Chapter seven
I awoke face down on what felt like sand. My body felt numb, but within a few heartbeats I was able to stand up. Realizing it was sand; I tried to shake most of it off my pants. Given there was very little on me, it was clear I had not been here for long. I decided to take one good look around, but noticed that would not take very long. On all angles a seemingly never-ending sea of dunes surrounded me. The sun was already setting and a sense of dread was beginning to sink in.
It took me a little bit of time to grasp the severity of the situation. Somehow I had appeared in the middle of a dessert and there was no visible way out. I then remembered that Alexandra had stuck by during the computer chat.
"Alex!", I yelled, wondering if she was in the same area, "Alex!"
"Stop yelling, idiot", I heard from behind, "and it's Alexandra"
I sighed in relief, at least I had someone, but frankly I was not too happy with the person whom I'd spend my time with.
I looked around once more, almost as if it was a confirmation of my surroundings and then said:
"Any idea where we are?"
"No…but I think we are in Africa", she said, lacking the sarcastic edge I had grown used to.
"Why Africa?"
"Isn't it obvious? This place looks exactly like the Sahara desert, and it looks like we are right in the middle", she said, this time regaining her hostile tone.
I gave a nod of agreement, but was not truly convinced, yet for the time being it was best to leave it at that. I proceeded to check my pockets, hoping that I had been carrying something useful. My cell phone was in my pocket and quickly took it out, only to find it out of battery. When placing it back into my pocket I felt the distinct sensation of cold metal. I lifted my shirt slightly to find the metal device clipped onto my belt. I unhooked it and inspected it, but realized it did not seem to have any power either. Beside me, Alex was also checking her inventory, and arriving to the same conclusions.
"Now what? Fuck, it's getting darker.", she said in an aggravated tone. Almost on queue I noticed a figure was standing in a distance to the south.
"Look over there, I stated, pointing in the direction of the figure, "See it?"
"Yeah I see it"
"I think we should head that way"
With that we began marching toward the figure, the darkness making it seem like a sort of blotch. Suddenly we stopped as we saw a large blue orb form in front of the figure. It seemed to grow; we realized it was not expanding, but darting towards us. We ducked for cover behind a nearby dune and saw an energy ball fly above us and crash down on the ground we once stood on.
With both interest and dread I peeked my head out of the dune, and was horrified by what I saw.
Blood is not a common phenomena in the digital world, but injuries are. As an example, if a limb were cut off, it would merely disintegrate, with the remains displaying red particles disintegrating at a much slower rate.
