There is a time on the wrong side of dreams, where the great River of Fire runs aflame as the sky weeps the stars. In this world, there is no one with the strength to forgive, and thus constant destruction rains upon the land. The inhabitants, of which I am one, beg for the rain to cool their tongues and quench their thirst, but it only rains boiling water and fire. And since we still need to drink as we are cursed to prolong our miserable lives, our souls burn with the fire we are given, the rain from the skies, the cries of the innocent, the tears of fire.

There is nothing in this land but death, yet it is a living death, for it is a death with an unknown end. We pray for an end that never comes, and honor and righteousness prohibit us from ending it at our own hands. This is not the land of the damned as far as I can tell, but it is in an unknown place and time, and I can see not the beginning nor the end.

Every time it seems there is a lull in the terror falling from the sky, the boiling rain during the day, and the flames of the stars falling at night recommence. The fiery storms, the bubbling River of Fire, and the subsequent cries that are not heard by other worlds always return. And all escape routes seem blocked; the world is a vast world with no end, and every journey into the atmosphere is thwarted by a vicious gravity that returns its victims to the world’s hellish surface.

I dwell here because I have no choice. This is the land in which I have always remembered being in, and dare I say this is the land in which I will die. I have all the same struggles of your world and more. I am a veteran of near death and wanton destruction. But in my world, there are no medals, no parades, no support groups, no affection, no kindness, and no empathy. There is only torture, destruction, and despair.

I live in a hut along the River of Fire, across from the Great Ruined City, as it is known. Its true and original name means nothing now because it is long forgotten. Its only greatness now is in the size of its population and the rumored hidden knowledge within its vast area, the only way it awes is through the magnitude of its ruin and the cruelty of most of its denizens. Gangs and wild, rabid animals roam through the sections of abandoned buildings that dot much of its outskirts, and I cannot say which group is crueler but that both groups are exceptionally cruel. For neither the gangs of vagabonds or the wild animals have any shred of decency or empathy left, and both will tear a man, woman, or child apart but for a trinket that would melt in a minute in the nearby River of Fire.

Many cry to the heavens for help, but it as if we were forgotten or ignored for so far, no response has come to our pleas. I am not sure if it was some sin in a past life that caused me and my brethren to live in this hellish world, with the orange sky in the day and the moon in the shape of an excited bright brown eye at night. But sin or no sin, fault or no fault, we trek across the dusty land and live off the grass of the barren soil from which grows mostly weeds. How we even survive is my greatest question. Why am I here in this world and what is my purpose in it?

For my skills are muted by the terrifying spasms that grip me at times, which I cannot predict. I try to make great machines; I have wonderful designs in my mind, but every time I start to build, I get a great attack of spasms. It is as if something or someone does not want me to build a machine to escape. It is as if they want me to cease and instead stay here and experience the terrors of our world for some unknown purpose.

As I sat there in my humble abode, I stared out the sole window of my lonely hut. Through the space, I could see the Pond of Reflection, a small body of water on the opposite side of my hut from the River of Fire. I could see now the pond was calm, with cool and calm water, the only thing cool and calm in this fiery landscape. But it was not always this way. At times when I stood on its shore or gazed out through my window, it would boil violently, reflecting the same intensity as the fire in my own eyes.

That day though, the waters were still. It was as good a time as any to work on my latest creation, my latest ploy for escape. I opened the hatch in the floor of the hut and crawled down the ladder to the basement below. There, though dark, smelly, and dank, was the safest place in a world of violence. I pulled the string hanging down from the ceiling and the light from the solitary bulb was all I had to work with. It wasn’t much. Power companies had long stopped their operation, and the small generator I owned was powered only with the gas I could scrounge or steal.

Yet some light was better than no light at all, and the light that was there revealed the work I had done. It didn’t match at all the glory and ambitions of my design. It was a roughshod physical rambling of random parts, consisting of beams, screws, nails, gears, microchips, and a small experimental engine made up of random materials to be found in the heaps of junk that laid throughout the wasteland. I didn’t know what it did; I didn’t even know what I wanted it to do. I thought that in the process of building I would be sparked with brilliant new ideas that would help me build a machine to either alter time or space or somehow blast me past the grip of gravity. As of then, the only functional requirements the machine met were those of a modern art sculpture.

