In the evening, Hachim stepped out of his tent, dressed in black robes and turban and came to see us with his men. He bent down to Dylan’s level and observed his face in amusement.

“Wake him up, and if he doesn’t, kill him.” He told Esam. My heart thudded in my chest when his attention turned towards me and even with my closed eyes, I could feel his piercing gaze on me. He asked another man to fetch him a bowl of cold water and splashed it on my face. My eyes shot open in shock, and I sat up spluttering and coughing as I scowled at him.

“Are you awake now?” He asked in his cold voice. I  looked at Dylan who was wincing in pain after being kicked in his ribs.

“I admire your courage for stealing from me, but you stole from Hachim and I, Hachim, settle all the old and new scores with my friend and foe alike”. He threatened Dylan who remained unfazed.

“You could’ve killed me back there.” Dylan told him. “Why did you bring us here?” He seethed through his teeth and glared at Hachim who chuckled at him.

“There’s something more interesting for you here than death,” He tapped Dylan’s cheek with his dagger and stood up. “Besides, I like playing with my bait before catching the dragon.”

Hachim turned to Esam and said, “Put these two with the others and give them all something to eat.” Then, his voice became even dangerously low when he said,” I don’t want any of them to die before tomorrow ‘s hunt.”

“What does he mean by it?” I asked Dylan after hearing his words. “Where is he taking us?”

“He’s going to use us as a bait to catch something in the desert.” Dylan answered.

“Stop talking !” Two men pulled us apart and dragged us to the tent where the other hostages were detained. I sat up with other women but did not engage in a talk with them.

Dylan led me to that gambling house and deliberately created the ruckus to see Hachim and get the dagger from him which he needed to deal with something in the desert. Hachim had also brought hostages to the desert as a bait to catch something. If I wasn’t wrong, the dagger was crucial in catching that thing, but what was it? The interaction between Hachim and Dylan showed that it wasn’t their first meeting. Dylan might have been here before, but this time he came for Hachim.

As I thought about it, I questioned whether it was all part of Dylan’s plan, and he intentionally got caught to come to the desert.

I shuddered and looked over at Dylan in fear, as I realized that I could trust no one, not even him, but myself in the desert.

 Travelers Of Night

The Night befell, and the moon rose high in the starlit sky of the boundless Saharan Desert. Torches were lit, and a campfire was made in the middle near the tents. Hachim was resting in his tent whereas, his men grilled lamb and ate to their fill laughing and drinking. One of the guards came to us with food and gave us flatbread and water to fill our empty stomachs. We took the food from his hands and distributed it evenly among ourselves to eat. A young boy sitting next to me was watching the others eat after finishing his. Seeing him still hungry after eating, I gave him half of my bread to eat as well.

Everyone was talking about their fate, when that boy tried to ease the tension among the group.

“There’s a tale in One Thousand and One Nights about The Travelers Of the Desert.” 

His name was Kasim. He’s thirteen, lean and frail, olive skinned and had light curls in his hair that fell to his small neck. Seeing us intrigued, he continued.

“It is said that whenever there is a group of travelers in the desert, there is a third entity with them that leads them astray from their path.”

“Are you trying to scare us!” The woman in her fifties scolded him.

“I’m only saying what I have heard.” Kasim defended himself.

“What happened in the story?” I asked Kasim, aware of the fact that the boy was scared and only wanted to kill his time through conversation. He was an orphan who lived off the streets through stealing and was caught by one of Hachim’s men when he tried to steal from them.

“The travelers lost their way in the desert and realized that there must be a djinn among them who made them go in circles. There were eleven of them but couldn’t find the twelfth one, or they were originally ten, and he was the eleventh one in disguise. Since, they couldn’t tell it apart, an old merchant traveling with them suggested to cut one of them to check his blood. The unseen one would not bleed. So, they cut the youngest of the group first and his blood was red. Then, they did the same to the others one by one, but all of them bled. The question still remained who this third one was.”

Kasim paused to look at us and saw us completely immersed in his story.

Then, he continued, “They cut each other again till the youngest amongst them bled to death, but instead of being terrified and feeling guilty, all of them turned against each other and started killing one another till none of them was left.”

“Who was the third one?” The girl, Aicha asked him. She was sold to Hachim by her mother and was brought to the desert along with the other women.

