Serena forced her hover bike forward, accelerated to an extreme. She feared if she were to push it harder, the engines could burst. But she desperately needed the speed to get away.
The beginning sand storm was making it harder to fly through the canyon, trying to escape her pursuers, but she hoped that her twists and turns, which made her a harder target, would allow her to eventually shake the men off.
Her hopes were futile. An explosion sounded, and a burst of rocks sprayed her, forcing her to swerve aside. Only a moment passed and another missile hit the rock next to her, missing her by a split second. This time a piece of the rubble knocked her on the side, forcing her to swerve again.
Growling from pain, the woman continued her way, searching for any signs of her allies around. But the thick fog of bloody red sands that filled the air made it almost impossible to see any further than a few dozens of meters in front.
Time was running out. A little more and the sands will become even thicker.
Serena heard another missile flying, and darted away, but a little too late – the explosion hit the ground right under her, throwing the hover bike up and to the side. The hit was so strong, that Serena felt herself losing the grip of her flying device, flung into the air, and then she went tumbling – first on the sandy ground, and then off a cliff into the thick bloody sandstorm that rumbled below.
Her pursuers slowed down and stopped to examine the hover bike, then took a look around, glancing over the edge, but found no sign of the woman being there. Gesturing to each other, they quickly loaded the half-destroyed hover bike onto their small craft and disappeared into the sands.
Way below the cliff, in the rumble and tumble of the storm, the body of a woman hung caught in the dark, thick roots of the plants that grew from the rocky heights. Perhaps, it was for the best that she was knocked out during the fall, when the roots caught her, wrapping her legs in their thorny embrace.
Hanging upside down, Serena didn’t see the lonesome figure approaching. She didn’t see the tall, muscular man climbing up to her. She didn’t feel him ripping the thorns and vines off her body and feet.
The man, who was hiding his face from the storm by a thick scarf and goggles, threw her over his shoulder, like she weighed nothing, and climbed back down to the things he left there before ascending the rocky wall to get her. Picking up his stuff, he continued his way with a new trophy.
The man walked calmly, knowingly, turning in the twisted maze of the canyon, until he reached a small opening of a cave. Stepping inside, he followed the passage deeper into the dark, until he reached a split and took the left one.
Something growled from the other passage, but the man ignored the sound, seemingly used to hearing it. Walking through the corridor, he began to dust himself off and took off his scarf and goggles that protected his eyes from the sands. His eyes glowed in the dark – faint golden and lavender sparks appearing in his irises, allowing him to see the path without any sort of light.
He took another few turns in the maze of this underground labyrinth until he reached a wide cavern. Throwing the woman from his shoulder aside, he glanced out, taking a few moments to listen to the sounds of caves surrounding him, ignoring the trickle of water that flowed by one of the walls of the cavern, forming a small basin, and grabbed the boulder next to the entrance, moving it into place to close up the archway.
Finally, he grabbed one of the legs of his trophy and dragged her deeper into the cavern, leaving her at the far end. The man lit up some sconces and torches, illuminating the cavern, and kneeled next to the unconscious woman. A few seconds he studied her beautiful, though dirty, face, and then began patting her down to see what useful things she could have. He smirked at her utility belt, where he found a couple of weapons, then took off her bag and ruffled through the few possessions she had in it, and, finally, opened her jacket to see if there was anything else of worth. He froze, noticing the black rounded triangle of her nano armour on her chest and slowly straightened, gritting his teeth.
His – now black – eyes became hard and almost raging.
He looked aside and seemed to consider his options before rudely grabbing the woman by her clothes and dragging her to one of the big boulders in the corner, which had old blood stains and a couple of chains affixed to it. Working quickly and confidently, he clasped the cuffs onto the woman’s hands and feet, placing her sitting on the floor with her back to the boulder, her hands stretched out and her feet lying on the stone floor, too far apart to try and kick him when she wakes up.
After checking the woman’s bindings, the man walked over to what looked like a kitchen area and began to prepare his dinner, thinking of the woman no more.
