In Norse mythology, Garmr is a hound of Hel, the Queen of underworld, and guards the gate of Helheim which is the lowest of the Nine Realms. Helheim is a dark cold resting place of the dead, but not of final retribution. The concept is similar to Purgatory in Christianity, or Barzakh in Islamic tradition.

Whether its Celtic, Greek, Nordic or Egyptian Mythology, all of them described hounds and wolves either as Harbingers of Death or Guardians of the Underworld. In Welsh folklore, Cŵn Annwn is a red-eared hound that hunts down the sinners and lost souls, and bring them back to the underworld.

It’s also them who saved me in the desert.

When I went back to my tent after seeing Okba, I saw all of my stuff and clothes scattered on the ground. Someone had been to my tent and rummaged through my luggage to find that dagger. My heart sank in fear, and I rushed to the check the underside of the cot, but the dagger wasn’t there.

“Did you lose something?” Hisam’s voice came from behind me, and I knew that it must be him. I ran after him to inquire about the dagger, but the sudden commotion outside stopped me from pursuing the matter.

David’s men had caught the thief, and I recognized that man. It’s one of our local guides.

“I didn’t do it!” The man pleaded, but they had found Zimar’s gold bracelet, Irem’s chain, and David’s Rolex watch on him along with others’ stolen items on him.

“Sir, please forgive me, I won’t do it again!” The man fell on the ground, begging on his knees for life, but David didn’t show him mercy.

“I hate those who steal from me.” He shot the man in his forehead who dropped dead on the ground in a pool of blood around his head.

“You didn’t lose anything, did you Miss Cordon?” David turned to ask me. I shook my head in fear as tears threatened to fell from my eyes.

“Good! Men like him are not trustworthy.” David spoke handing the gun back to Joachim.

 “He tried to steal from us first, later, he could have killed us in our sleep.”  He wiped his hand, and left from the scene.

Joachim asked the men to take the body and dispose it somewhere away from the campsite.

I fell on the ground and broke down into tears. The man had become a scapegoat in place of me. David blamed the theft on him and silenced the man with a bullet in his head before my eyes as a warning, so that I would not think about confronting him.

I was completely cornered, and there’s no way out of it.

I couldn’t sleep that night and remained on guard lest something happened again.

The paranoia and exhaustion of the day were finally catching up with me. Whenever, I closed my eyes, I would see the soulless eyes of that dead guide as if blaming me he died because of me.

In the last hour of the night, I saw something moving outside my tent. It was the same fennec fox who had come to my tent the previous night. This time, I followed it outside into the desert after making sure that I wasn’t being tailed.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked it, but mentally berated myself for talking to an animal.

I was too sleep deprived to realize that it might be leading me to the predators, but I was too tired to reason and kept following it without a question.

Eventually, I got tired of walking and asked it, “Little fox, are you taking me to Dylan?” The fox paused to look at me with its shiny black eyes before running in the desert.

“Hey, Stop!” I shouted as I chased after it before I could lose sight of it. The thing ran too fast, and I had a hard time catching up with it.

The fox climbed up on a dune, waiting for me to come up and ran down the mound to the lake in the desert. I skid down the slope and dropped on the sand in tiredness.

There, in front of me, was the moving water of the desert. I pushed myself up and walked to the water bank. I crouched down and saw my reflection in the water under the full moonlight. The fox also sat next to me as I touched the water’s surface with my hand creating tiny ripples in it.

“What to do now?” I asked the little fox.

 “Should I jump into the water?” The fox gave me a funny look before running away from there.

“Hey, come back!” I shouted after it, but the fox had already disappeared. I kept staring into the water considering whether I should dive into the lake or not. If it’s the mirror of that world, I could only go to that place after getting down in there.

Suddenly, I was roused out of my deep thoughts as ripples started appearing on the water’s surface, and I heard his voice.

“Rhea?” He called, and I looked around myself to see if he’s there. He called my name again, and this time, I looked down into the water to see his reflection.

“Is it really you?” I asked him in disbelief. His hair had grown longer, and he looked haggard. I felt a sudden pang in my heart. How long had it been since I last saw him?

 “Did you get the dagger?” He sounded tired, and I felt ashamed for losing his dagger.

“I have lost it.” I told him about those people, and how I was tricked into coming to the desert.