I walked over to my workbench and saw the pile of blueprints stacked upon the top and the other bunch of blueprints crumpled in the waste basket to the side. For years I had been hoping to find the perfect design, yet pure perfection eluded me whenever I started to reach into my toolbox and begin to put parts together. Perhaps perfection is the pursuit of the fool, I thought, as it wasn’t truly attainable, like an asymptotic curve approaching a limit it could never reach.

Fools are anything but inconsistent in their foolishness though, and I was one determinedly persistent fool. I looked at the machine and other than a complete lack of proper planning and misguided dogged determination; I saw a lack of materials. It was worth a trip to the junk heap to pick up some fresh supplies.

I grabbed my backpack in the corner and climbed back up the ladder to my small one-room hut. Knowing that the air outside was not completely pure, I decided it best to strap on up with oxygen. I grabbed the small tank and attached it to my back while strapping the attached nasal pillow to my face.

That would not be the only protection I would need, though. The wastes were a lawless and dangerous mix of wild beasts and marauding human beings. Beast, man, woman, or child were not immune to the temptations of violent evil. In the corner, I picked up my sonic blaster. It was a large gun that required two hands and would fire a loud sonic burst that would not kill but certainly disable anything in its path. I, the firer, was not totally immune to the sound even with the large headphones I wore, as my declining hearing would attest. But declining hearing was better than being chewed apart by wild bears or being captured and sold as a slave in the markets of the Great Ruined City.

I fitted the strap of the gun over my shoulder, adjusted the oxygen tank, and stepped outside. The harsh air caused my eyes to water, and I dried away the atmosphere-induced tears with a wipe of my hand. Breathing lightly through the mask, I stopped by the Pond of Reflection to see myself backed by the orange evening sky. I was tall and broad-shouldered, but the years had taken their toll and I had become wide with a gut as well. The dark, wavy hair now had hints of gray. The jeans, sneakers, and plain t-shirt were as worn and tired as I was. And in my brown eyes, it looked as if the constant spasms had sucked the fire right out of them. As I rubbed the stubble on my almost clean-shaven chin. I looked out into the Pond of Reflection and detected hardly any life at all.

I began to walk out upon the dusty path to the junk heap. It would be several hours’ journey on foot. Few if any had any vehicles, and even if they did, the fuel was hard to come by and better used for a home generator than wheels when you had two legs. As I walked out onto the barely beaten path through the hellish landscape, I noticed green mists gather together into low clouds in the blazing orange sky and braced myself.

No one knew exactly what they were, other than that they were green, elsewise looked like ordinary clouds, and were extremely dangerous. Dubbed the Virus Mists, it wasn’t clear if they were organisms or not, but these clouds moved as if they had a free will, striking with lightning those down below. After a hit, the mist would descend, and after a few screams the mist would disperse and the victim would be gone.

That was one way of escape, I thought, as I noticed the mist move toward me. I could just let the mists come down and devour me, and for a few moments, I seriously considered this course of action. Yet there was an instinct within me that drove me to want to survive. At one time I wanted to die and be free of the hellish world in which I dwelt once and for all, while at the same time I struggled with every ounce of my being to barely survive in this fruitless wasteland. That alone was its own struggle that ripped my psyche apart. If only I had the strength and the energy to plot and scheme my way out, I would at last be free. Yet until that day that I never saw coming, it was a daily sprint to get back to the starting line.

As I pondered my fate, the mist started moving more swiftly toward me. I’d had enough of my nonsense and resolved to fight. At least it would be a break from the terrifying doubt. The clouds accelerated toward me and started firing lightning bolts randomly and violently to the ground. Two strikes came near me, and twice I quickly rolled out of the way. I found myself behind a boulder on the side of the path and readied my sonic blaster. A quick lightning strike came down and blasted the boulder into pebbles. With a quick and determined motion, I fired a sonic blast into the sky.

The vibrating sound waves spread up through the air with a loud boom. At the time determined by the speed of sound, the waves reached the green clouds, and the clouds had no chance. The mists dispersed in every direction and where once a low flying, puffy green cloud was there was now the clear, fiery orange sky.

