Felix woke to a scorching sun upon his face. His hearing was filled with a buzzing sound. Milton jumped from the upper bunk bed, and the voice of Sergeant K. came from the door: Get all your lazy asses up! Felix threw the sheets and… He was back again in the desert.

He groaned. His calves, triceps, biceps, shoulders, and even the buttocks muscles were sending stabbing fits pain. The giant red sun in front of him was roasting him on one side, and the rocks on the other, but he was too tired to get up.

He rose and drank from his flask. He walked as if his clothes had been filled with rocks. Some birds were picking around the carcass of the Monster at the base of the cliff. Felix threw a rock at them, and they flew away, “Shoo! Shoo!”, he said, waving his hands.

“This is mine”.

Climbing down took an eternity. One time his foot slipped, and he was going to smash his skull if he didn’t have a strong grip with his hands. The carcass of the monster was waiting for him, making his mouth watery. It was disgusting, and the rancid smell would have made him puke if it was a normal situation.

He found shelter in the shaded part, which at the time was very narrow, but he couldn’t pull the body, so he had to settle in the sun if he wanted to cook it. Yesterday, he was able to wrestle with him and now he couldn’t even make it budge.

He made a circle with small rocks and dug in the sand a bit with his hands. He walked around until he pulled some yellowish weeds and pieces of dead bark to put into the pit. Now he needed to pull the glass lens out of his right eye and put it against the sun. A small white dot appeared against the weeds, and, as the sun was at the highest, it didn’t take long for small wisps of smoke to come out, and, by blowing on it, a small fire caught up.

Cutting the meat with the knife proved to be difficult, but he managed to get some pieces of meat over the fire. The meat was hard to chew, making his cheeks muscles sore, and his jaw to creak, but if he had some spices it could have had a decent taste.

He was in a desert, without water, but full of creatures ready to jump at his throat. He made it this time, but what will happen the next? Without that cliff, he would have become someone else’s meal, and he still didn’t know how he won that fight up there, if not by luck. He couldn’t even remain here as there was no source of water, and neither a good place to build a shelter.

It was hard to admit that this time he had to hope in something that wasn’t under his control. But if it was for the sake of his survival, he had to do it. He needed to discover what happened to the world at all costs.

Activating radio signal…

Transmitting…

“To the girl who talked before”, he said, his voice was coarse, “I owe you something. For a moment, I believed I wasn’t going to make it, but somehow, I did. But you have to help me again, or I won’t last much.

He repeated his message three times, and nobody answered, but endured, as he knew it wasn’t something recorded before, or she wouldn’t have said It was their night. But after an hour, he took a small break to give another look at his stats:

Rank D Strength 81 Endurance 101 Agility 130 Perception 102 Constitution 90

He’ll need other fifteen years to return as he was before. There wasn’t much he wanted to change about that part of his past, as it was the only one he was satisfied with: he was simply perfect, even if it wasn’t enough to save his country from complete destruction.

Message received! Sender: Unknown…

Felix gasped an opened it.

Go east.

“Why?”, the lights were south.

You have to move. Now. A sandstorm is coming. At east you will find shelter. If you know what Stonehenge is, you’ll find it. If you don’t, well, you’re not smart enough to live. Don’t get swallowed. Don’t try to find another shelter if not the one I tell you.

“Who are you?”;

He received the same message again.

The sky was clear all around, and he zoomed his vision to see farther in the distance. There were some clouds, and there was a light breeze, but there was always some kind of wind at this hour. He didn’t have any other choice than trust her.

Gamma radiation level rising! Alert: gamma radiation can be highly dangerous and potentially fatal. Please avoid being in contact with sources of gamma radiation.

Then it was better to hurry. He put the remaining meat in the bag, be it raw or cooked and kicked sand into the fire, then he poured some water of the little water he found over a piece of the sheet he had cut, and he wrapped it against his head.

His only hope was that the shelter wasn’t too far, as there was no sign of it, only an E marker in front of his face. The sand transitioned to a flat rocky terrain, with a dust layer on top and fissures tracing dull mosaic. As he progressed, more columns of rocks rose from the ground like fingers, raising in number and in height, but nothing resembling Stonehenge.

A distant thunder made him halt and turn on the spot to the far clouds; the wind was moving in his direction. A grey, tall front of clouds appeared out of nowhere, rising upwards in a shape of an anvil. The wind was propelling forward the gravel, carrying an acrid smell of chemicals. Its speed was rising, so the pressure of the atmosphere.

Insects were travelling with him in his direction. Scorpions were going out from their rocks; red ants were going out of the ground, all of them travelling in a row and transporting white bits on their backs. Distant from him, a pack of the creatures he fought the day before was fleeing in a cloud of dust without ever thinking of attacking him.

The scarf around him kept him cool. His parameters, bars and numbers rising or dropping in his field of vision, were getting worse. He had never risked his life so much, he wasn’t ready, he still needed two years to graduate.

The sun disappeared. The wind from warm became icy, and he started to shake when he had been sweating for the whole time. The ground was vibrating, making small pebbles jump from the ground. A light flashed behind him and the thunder followed, this time so loud to make him gasp.

He turned to find a dark wave pursuing him, tall to cover the sun. The darkness was so thick it was impossible to see what was inside. Black dust particles were falling on the ground and on top of him. They left a burning sensation on the top of his hand, leaving a small dot.

The HUD flashed in red, and a triangle appeared in the center of his vision:

Alert! Alert! Radiological hazard detected: leave the area immediately!

He was running as fast as he can, with the strong wind pushing him forward, but the space between him and the edge of the shadow side was getting thinner.

A circle of stone pillars appeared in the already foggy air. They rose in couples, with a horizontal one on top, making an arch; in the center there was one slimmer but three times taller than the rest. He wasn’t a genius, but this must be the place he had been looking for.

A sharp pain came from his left side, making him bend in pain. Going under one of the stone arches, he was rather hopping than running, holding his left side. He collided against a stone lying flat on the ground; stumbled but regained balance. The sound of the cloud was vibrating through his bones, making his eyelids twitch, and his lips tremble.

Error…Error…

The writings on the screen were shaking, and patches of red, green and blue squares appeared on the screen.

SHUTTING DOWN in…

Scrambled letters were moving left to right, and with the patches it was very difficult to see. A hatch opened in front of him. The inside was dark, and the only visible thing was the hand grabbing and pulling his ankle down.