“The dagger should not be in their hand. They would use it to destroy the barrier between the two worlds.”

“What do you mean?” I became alarmed at his revelation.

“These people have escaped from that world and taken over the identities of the real people. It’s happening frequently. If the barrier is gone, your world will be destroyed.” He forewarned me.

“Who are these people?”

“The WATCHERS”. I became confused and wanted to ask him more about them, but it wasn’t the right time for such questions.

“What should I do?” I asked him instead, feeling helpless. “I can’t fight them heads on. One person has already died because of me.”  

“As long as you have got your golden hairpin, you will be safe.” He assured me.

“I am afraid that it has also got something to do with it.” I answered. I told him that the hairpin also used to have a red gemstone on it just like Hachim’s dagger. However, it’s left to me by my grandmother when I was child, so I didn’t remember much about it.

“It must be your hairpin then.” He explained to me, “There are two relics to regulate and open the barrier, each to be kept in separate world for the balance. Now, that Hachim’s dagger has already appeared in your world, the hairpin must return to its original place.”

“Do you mean…”

“The Catastrophe on the world is already set.” He told me. The hairpin needed to be returned, but I couldn’t enter that place without his dagger since it was Dylan who destroyed the stone to seal the barrier and prevent me from coming back.

“I need to stop them.” I got up to leave,  but he stopped me. “Heaven’s punishment is already here. Those people in the desert will die in the morning. You can’t go back.”

“If I don’t go back, the innocents will die too.” I said to him.

If it’s heaven’s punishment, then I’d also face it with them.

The sun started appearing on the horizon, and I tried to find my way back to our campsite.

I couldn’t let Okba, Karim, Irem, Sean and Zimar die as well. Besides, David and Abigail might already have found me gone. They wouldn’t let them rest either because of me.

It’s quiet when I returned to the campsite and saw the dead bodies lying on the ground. The local guide, two drivers, and three other men were shot dead in the head. I hurried to look for Okba and the others in sudden dread but found Sean and Karim tied up and brutally beaten by David’s men. Zimar was lying half-conscious on the ground with a dislocated shoulder.

I looked at Okba who had been shot in stomach and was bleeding profusely. I rushed to their side to help, but Abigail slammed the gun’s muzzle against my temple, and I dropped on the dusty ground as blood trickled down my busted head.

I looked up to see David holding Irem as his hostage.

“My, My! Look who is back!” He chuckled as he pressed his gun against her temple. “Now, if you don’t want to waste our previous time, tell me where’s that golden hairpin?”

“Rhea, please help me! ” Irem cried begging to save her.

“Let go of her!” I tried to get up to fight, but Abigail and Hisam held me down by my shoulders.

“Miss Cordon, you’re in no position to make such demands.” He said, “Tell me, where is the hairpin or else I will blow her brains out.” The man threatened pressing his the gun’s muzzle against Irem’s head.

“Let her go, and I’ll give it to you!” I begged him desperately.

“Don’t do it!” Karim warned, but David shot him in his leg as a warning. “Next will be your head if you don’t shut up!”

"Don’t!” I cried in horror. “I’ll cooperate.” I didn’t want to see anyone dying because of  me.

David shoved Irem forward, and asked me to hand over the hairpin to her without any trick.

I pulled out the hairpin from my undershirt and got up on my feet walking towards her. David still had his gun at Irem, so I dared not do anything. One wrong move, and she would’ve been shot dead.

 I walked to her, and pushed the hairpin in her hand assuring her that I’d save her, but a sharp stabbing pain shot through my side, and I looked down in shock to see a knife pushed inside my belly.

“You’re really naive, Rhea.” Irem said as she pulled out the knife and shoved me back on the ground.

“I-It’s you…” I clutched my bleeding abdomen in pain.

“Why?” I asked her as tears stung my eyes. I had never expected her to be the one to betray  me. 

“Because you’re too kind for your own good.” She scoffed. “It’s quite easy to fool you.”  

Since the beginning, she had been fooling me. She purposely told me about the team to gain my trust and learn about the hairpin’s secret. However, since Okba had already warned me about her, the girl changed her strategy and confronted me directly about the moving ghosts of the desert with the video.

It’s no coincidence that her camera caught those figures in the sand storm.

 The footage she had had on her camera, and the one David had showed me were the same. It’s impossible for the team to record me at the same angle from distance during the storm.