I exhaled and picked up one of the pebbles that had been blasted from the rock. It was hot to touch, and, treating it like a hot potato, I threw it into my backpack. Grennus at the junkyard, an amateur scientist if I ever knew one, had a fascination for any of the things touched by the mists and would surely be interested. It would be a useful trading chip.

I got back on my way and started walking north up the path on the east side of the River of Fire. I kept going until my hut to the south was beyond the horizon. There were no manmade structures to be seen, save for the tall, ruined skyscrapers of the city across the river to the west. There were no trees and hardly any vegetation, save for a few blades of brown grass and a bush here or there that maybe had a few dying leaves. Still, it became hard to see too far into the distance, as visibility lowered due to the rather thick clouds of fog that began to cling to the ground in pockets. It was often hard to tell which mists were ready to strike you, and which were relatively harmless gases, but the rule was to always be on your guard. If you saw green mists gathering together relatively high in the sky and moving through space in a haphazard fashion and starting to descend, you knew you were in danger. The thick fogs that clumped together close to the ground you could wade through relatively harmlessly; still, you never knew what other dangers lurked beyond the line of sight.

That is why you had to use all your senses. As I trudged through the soup, I could hear the cries and moans of nearby beasts. A careless man would be a dead man soon enough, so being cautious and alert was always the required norm. At any moment, a beast could leap from the fog and knock you to the ground. Fortunately, the beasts were not that bright. The most dangerous animals were the humans themselves.

Cunning and cruel, the marauding bands of people known as the Ravagers preyed upon other people, killing and taking whatever they could find. The women were as cruel, if not crueler, than the men; and both women and men raised their children in the ruthless art of raiding. They rode on the backs of two-legged raptors with an electrified lance as their main weapon. And once they defeated you, it was almost better to be killed than to be sold into a life of slavery.

The slavery in this world was not based on any kind of race, ideology, ethnicity, or political allegiance. It was based simply on the strong overpowering the weak, the lucky taking advantage of the unlucky. There was no built-in religious, social, ideological, or moral justification for a person taking advantage of and owning another. In this lawless world of no empathy, none was needed.

I pressed on, hoping to reach the junk heap before nightfall. There I could take a rest and then make my way back. I looked up through the breaks in the fog to the orange sky, and I could see the yellow sun was setting beneath the horizon. I had to make good time, for as dangerous as the roads were during the day, they were even more of a peril at night. Even in the day, there were hardly any markers to guide your way, but at night the only guides were the stars and the light that reflected off the ever-watching eye that hung above.

I was about halfway there when I felt a drop upon my head and a feeling of terror shoot through my bones. The rain was the deadliest thing in the entire world, but at least it would give you a warning. In this world all rain was colloquially called “fire”, but during the daylight, it would start as lukewarm water. As soon as I felt the drops of water fall on my head, I began to scramble and search for shelter. Soon the raindrops became hotter, and in panic, I began praying to the heavens for safety. As the water falling from the sky grew in intensity, I at last found a cave I could hide in. The raindrops went from hot to boiling. I sat in the cave nested into a small hillside and muttered to myself, “At least it’s not night.”

I rested with my back against the cave wall and decided to wait out the storm. Not so much out of choice, but necessity. I took a few moments to catch my breath and let my guard down, and even those few moments were a few moments too long.

“Hello, there,” said a voice in a strong accent from right beside me in the darkness of the cave.

In an instant, I whipped my gun around and was ready to fire, until a short man came out of the darkness with his hands up.

“Please, don’t shoot,” he said. “I will not hurt you.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” I replied, finger on the trigger.

The man simply smiled and picked up a bowl on the ground. He brought the bowl to the edge of the cave and laid it outside, so it would fill up with the boiling water.

“Would you like some soup?” the man asked. “I can get you another bowl.”

I looked out into the bowl and saw a mixture of grasses, roots, and other vegetables. Calming down, I put away my weapon.

“Sure, I could use some nutrients for the rest of the way,” I said. “Do you always offer food to people about to kill you?”