“It’s the old merchant.”  Kasim answered being proud of his storytelling skills.

“The merchant made those human beings turn against each other by using their fear. Later, he found another caravan in the desert and joined them.”

“If he’s the jinn, how did he bleed?” Aicha asked finding flaw in Kasim’s story.

 “B-Because, he was in his human form.”

“That’s nonsense!” The two started bickering with each other. Dylan who had been listening to the story said, “There’s no such account in One Thousand and One Nights.”

“But it is true! I have heard it on the streets.” The boy became flustered in embarrassment. I comforted the child and told him that it’s a good story.

We had not even finished eating when a drunkard guard came stumbling in our direction and tried to take the young girl with him.

“Where are you taking her?” I immediately reacted and got up to pull Aicha back from him.

“Where?” He slurred. “She and the women are here to entertain us. W-What’s wrong in taking her?”

I felt disgusted at his words. She was only 15, but these men wanted her to be their entertainer. The guard reached for the girl again, and I pushed her behind myself as she cowered in fear, but when he didn’t refrain himself, Dylan who had broken free from the ropes stepped in and strangled the man, choking him to death.

“Do you want to die?” Dylan squeezed his hand, crushing the man’s throat.

Two men tried to separate Dylan from the man, but a fight broke out among them when Dylan punched a guard and broke his nose. Esam, the head guard, rushed in with his men after hearing the commotion and stopped the fight. He slapped the drunkard guard for misbehaving and instructed Dylan to be tied up and taken away from the camp.

 The women hustled together in fear, and Aicha held onto me afraid to be taken away again.

“Sister, will you protect me if something happens to me tomorrow?” Kasim suddenly asked me, and I didn’t know what to answer. I could barely protect myself, let alone another person. I did not know if anyone of us could escape from the desert alive or not, but seeing him look at me in hope, I told him that I’d be with him and promised to get us out alive from the desert.

Kasim and Aicha both lay down next to me, but the girl couldn’t sleep and gazed at the stars above.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“I miss home, but I can’t go back. I wonder if mother and Imad are doing well.” She told me. I asked her if she hated her mother for selling her, but she said it needed to be done to afford her brother’s medicine.

“I want Imad to live well.” She said and rolled onto her side to sleep.” As I watched Kasim and Aicha sleep in the desert, I realized how ungrateful I had been in my life.

It’s still 2 hours the blue hour of the morning when Hachim asked the guards to wake everyone up and put out the campfire. His men tied our hands and pushed us to walk in a straight line as they led us to the heart of the desert.

As we walked in the desert, I looked up at the night sky and saw the constellation of the stars forming an arch across the horizon, bridging heaven and earth. I sighed and questioned the existence of man in this endless sea of cosmos.

Did we even have a choice, or did the first man open his eyes and found himself to be here?

Kasim who had been walking in front of me suddenly fell due to exhaustion. The guard beside us barked at us angrily, and I immediately helped Kasim up before he could be whipped.

“Are you okay?” Kasim nodded and continued walking.

 Dylan who was walking behind me said, “You shouldn’t trust this boy easily.”

“Why?” I scoffed at his hypocrisy and asked, “Should I trust you instead?”

“Are you not worried about yourself?” He questioned back.

“Worried?” I retorted and looked over my shoulder and said, “The one who should be worried here is you. In case you haven’t noticed, the dawn will break soon, and I’ll be able to return.”

Both at the woods and the cottage house, I was able to return when the sun appeared on the horizon; if this speculation was true, then I would go back this time as well. I was not able to go back from the inn because the task of finding the dagger wasn’t accomplished. This time, Dylan had found his dagger on Hachim  although he did not get it from him, it had got nothing to do with me, so I might be able to leave.

We kept walking for a while till Hachim raised his hand and asked his men to stop.

The men shoved us all to the front and pulled out their swords to protect themselves against something. Hachim took out a jade whistle from his robe and blew it. Nothing happened for a minute, until we heard a rustling sound in the sand.

“There’s something under the sand.” The girl whispered.

Suddenly, trails and patterns began to appear on the sand as if the desert was coming to life. Hachim blew the whistle again and the shape of the sand dunes started changing. There was something giant and huge moving underneath those dunes that caused us to panic.

