Jack was panting. Hard. The landscape in front of him was barren and dry. Everywhere he looked there was sand. Bright, blinding, orange sand.

He looked to the sky and saw that the sun was in line. This was the spot. He dropped to the ground and began to dig. His hands plunged into the earth and the heat immediately blistered them. He kept going.

It took all his warrior strength to keep going. There was no progress; he was getting nothing done. His fingers scooped out a hole, but it kept re-filling, the grains slipping through his clenched fist.

There was nothing that he could do. His strength had no jurisdiction, here. His training and his sword and his finely honed muscles couldn't help him. He was going to fail. He looked back behind him, panicked.

The sun was already beginning to set, the dunes casting longer and longer shadows. They were like fingers, reaching for him. "You will fail this test." They whispered to him. "You cannot win, and all will be lost. You should have listened, and now you cannot succeed."

"NO!" He screamed, his hands burning and still digging frantically, while the seductive voices from behind him tried to pull him away. He began to bleed, the course sand rubbing his fingers raw.

It would be easy, God it would be so easy to just stop, to give his aching hands a break, let the rapidly cooling winds push him backwards to the shelter of the shadows. Or he could keep working like a crazed man, which is what he was. He looked again at the sky.

Those were his options. Keep trying, or turn into the dark embrace always lurking over his shoulders. He shook his head and the sweat out of his eyes. He was hurting and he was tired and he didn't even know what he was fighting for, but he had to keep on.

A chill settled over him and he knew it was over. His chest heaved, trying hard to pull oxygen into his overworked lungs. His hands stilled and he pulled them up to his face. They were blistered and there was gritty filth in his wounds. The hills behind him laughed outright.

When he looked out ahead of him, he knew that there was no way that he could keep going. Not now. Not after this. He turned around. This was the only way left. He lifted his chin and walked proudly, stubbornly into his fate, fading into the shadows.