The tiny, skinny man with a bald head and dressed in rags turned around to fetch another bowl. I noticed he had no footwear whatsoever and that there were sores on his feet.

“Many of my guests would have killed me and taken all the food for themselves,” the man simply avoided my question. “Besides, many say it is better to die and leave this world than live in it.”

The man picked up another bowl of vegetables and put it out into the boiling rain. “Sometimes, I think they may be right,” I said to my host. “Where do you get the food?” I asked. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things don’t exactly grow well here.”

“There’s fertile ground deep within the cave,” the man said. “That is where I grow my food and then bring it out into the light to cook.”

“Seems clever,” I said. “I guess you have to do what you have to do to survive.”

“Yes, of course. Dinner’s ready,” the man said as he reached out to grab the bowls. As he handed me one, he said, “I shouldn’t have to tell you that it’s hot. Here’s a spoon.”

I took the spoon and began to eat. The tiny man sat against the opposite wall of the cave cross-legged and slipped the soup into his mouth.

“This is very good,” I told him. “I haven’t had anything like this in a long time.”

“No, you haven’t,” the man said with a sad look in his eyes.

Confused, I focused on the man’s lack of shoes. “Did you lose your sneakers?” I asked. “You look like you’re in pain.”

“I am in pain,” the man said, “but not for the reasons you think. I am lonely. I rarely get visitors as I am off the beaten path.”

“You’ve been kind to me,” I said, “even after I pointed a gun in your face. I’m going to the junk heap. I might be able to get you some shoes there. Would you like that?”

“Will you come back?” the old man asked.

I nodded in the affirmative and said, “Yes,” but I could sense that the old man seemed to doubt me.

Still, he smiled and said, “Just that you would come back and remember me would mean the world to me. Would you like to come into the cave to where I have my garden? There is much there to taste and see.”

I tasted the last of my soup and saw the rain let up. The soup was delicious, but I really needed to be going. “Thank you, but I should be going. I should get to the junk heap before dark.”

The man simply smiled as we both arose. “Very well. Thank you for the company. And for not slaughtering me.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “You didn’t deserve that. But this is a dangerous place, and I always have to be careful. Thank you very much for the hospitality.”

“You are very welcome,” the small man said. “Best wishes on your journey.”

I turned and reflected on the man’s words. I surely hoped a routine visit to the junkyard wouldn’t turn into some sort of epic journey. I turned back to wave goodbye to the man, but mist had come to cover the cave, and I moved on.

***

I came upon the camps as dusk was settling upon the day, and with the fog now gone I could see the smoke from their fires rising into the darkening sky. All around the massive junk heap that rose high into the sky, clusters of people gathered together to converse and trade. Some ventured onto the heap of not so valuable valuables to seek the random materials they needed, while others sought to obtain what they desired through exchange.

I could usually find Grennus on the east side of the heap. He generally did the crawling through the massive array of throwaway treasures for me, and I brought him tokens to trade, but sometimes I did go up the hill myself. As I walked closer to the camps around the heap, I began to hear the din of chatter and smell the fumes mixed in with the rusted metal. There were people of all shapes and sizes, speaking a multitude of languages, many I could not understand. Still, a universal, unspoken language of nods, hand gestures, and facial expressions all helped people communicate. I always liked my visits to the heap, not so much for the random material I could acquire, but for the electrical buzz that I felt flood my veins as I walked through the arguing, the laughter, the whispering, and even the mundane chatting. All the smells and sounds mixed into something spectacular for the senses, a bonus even if your goods of choice could not be found.

“Hello, Grennus,” I said as I walked up to a humble looking table that displayed all the trinkets Grennus had for sale.

“Hello,” Grennus said from behind the table, stroking his gray beard. He was an aging man of medium build, with salt-pepper gray hair, glasses, and a thick gray beard. Seemingly always cold, he wore a flannel shirt atop corduroy jeans. “What have you brought for me, today?” he asked.

I reached into my backpack and took out the stone that had been struck by lightning. As soon as I took it out, I was taken aback, for somehow it seemed heavier and of greater volume. I had to double check my senses to make sure they were all functioning, and I hadn’t accidentally inhaled the fumes of one of the nearby “herbal teas”.