It’s her who had provided him with the footage. She was the mastermind behind this game.

“She is just a pawn in this game.” A tall man stepped out of a tent, and I was shocked to see Hachim standing in front of me.

“How?” I gasped, struggling to breathe through my pain. Hachim crouched in front of me and said, “The one who died in the desert was the other me. He became me, and I became him.”

The two men had switched their identities, but it had caused the real one to lose his life after being lied about the immortality. Hachim stood up from the ground and patted Irem on her shoulder in appreciation. He took the hairpin from her hand and inspected it carefully.

“No, one can stop me from becoming a god.” He laughed as he looked at others around him. “I’ll rule the heavens and earth.”

‘No!” I seethed through gritted teeth. “Your retribution is here.”

Three enormous black hounds with burning red eyes emerged from the sand and attacked the people in the campsite. Those hellhounds were twice the size of an average wolf and had big canine teeth. One leapt over me and killed Abigail and Hisam in an instant by tearing them apart into pieces. One pounced upon David, and ripped his head off the shoulder and threw it away.

It all happened too quickly that I didn’t have a time process it.

Another hound passed by Sean and Karim and sniffed unconscious Zimar. I was slipping in and out of consciousness but shouted at it not to harm the girl. The hound looked at me for a while, then, turned to growl at Hachim. The man tried to back away, but the hound pounced at him piercing his sharp canine teeth into his midriff and tore off his torso from his pelvis.

It was a horrific sight to witness, and I immediately closed my eyes. Irem tried to run and escape from the scene, but the hounds encircled her. She looked at me in helplessness asking me to spare her, but this time I didn’t stop them.

 The prophecy of the clairvoyant had come true, but I was the one who turned into a monster in the end.

The hound took her by her dislocated shoulder and dragged her behind the tents in the desert as the curdling screams echoed through the air when it ripped her apart.

Sean sat there traumatized and turned to check on Karim who was holding his injured leg in pain, but it was too late for Okba.

I raised my arm to reach out to him from afar, but it fell limp at my side as I succumbed myself to sleep.

“Rhea!” Someone shook me, but I could neither hear nor my surrounding.

The death’s shadow led me through the desert to a campsite where the hounds were tearing apart the flesh and limbs of the people. I saw Sean lying dead in the pile of corpses. His dead eyes stared at me as if accusing me of his unjust death.

Karim was crying in agony after losing his both legs, and becoming crippled for life. His blood splattered on my face as he shot himself in head.

“Rhea?” Zimar called me, and I turned back to look at the girl. Irem was holding her hostage and with a wicked smile, she slit her throat with a knife in front of my eyes.

My entire body jerked up in a shock, and someone inside the tent shouted to hold me down and give me anesthesia. I struggled against their hold, but a needle-like pain stung my arm, and I passed out again.

This time, the passing ghosts of the desert led me through the sandstorm, but urged me to be quiet. Something else was lurking inside the storm beside us, and those people suddenly disappeared from my sight leaving me alone in the desert.

I called out Okba and Sean for help, but then, a snarling black hellhound appeared from the behind the dust and pounced at me.

I woke up in the tent for a second time, and saw a person in surgical mask tending on me.

“Who are you?” I asked the person grabbing his arm, but he ignored me and walked out of the tent. I got up wincing in pain, and went after that person to see where he was going.

He went inside Karim’s tent, and raised his scalpel knife to kill him.

“Stop!” I lunged at the man to stop him. His mask had come off during the struggle, and I was shocked to see Dylan standing in front of me.

“Why are you here?” I whispered in surprise, but he was swift enough to stab me with the scalpel knife.

The sharp stabbing pain in my left side woke me up, and I saw a woman in surgical mask standing next to me. Not knowing whether it’s a dream or reality, I snatched the scalpel knife from the tray and pressed it against her neck, but the woman remained calm and said, “I’d suggest you not to move as stitches might re-open”.

She took the scalpel from my hand, and put it back in tray.

In the meantime, Joachim had also walked inside the tent, and came to check on me.

“You’re awake.” The man commented. “You should consider yourself lucky. If the knife had gone deeper, you wouldn’t have been lying here alive.”

“What did you do the others?” I frantically got up from the cot in dread and ran out of the tent to check on the others.

“Where’s Okba?” I cried. I begged him to let me go, but the man restrained me.

“He’s dead.”