“WAKE UP!” Alice heard shouts next to her, and rolling over found Betsy jumping up and down, an excited look on her face. “WAKE UP! WE GET TO GO OUTSIDE TODAY! HURRY UP!”

  A sad smile formed slowly across Alice’s face as she took in Betsy’s excited visage, practically giddy as she hopped around the crumbling shack. She was only just now old enough to engage in the labor marches, so she didn’t know what awaited her. Alice had warned her countless times, warned her of the hell that would await her beyond the district’s gate. Yet all this seemed to fall on deaf ears as Betsy only grew more and more excited as the march grew closer and closer.

  “Just give me a minute…” Alice said with a slight chuckle as she sat up from the floor. She would need to hurry, the roll call would be called soon. Being late wouldn’t do either of them any good. It was best to start the march with the Unbroken in a good mood, though in the end, it wouldn’t matter. The results wouldn’t change. Her smile slowly faded as she turned back toward the excited Betsy, planning internally various schemes to keep her hidden, keep her away from the march. Keep that excited gleam in her eyes pure and untainted.

  Yet when she turned back Betsy was gone. Panic welled up in Alice as all at once her crumbling shack was gone, replaced now with ash and mud. Grabbed roughly from behind, Alice felt her body shoved down into the ruined soil below, forced to inhale the rotten stench of burned garbage as Betsy was long dragged out of sight. As she struggled and writhed against unseen hands, she suddenly felt her body dragged backward, forced in line with the other workers.

  The other Broken remained still, unmoving as they watched the spectacle of her desperate struggle from the corners of their eyes. She could vaguely hear a few utter sounds of distress and concern, yet none rose to help. They just left her there, curled up crying in the mud as the laughter of the Unbroken echoed out around her. A mocking voice bent low next to her ear, it’s every syllable burning the inside of her head,

  “Where just going to have a little talk with your friend, you don’t mind do you?”

  “NO!” Alice screamed, as she launched herself blindly at the unseen voice.

  “No what?” Jake asked, jumping in surprise as Alice suddenly and blindly launched herself forward, tumbling out of her sleep and landing in a small crumble next to him.

  “N…Nothing…” She said sheepishly, embarrassed as she kept her face hidden from view. It had been a while since she’d last dreamt of Betsy, about the labor marches. A slight shudder ran through her spine. Blinking a few times, she realized tears stained her eyes. She’d been crying in her sleep. For how long she couldn’t say, but looking around it looked like the sun was soon due to rise. Wiping her face clean she turned back to face Jake, who was watching her with a look of concern.

  “I’m fine, really. Just a nightmare…”

  “Ok then, if that’s all it was…” Jake wasn’t thoroughly convinced by this explanation, he’d seen her shuddering in her sleep a while now as she seemed to curl tighter and tighter before finally exploding forward. Yet he wouldn’t force her to talk, wouldn’t try and drag anything out of her. If she felt like discussing the issue, she would. Jake could understand wanting to ignore unpleasant dreams after all.

  “What are you doing there?” Alice asked, pointing to the lump of flesh Jake was currently holding in his hands.

  “This? It’s a bladder I think, maybe a lung? Not too sure to be honest. Pulled it from the out of the blob.” Jake said, holding up the fleshy sack, wrinkled and deflated. When he’d pulled it from out the creature, it had been expanded, full of air and slight traces of mucus, but over time it had deflated. This could be said for the entirety of the creature, as with time it seemed to wither up and shrink more and more. There was very little edible meat to be pulled from the blob after it was killed, a majority of its body was composed of trapped air and fat. Now that air had escaped, leaving behind a hollow lump of fat and flesh that Jake was busying himself with.

  “But why do you have it? Is it edible?” Alice asked, leaning forward. Already her stomach growled with early morning hunger.

  “Maybe? Not sure, I wasn’t planning on that though. I’ve been washing it out, I'm going to fill it with water for later. Who knows where we'll land next.”

  “Good idea. I’d hurry though.” Alice said, leaning back in the grass. Looking above, the skyline was still dark and dreary, yet she could see off in the far distance tiny pricks of light beginning to bleed through. Jake didn’t need to be told twice, sprinting off towards the stream that lay just out of sight behind them. He was gone only a few minutes, yet in that time the skyline changed considerably shifting from unruly hues of overwhelming dark to shifting violet and purple.

  Standing slowly to her feet, Alice swayed a little as she threatened to collapse against the light breeze that pressed against her. She felt truly awful. She felt sick, her entire body felt drained of any energy or strength. Stumbling forward slightly, she turned around ready to chase after Jake before the sun could rise fully overhead only to nearly slam into him. He’d returned from the stream now clutching the bloated bit of flesh fit to bursting with water.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The makeshift waterskin was incredibly awkward to hold. It had swelled up to double the size Jake had expected of it, and though it had only one entrance, keeping said entrance shut while supporting the increased weight of the water within the skin required total concentration from Jake. Seeing his return, Alice scooped up their bag already packed to leave, and waited with her hand resting on her shoulder. The minutes passed as the two stood bathed in the early morning light, till at last they felt the familiar sensation of the ground disappear from beneath their feet and found themselves falling forward.