“Is everything all right?” Grennus asked in his always stoic tone.

“Yes,” I said, “it’s just, you know those green clouds that move randomly and strike with lighting?” I asked.

“Ah, yes, the Virus Mists,” Grennus said.

“Well, one attacked me earlier and struck this stone,” I continued. “But that was a few hours ago. Then, this stone was hardly more than a pebble, but now it’s larger and feels heavier in my hands.”

“Fascinating,” Grennus said as he leaned forward to look at the stone in my hand. “It doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It looks like just a random rock. Do you mind if I take a look at it under the microscope?”

I hesitated at first, then let Grennus take the stone. “Do you think it’s worth something?” I asked.

Grennus placed the rock under his microscope and began to examine it. “It’s certainly worth something to me,” he said. “As you know, I’m fascinated by those clouds.”

“I know,” I said. “But I don’t know why.”

Grennus looked up from his scope. “Because they may be the key to other worlds,” he said. “Haven’t you noticed that they seem to have a will of their own? Yet they are not like ordinary beasts. I think that something, or someone, sent them here. Something or someone from another world.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why would someone do that?”

“I have no idea,” Grennus said. “You’d have to get to that other world to find out. Speaking of which, how is that machine of yours coming?”

I sighed. “Why do you think I’m here? I’m running out of parts.”

“Might want to get a good design going first,” Grennus said. “You’ve torn down and started over so many times.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But every time I do, I learn something new and come up with a better design. I really think this time I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.”

Grennus smiled a slight smile that was barely visible through his beard. “Well, you certainly brought an interesting item. I can’t tell much from my tools here, but if you’re not telling a tall tale, it’s something worth studying. I’d like to bring it back to my lab. Why don’t you take a pick of what I have in stock?”

“Seems like a fair exchange,” I said as I eyed the trinkets and other wares on Grennus’ display. As I scanned the items, I saw a small glittering crystal and picked it up.

“This could be useful in my machine,” I said. “I could use it as a way to manipulate light. What do you say, Grennus? One big, plain rock touched by another world for a smaller, shiny rock?”

Grennus smiled and nodded as I placed the crystal into my backpack. I was about to go look up on the junk heap when I noticed the sky had turned to night. The only light was from the surrounding fires, the eye-moon, and the stars above. As I stopped to turn around, I felt the ground begin to shake and a feeling of terror fill my being as a cry shrieked out.

“The Ravagers!” a man running in from the horizon screamed. “Run! It’s the Ravagers!”

I gazed out into the darkness and heard the slow-rolling thunder of a large number of legs pummeling the ground. A cloud of dust rose from the earth that was illuminated by the light reflected off the eye-moon above. Emerging from the cloud was a half-naked man covered in tattoos, riding on the back of a raptor that stood on its hind legs. In his right hand he carried a lance, and being so far the lone harbinger of infinite death, rode up to the messenger that was futilely trying to escape. Before I had a chance to react, the man on lizard-back caught up to the messenger, halted his beast, and with right arm high, thrust his lance down into the poor man’s back. It was an electric lance, and I could see the electric waves travel across the length of the lance until they consumed the man who had warned us of danger. He laid writhing on his back, screaming in pain, until with one last gasp, he expired.

“Run!” I shouted to Grennus as I knew many more were coming. But the damn fool kept collecting all his belongings, making sure he did not lose a thing, instead of making sure he did not lose his life.

I kicked over Grennus’ table, sending his belongings flying, and used it for cover. Readying my sonic blaster, I told Grennus to cover his ears as he wasn’t wearing the same ear protection I was. He wasn’t listening though as he raced out in front of the cover I had created to collect the few things that had fallen from the table.

“Get down!” I shouted from behind the table and Grennus ducked. It was hard to miss me as I stood and fired my blaster in the direction of the charging raptor-warrior combination. The blast echoed across the plain from the junk heap, and the broad burst knocked the raptor over and the warrior off his mount.

While they were disabled, I raced in front of the table to grab Grennus, who was on the ground covering his ears. I tried to drag Grennus back to cover as he held his sack of valuables in one hand and reached forward with the other. I had to work hard to fight him and using all my muscle threw him behind the table and pinned him down.

