A hot breeze ruffled my hair as the chill of the room receded and a new reality woke my senses. A dry, clean scent filled my nostrils and as I opened my eyes I was immediately blinded by the stark brightness of daylight. No longer in my whitewashed room, I stumbled as I tried to grasp where I was, how I got here and what was happening to me. As far as I could see, huge sand dunes coated the landscape, receding into the distance. The stark sky above was clear blue without a cloud in the sky. It gave me the impression I could see forever. I didn’t understand the how yet, but either I had been rejected by the aliens or this was part of the test.

As I rotated, marveling at the expanse and sense of freedom I felt, I began to realize how fragile I was too. This was a harsh landscape, and all I was wearing was a white cotton loincloth. My bare feet began to feel uncomfortable on the hot sand, but I found that if I buried them just below the surface, it was much cooler. Towards one side and about a kilometer away appeared to be a rocky expanse with several windswept boulders littered around. I decided if there was any shade to be had, that was the most likely place to find it. I also noticed to my astonishment that I had a staff in my hand with a hardened nub at the end. It fitted comfortably in my hand. The sand was getting hot, even with my feet buried, so making for the rocks I started to walk.

Each footstep careful and controlled. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been on a beach, but it was a good few years ago and before that my times in deserts had always been in full military gear. As I found my stride, I began to relax. It was a nice day out and why I was here was not clear yet. While I couldn’t do anything about that, I knew that survival was key. You can’t do much when you dehydrated in a place like this, which is the same as being dead, only longer. Cresting a dune, I noticed a rasping sound. It seemed to vibrate through my feet and I looked around puzzled. No, it wasn’t from the breeze, which caused the sand to shift and rasp. It was a more pronounced sound. I moved down the other side of the dune and heard the sound again. This time more clearly.

If I was a betting man, I would have to say that it sounded like something was moving in response to my movements. Was I causing it? No, my feet hardly made a dent in the dunes. But there it was again. Unmistakable. I crested the next dune and tried to see if I could notice anything. There! Roughly a hundred meters away, movement. The sand was distorting. It appeared to be something burrowing just below the sand, leaving a clear wake that snaked back into the distance. It intersected with my windswept footprints and now seemed to be following them. I couldn’t really make it out clearly except that the displaced sand caused the sound that was very definitely getting louder. Shit! I knew this was too good to be true. I admonished myself as I headed for the rocks quickly. What the hell was that thing? It looked like a worm or creature was stalking me.

I had kept myself relatively fit even in my retirement, but it wasn’t everyday that you trained running on sand and it quickly became apparent that I didn’t have the stamina for a full out sprint. Whatever it was that had my scent was gaining and I was definitely not going to get to the rocks before it caught up to me. Slowing a little, I bided my time. I didn’t want to be drained of energy when whatever it was decided to attack. I had to be ready. The creature was now only twenty meters back and gaining with each stride I took, so I turned around and kept backing away.

Visions of huge worms from Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ kept my adrenaline spiked and senses screaming with readiness. I even hoisted my staff in the chop wood position. When it was roughly five meters from me, it burst like a zit from the sand and all my imaginings could not have prepared me for the giant sized beetle flying towards me. It had huge scything mandibles that spread wide as it bore down on me. It was easily one meter long, black head, thorax and abdomen, and two twitching antennae waving generally in my direction. The splayed mouth parts an additional half meter wide, poised to snap closed at the first opportunity.

The scuttling legs blurred as they propelled the bug creature forwards, desert sand spewing all around. It closed on me with incredible speed and took me completely by surprise. Had I not braced myself it would have severed my body cleanly in two. I barely had time to swing the staff down. But swing the staff I did, incorporating many years of martial arts training into that single focused blow. The hardened nub at the end of the staff smashed down and somehow managed to hit the spot between the creatures head and thorax.

The bug face-planted and then somersaulted. The weight of its body plummeted into me and I spun away absorbing the blow and using it to turn me around, ready for the next attack. As I completed my turn, I realized I had stunned it and it was arching its back. The six legs curling to cover its underside and it hissed out a long and thoroughly disturbing hiss that seemed to echo out into the distance. I stood, staff ready for the next attack, my knees and legs shaking from exertion and fear. This is not a creature from Earth I thought to myself as realization dawned on just how isolated and alone I was.

The creature seemed to die with its long last wheeze and after prodding it with the staff to be sure, I carefully made my way to the top of the next dune and looked around. The rocks were a lot closer, but to my dismay there appeared to be many more snaking trails making straight for this position. I understood now that the beetle had used its hiss to send out a call for help. Damn it! can’t I get a break? How can I possibly fight all these creatures? I thought as I broke into a run for the rocks. I didn’t think the rocks would protect me, but they might give me a defensible position and that was my best hope for now.

My vision seemed distorted though, as if something were blocking my view. I kept blinking but it wouldn’t clear away. I ran on and with relief I reached the rocks before any of the bugs could arrive. My bare feet were slapping on rocks now, the sand making sure-footing treacherous. I could not fall, I would not fall, I had to find something, some way to increase my odds at survival. At last I found a large boulder I could climb. It would give me about two meters of clearance from the ground. The best I could hope for at this point. I clambered up, barely making it to the crest of the rock before the scuttling beetles caught up with me, and I was out of time. They broke from the sand in groups, swarming the rocks and scurrying helter skelter directly for me. All of them hissing and scraping chitinous claws as they charged. I couldn’t count them there were just too many.

