boots sank in the sand. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My skin was boiling inside my clothes. I tried to think. Tried to record something, say something, but my vision blurred and the buzzing in my ears turned to a roar.

The heat was overwhelming, crushing down on me like a vise. Each breath felt like inhaling fire. I’d survived a war zone in Syria, an earthquake in Nepal, and a hurricane in Puerto Rico. I’d stared down gun barrels and corrupt officials and competed with media sharks for the best shots. But this—this was different. This was beyond human endurance.

My GoCam was still recording, its little green light a steady pulse against the overwhelming orange-gold of this alien desert. Would anyone ever see the footage? Would anyone even look for me when I didn’t return?

I had no family waiting for my call. No boyfriend expecting me home. Just an editor who’d want to know why I’d missed my deadline, and podcast listeners who would assume I’d finally given up the ghost-hunting gig.

I collapsed to my knees. Then to my side.

The sand burned through my clothes, scorching my skin, but I couldn’t find the strength to move. My heart pounded too fast, then too slow. The world tilted and spun around me, my vision narrowing to a pinprick of consciousness.

And just before darkness swallowed me whole, I saw them.

A pair of eyes—gold, slitted, glowing with something wild and hungry—appearing like twin stars through the haze. They floated above me, disembodied in my fading vision, before resolving into a face that wasn’t human. Couldn’t be human. The angles were wrong, the proportions alien, the skin a burnished copper that reflected the twin suns like metal.

The creature—the person—whatever it was—tilted its head, studying me with predatory intensity. Its mouth moved, forming words I couldn’t hear over the rushing in my ears.

I tried to speak. To move. To do anything but lie there dying on alien sand under alien suns.

But my body had reached its limit.

And then everything went black.

2 /RHAEKAR

The desert didn’t whisper.It screamed. Fine sand hissed against my armor as I crested the dune, scanning the scorched expanse for irregularities. Nothing but fire and memory. Nothing but heat and echoes. This wasteland had killed better Reapers than me—and buried technology that should have never been built. I shouldn’t have been here. This was punishment. Banishment in a tactical uniform. Still, I did what Reapers do. I patrolled.

Twin suns beat down on my shoulders, their combined heat enough to scorch even Rodinian hide. My fur bristled beneath my cooling suit, seeking release from the confines of technology meant to keep me alive in this inferno. House Acinonyx warriors were desert-born, but even we had limits. Two years on this forsaken outpost had taught me mine.

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