“You’ve got enough, Grennus!” I shouted as I heard the screams of people behind us retreating. “We need to head back!”

“You don’t understand!” he protested. “The stone! I need the stone!”

I looked out onto the plain and saw the rock I had traded Grennus, the one struck by lightning. “Are you crazy? It’s just a stupid rock! Here, I’ll even give you the crystal back. Happy?” Quickly I removed the crystal from my backpack and placed it in Grennus’ hands.

“But...” he began to protest.

“No buts!” I shouted. “Look!” The thundering stampede had become audibly closer. I lifted Grennus over the rather inadequate cover to show him one lone rider had become a horde. As much as one could see in the light of the eye-moon, stars, and fires from the camps, the horizon was full of warriors on raptors’ backs rapidly approaching. They all wore little clothing, were covered in decorative tattoos, and held deadly electric lances.

“We need to go find a place to hide or maybe a convoy,” I said. “We need to go now!”

With all my strength, I grabbed Grennus and started to retreat, dragging him in the direction of the junk heap. My grip, though determined, was loose, and Grennus slipped from my grasp. Like a wanton fool, he ran out onto the plain in the direction of the stone. These moments would be his last, as right before he reached the stone a warrior riding a lizard struck him down with a lance. Grennus, on his knees with a lance in his heart, cried out, and then fell to the ground, in his last breath reaching for the stone that was just out of his grasp.

Ignoring the tumult around me, not caring if I was struck down as well, I fell to my knees behind the cover of the table. My spirits sank low, and a mix of fury and despair filled my being. I had no friends, only acquaintances, but if I could claim a friend, Grennus would have been the only one. It felt like by losing one person; I lost everyone in the world. As I cowered behind the turned-over table, I almost hoped that one of the marauders would strike me down if they cared to.

It didn’t matter though, for it was about to rain, and rain fire.

Rain in the day was bad enough, but the rain at night was a different and more intimidating spectacle. The ground shook so hard that the sound of the quake dwarfed the sound of the stampeding lizards as they threw their warriors to the ground. The sky shook as well, and the stars seemed to vibrate. Refugee and warrior were alike in terror as they looked up at the heavens and started to see the stars melt into a multitude of raindrops of fire.

“Fire rain!” One of the warriors shouted as all started to flee away in every direction or desperately seek shelter. I did not though, as I got up and slowly walked over to Grennus’ lifeless body, my heart sunk. As I kneeled next to him still stretched out for his unobtainable goal, that stupid rock, the fire rain from the stars began to pound the ground ferociously. The wild beasts that had brought the warriors cried out and fled. It was every living thing for itself, and not all made it. Some were doused by the rain and consumed by fire, living their last moments in terrifying pain. The fire was indiscriminate, it cared not for trader, beast, or warrior, though I was not touched.

I did not even care as I knelt beside my lost friend. He had traded his life to seek some useless treasure and ended up losing both. I shook my head in disbelief and then let out a sigh as a feeling of acceptance came over me. I looked up and the rain of fire had stopped. The area all around me had become quiet and uninhabited.

I rose to my feet to assess the carnage, but as I did, I picked up the stone Grennus had given his life for. Even though it looked to me like an ordinary rock, Grennus had seen enough value in it to risk his life, and I wanted to know why. At the very least, it would serve as a memento to him, I thought as I put the rock into my backpack.

***

Silently and slowly, I walked over to the base of the junk heap to find a shovel. The chaos of the Ravagers and the fire rain had subsided, and all I could hear were the crickets chirping in the summer night. Every living thing had fled or laid dead, and I had to step around a few corpses—traders, warriors, and animals alike—to find my way. I reached the base of the heap and started climbing. It wasn’t long before I found something suitable for digging a hole in the ground. Shovel in hand and all my gear equipped, I walked over to where Grennus had drawn his last breath.