  The two crashed down into a vast sprawling desert, the sand beneath their feet unstable as it gave way easily to their weight forming small sinkholes of itchy grit. Alice largely managed to recover from this sudden plunge into the unstable sand, yet Jake was thrown completely off balance. Stumbling forward as the ground gave way beneath his weight, he found he could no longer properly support the weight of the water skin clutched tight to his chest.

  Water splashed violently and quickly, crashing upon the two and the hot sand with little care for the effort Jake had taken to gather it. When all was said and done, following the two's arrival, less than a quarter of the collected water remained in the waterskin. The rest now lay evaporating from the ground or soaking into the pair's skin.

  Jake stood, holding his now significantly lighter water skin with a look of disgust on his face. Surveying around him he saw nothing special, just more rolling desert and sinking fields of sand for as far as the eyes could see. Alice, however, was spellbound by everything in sight. It was all completely new to her, the scorching heat above, the sand clinging to her every pore, the rolling dunes cresting the horizon. Her breath caught; it was beautiful in a strange, haunting way.

  “Wow…” Alice said aloud, looking around wildly.

  “Yeah, amazing how awful it is, huh?”

  “Not a fan?” Alice asked amused, watching as Jake struggled to pull himself free of the sinkhole of sand they’d sunk into. Reaching her hand out, she took hold of the depleted water skin, freeing his arms and allowing him to finally pull himself free.

  “No, it’s great if you love being alone in a hot, godless wasteland! Who wouldn’t love this place, who doesn’t love the desert?” Jake asked sarcastically, kicking a pile of sand next to him up into the air. Alice just rolled her eyes at him.

  “Come on, it’s not that bad. Kind of beautiful in its own special way.”

  “No your right, it’s not that bad. It’s much worse.” Jake said, his voice angry and uncaring at Alice’s attempt to find beauty in the sprawling sands around him. “Come on, let’s find some shade before we burn to death…”

  Without wasting another second, he started marching off, still grumbling to himself. Alice followed after him, struggling to move. She still felt dizzy and sick, and now each step forward was a challenge. Every step forced her legs deep into the sandy ground around her as if she were wading through a river of dust and sand. Ahead of her, she could vaguely hear Jake complaining, yet found her focus divided, attention too diverted to hear him clearly.

  “Can… Can you take…” She managed to ask before she collapsed forward, sinking into the sand unmoving and unresponsive. Jake paused a short ways ahead. He’d hear her weakly begin to ask him something, followed by a crumbling sound. Turning around he found Alice collapsed face first into the sand, body slowly sinking into the ground.

  With a start he rushed over to her, roughly pulling her loose from the burning sand. Flipping her around he found her unconscious, still breathing but seemingly only just barely.

  “Oh god…” He muttered to himself, unsure what to do. Looking around in desperation he spotted a small patch of shade, born in the shadow of a particularly large and crooked dune. How long this shade would last or how comfortable it would be, Jake couldn’t say, but right now that didn’t matter. He needed to get her somewhere cool so she could rest.

  The shaded dune was not far, only a few dozen meters or so away, yet still Jake struggled with reaching it all the same. Gripping Alice’s armpits, Jake dragged Alice’s unconscious body through the sand as best he could while slowly sinking lower and lower, the unforgiving desert doing all it could to claim him as well. Still, he fought back, forcing his way through the grip of the desert, forcing Alice through the desert. Behind him, he could hear her mumbling and babbling. What she was saying, Jake wasn’t too certain, but some small part of him felt relieved to hear her speaking at all.

  At last, with one final pull, the two fell back into the shade cast by the slanted dune above. Already it had moved, following the arc cast by the sun high overhead, yet enough remained that for now, it would still work. With some difficulty, Jake managed to pry the waterskin from the hands of the still-unconscious Alice and slowly, methodically, drizzle the remainder of the water down her throat. There wasn’t much left, what had felt like an overabundance of water at the start now dwindled to barely enough to fill a cup or two. Yet fortunately, it seemed enough remained, as slowly Alice began to open her eyes, consciousness returning to her.

  The last hour or so seemed like a blur. She lay still, her every muscle felt pained and sluggish. Even just blinking took effort. Looking around slowly, she caught sight of Jake leaning next to her. He was coated in sweat and sand, face red from exertion as he forced the waterskin to her mouth and dumped the last of the water down her throat. Pulling back, he collapsed and let the now-empty skin fall to his side, empty and useless.

  “I… I fell… terrible…” Alice said weakly, unmoving as she gazed up at the cloudless sky above.

  “We lost… a lot of blood…you were probably …just too dehydrated …” Jake panted out. Talking took a lot of effort at the moment as he could feel his throat begin to close as the exertion of the past hour began to catch up to him. Laid flat, Alice let his words wash over her not fully convinced. This had felt different somehow, more draining than just simple dehydration. Though she had no real way to describe what she had felt as all clear memory was gone now, only vague feeling remained.

  “This… is why… I hate… the desert… someone gets shot… or stranded… or passes out…” Jake announced next to her.

  “Well… maybe next time won't be so bad?” Alice suggested a hopeful tone to her voice.

  “Next time…” Jake repeated, a hopeless tone in his voice.