Perched on the rock I prepared as best I could with my staff. The first few arrived and they tried to climb it. Each insect desperately trying to get at me. The claws on the ends of their segmented legs couldn’t gain purchase as easily as I had. Instead they could only stand on hind legs menacingly, forelegs scrabbling on the slippery rock face and force that horrible hiss through their pedipalps. Looking down at those huge mandibles clacking open and closed and the writhing mouthparts all reaching out for me, left me in no doubt that they wanted to eat me. The big pincers, each half a meter in length snapped together like a pair of scissors, the glint of the sharp serrated inner edge terrifying in its wicked simplicity. With hundreds of these scythes arched and waving in my direction I felt no comfort standing above them, in fact I was terrified. Gathering myself, I chopped down with my staff. Each time aiming for a killing blow, the hardened nub of my staff dripping beetle juice and ichor. Not every hit was successful though, but they came up for seconds and I gave it to them. I was really grateful for my elevated POV and began to hope, until I noticed I was only making my problem worse.

By killing or stunning those first victims, their carcasses fell down and lessened the height for the next group to press their way up the side of the rock. By the time I realized what was happening I had already lost the fight. I was completely surrounded with no escape and things had just gone from bad, to worse.

It was infuriating and so were the blinking squares. I waved my hand in front of my face but it seemed to make no difference. The translucent squares were still in my vision and becoming more numerous. It was just a matter of time, but try as I might, I had no chance. The beetles eventually swarmed over me. I used every ounce of strength, every trick I knew from my military days and martial arts training. No matter what I tried, I eventually had nothing left.

They tore me to pieces. First, one of them managed to sever my foot right off at the ankle. Unbearable agony raced up my leg as the limb I had relied upon my entire life was just gone. What remained was only protruding jagged bones, stark white contrasted against the red of my fluids. Stringy sinews and copious amounts of blood and flesh tore off me. I fell gasping, unbalanced. They sliced off parts of my other leg next. The stumps of both my limbs spewing hot gushes of blood into their open maws, their pedipalps like ravenous sponges dabbing the blood and slivers of flesh deeper into their mouths. The shock of it did absorb some of the pain, but my screaming mind kept fighting against what was happening.

I just wanted to kill these creatures. To strike out at them. The blinking squares had almost covered my vision now, and that dark amber glow showed through my red-tinged lids. I was going into shock. My life ebbing away, and then just as suddenly the entire nightmare vanished.

I opened my eyes to see the stark white room again. “What the fuck just happened? a nightmare? Did I just dream about being ripped apart by dozens of fucking beetles? I shuddered and wanted to curl up and be alone for a while. I felt hopeless, stripped to the core and dismembered, literally. The elation of being free had quickly withered to a really dark and foreboding mood. To make it worse, Grant swam into my tear-streaked vision.

“Petros” he intoned in my mind. “Relax. You are okay. This is part of your training. You will need to absorb these lessons as we assess your psychic profile, build your skill-set, and test your abilities. Take a rest now, and I will be back for a more comprehensive report.”

His comments seemed almost as if he cared. I was still freaking out I had just died.

A while later, I wasn’t sure how long with no reference to sun cycles or watches, I had time to reflect and consider my deteriorating vision. The squares were so numerous they were still distorting my vision. I suddenly realized that if I concentrated on them, the squares became clearer, more in focus. They appeared to have writing on them. I closed my lids, and the squares highlighted. It was as if I was staring at a computer screen. I blinked a few times then closed my eyes and focused again.

The first squares in the sequence said:

You have died from massive trauma. Shock has set in and your heart stopped beating exactly 47 minutes and 21 seconds into the simulation. Warning! Your Hit Points are below 5%.

What could be more obvious than that? A bunch of bugs had just shredded me. I looked up at the red cross on the top left and wondered how I could activate it to close the windows. As soon as I thought it, the windows closed and the next window in sequence became sharper.

I closed it too and looked at the next window.

You have sustained a laceration to your chest. Hit points reduced 3%

A slow sense of realization dawned on me. I was looking at instances of my actions from the most recent events to events further back in time. My eyelids were a damn computer interface. The whole experience had been a simulation. Convinced I was right, I continued to scan the square boxes. Each one had a similar tale of woe, with 'this sustained damaged’ and various other technical terms to describe how fucked I was, but then one caught my eye.

You have struck a death blow to a Giant Stag Beetle. Experience gained. Keep trying. Keep learning. Keep on surviving!

As I read these boxes, it seemed as if a voice was reading the box prompts to me in my mind. It wasn’t my inner voice. At least I didn’t think it was. I felt like I was finally coming to terms with what had just happened. Grant had mentioned something about training and if this was going to be my lot in life, I really didn’t look forward to it.

Clearly these bastard aliens had embedded some kind of technology into my head that let me live and die in the simulation, and I wasn’t looking forward to the next ‘test'. That the computer could projected a virtual reality into my thoughts with that much reality and attention to detail was some pretty advanced tech though.

It hadn’t really been my real body in there, even though it certainly felt like it. The idea of going back into that world was terrifying. Getting the hang of the interface, I closed all the boxes and tried to gather my thoughts. What was going on here? Why was I being given this training? What benefit did it bring my captors to see me die like that? Did my interactions and experiences really have a bearing on how the aliens perceived humankind?

For the first time, I looked forward to seeing Grant again. I had so many questions.

Before I saw him though, I felt the satiated sense of peace overwhelm me again. It must be feeding time. The catheter tube they had inserted to replace the needle in my stomach tugged a little as it pumped in the nutrient nirvana. My thoughts began to drift as the dark blackness of hopelessness engulfed me.