Grennus had no home or will that I knew of. Even if I buried him in the wrong place, I resolved to not let him remain to be torn apart by the lustful hunger of wild beasts. There he would lay without marker as most in this world did, but at least he would not be left to the random whims of the wild. For an hour I dug a hole to fit the man, and when I was doing so, I did not feel sad, for my task was not yet complete. But when I finished and wiped my brow from the sweat, I looked over as Grennus laid still and I had to fight back tears.

I looked, and the crystal I had given to Grennus was in his front shirt pocket. Through the sadness, I smiled, leaned down, and patted the pocket.

“Seems fair. One shiny, small rock for you, one larger dull rock for me,” I said as I realized we both kept what we had brought. I leaned down, and lifting with my knees, lifted Grennus into the hole I had created.

As I laid him down in his final resting place, I saw the shiny crystal sticking up out of his front pocket and smiled. Yet I was given no more time to reflect, as I felt cold-hard steel on the back of my neck.

“We shall take that for you,” a cold-hearted voice said from behind.

Another man, skinny and dressed in no better than rags, walked ahead to reach into Grennus’ grave. Not even thinking of the death trap that laid behind me, I quickly readied my sonic blaster. The man from behind was too slow to react, and I was ready to fire a loud blast to prevent them from robbing Grennus’ newly dug grave. Yet just as I was about to pull the trigger, I felt the sudden surge of a terrifying spasm in my chest.

They were not heart attacks, but they seemed just as disabling. When they happened, I could do nothing, and confusion reigned supreme. Temporarily crippled, I lost feeling in my hands and dropped my gun. As I fell to my knees, I tried to let out a shout of pain but could only let out a whimper. I was reduced to nothing, but a writhing mass huddled in a fetal position on the ground.

Hearty laughter came out from the men around me, who I could barely see against the night sky through my blurry vision.

“What a pathetic display!” the man who pointed a gun at me shouted in laughter. He wore what looked like a brown tunic, as if he was a friar on some unholy mission.

The man who had managed to remove the crystal from Grennus’ grave brought the crystal to a tall man who stood at the side of him who held the gun to my face. I assumed he was the leader as he wore a military uniform that looked as if he had torn it from a dead man.

“Nothing else of value in the grave, Corande,” the skinny grave robber told the leader of the band.

“Except for Grennus’ body,” I muttered with difficulty.

“His body is worth nothing to us now,” said the leader, Corande. “It will return to the earth from whence he came. Sviga, collect his things.”

Sviga came over and picked up my blaster, took the headphones off my head, and brought all this and the backpack I carried to Corande, as the third man kept steady with a gun pointed between my eyes. Thankfully, Sviga had decided to let me keep my oxygen tank and mask so that I could breathe easier, but I had my doubts that the gesture was in any way altruistic.

“What are you guys, grave-robbers?” I asked.

As Sviga gave my items to Corande, the man with the gun smiled. “grave-robbers, thieves, vultures, slave traders, whatever is more profitable.”

“Corvacha speaks true,” Corande said. “Your valuables are worthless to us,” he said as he threw my backpack back at me. “You can carry your worthless rock. However, you, you are feisty. We will get a good price for you.”

Corvacha reached down and offered his hand. My spasm ended. He pulled me up and offered my backpack. As he smiled, he said, “Just remember, we are not your friends.”

As I straightened myself up, I said. “I guess this is why you aren’t giving me my weapons back.”

Corande walked up to me, and in a cold and unfeeling voice, said, “One does not give cattle weapons as they lead them to the slaughter. As such, one doesn’t give slaves their guns back on their way to slavery.”

“How would cattle hold a weapon?” I asked, the contempt barely disguised in my voice.

For that I received s strong slap across the face from Corande. “You will be silent,” he said, “until we cross the River of Fire and reach the Great Ruined City. There your insolence may fetch a high price. Some masters like their slaves to be strong and wild, as long as they can tame them.”

Obeying, I kept silent as the three slavers looked at me. “Good, that’s better,” Corande said. “Now come with us. As always, I shall lead.”

With Corvacha’s gun at my hip and the backpack on my back, I followed Sviga and Corande to the west toward the River of Fire. I took a good look at the mostly empty plains around us that were illuminated by starlight and light from the ever-watching eye above, and as I did, I felt a sinking feeling that I might not see this side of the river for a long, long time.