“What are you calling!?” I pulled back Aicha and Kasim in fear.

A wicked smile formed on Hachim’s face as a giant serpent-worm burst out of the sand dune, sending a storm of dust across the desert towards us. It’s hundred meter tall with the head of a serpent; a four eyed monster with a mouth full of jagged teeth but had a large segmented body of a Mongolian death-worm and a dragon’s tail.

All of us ran in the opposite direction including Hachim’s men as it dived back into the sand and crawled under the dunes towards us. It reared its head again from the sand and grabbed a woman between its mouth. She screamed as it lifted her up in the air and bit her into two halves.

The single rope that tied us all together got us all pulled up in the process. Dylan immediately grabbed my arm and I held onto Kasim as he cut off the rope with a dagger letting us fall on the sand. While leaving the campsite, he stole the dagger from a guard and hid it in his boots. When Hachim was calling out the sand-devil, it got him enough time to cut himself free and save us too.

Hachim stood in the midst of chaos seeing the serpentine-monster kill people around him.

“All hail to the King of the Desert! I offer Thee, these human sacrifices!”

Hachim laughed maniacally as the giant-worm ate his man, Najd too. During the chaos, Aicha tripped and fell behind and struggled get up on her feet as the serpent’s tail crept up behind her. I stopped to get back to her and grabbed both of her hands, but that thing had already coiled its tail around her waist and dragged her away before I could even pull her back.

“NO!” I shouted and tried to go after her, but Dylan ran to pull me back, and I sat there in shock seeing her getting torn into pieces right before my eyes. 

Hachim pulled out the dagger and cut open his palm to stain the dagger with his fresh blood. The red stone shifted and rotated as the blood drops fell on it unlocking the dagger into a full sword.

“I need to stop him before he uses the dagger to merge himself with the serpent.” Dylan told me as he eyed the dagger.

Dylan charged at Hachim to snatch the sword from his hand, but the serpent slammed its tail and sent them flying across the desert. The sword fell out of Hachim’s hand and reverted to its original form. The sand-serpent had become restless and turned his head towards Dylan and Hachim to attack them. I looked for an opening and left Kasim behind running straight for the dagger before the serpent could get to Dylan.

Dylan had rolled out of its way when the serpent attacked again and picked Hachim in its mouth as his screams echoed through the desert. Not wasting any second, I picked up the dagger and slit my palm. The blood dripped on the stone and turned the dagger into sword again.

“Catch the sword!” I called out Dylan, and tossed the sword at him.

He caught the sword in his hand, and waited for the serpentine-worm to attack him again. It moved its head again and lunged forward at Dylan who thrust the sword forward piercing the blade through its mouth-palate and straight out of its head. It screeched shaking its head, but Dylan pulled out the blade, not wasting the opportunity to get on top of its head and pushed the sword down into the crown of its head.

The thing screamed and tossed its head around to shake off Dylan and threw him across the desert. Finally, it couldn't hold in anymore, and dropped dead on the sand. Kasim and I ran to check on Dylan who sat up coughing out the dust.

“Hachim wanted to kill it and consume its blood to become an immortal.”

“Immortality is a myth. No one can achieve it.”. I said to him. I asked about head guard, but Kasim told me he'd also died. I looked towards the horizon as the darkness began to lighten indicating that the dawn would approach soon.

Dylan stood up dusting himself and asked me to leave with him, but I didn’t move from my place.

“I will not go with you.” I told him as I stepped back from him.

“Why?” He became confounded. “What is it?”

“You and I both know very well that you brought me to the desert to get to that thing. It’s either Hachim’s blood or mine to unlock the dagger into a sword to kill that thing.”  

Words failed Dylan as he remained silent, and I laughed at him.

“You and I won’t see each other again after this.”  I turned to Kasim and asked him to come with me.

The blue hour was about to end soon, and the sun would rise. Kasim and I walked across the desert, but after a while I felt that it might not be the same way we had been brought in the desert. I kept walking till I realized that I had completely lost the sense of direction. 

I had been going around in circles for a while. 

“Why did you stop?” Kasim asked me, and a chill ran down my spine when I realized that our situation was similar to those travelers in his story. Dylan and I came to the desert and turned against each other.

There’s the third one. 

It was Kasim. He wasn't a human.