The things 'chasing' me were reassuring in that they were definitively not ambush predators. Either that, or their prey didn't have a sense of touch or sound. They were beyond noticeable.

Or, as it later occured to me, they didn't hunt on the surface. I had seen no other sign of life up here, and it was *hot*.

I didn't notice the heat at first. After all, I had been out in the cold rain for hours- the warmth was beyond welcome. But, good lord, the albedo from the reflective surface made that illusion of comfort go away after a very short while.

Things were made much worse by the amount of energy it took to run on the unsteady salt and the mud under it. I was being chased with no water in one hundred-degree heat. The nearest rocks to stand on were miles off. My feet had long since been scarred and numbed.

In essence, it would make sense for the things stirring below the surface- whatever they were- to not be anything but curious about a surface dweller.

I wasn't willing to risk them being harmful to me, though, and I would need to move regardless if I wanted to keep my promise. To live, that is.

After all, if I stopped now, wouldn't they figure I had tired? Betting that surface-bound creatures weren't a part of their menu, even with the lack I had seen around, didn't seem like a bet I was willing to take. Once more, it was hot out, perhaps the inhabitants were migratory.

On top of that, it wasn't like anyone would save me. I had nothing to lose by giving it all I had. So I ran as if I truly believed there was some earth-dwelling monstrosity chasing me, because there might as well have been.

Or so I say. I didn't gather any of the same resolve I had in walking away from that ledge or shedding the weight of my bag.

My determination to live was already firing full throttle and my emotions had tired. Doubt began to set in.

'Not yet,' I told myself.

The rock formations looked bigger but seemed no less far away. They seemed to be an island between me and the distant horizon of strangely shaped mountains of pure rock that seemed twofold on the reflective flats. The same mountains began to obscure the tips of the illusory dual suns. I still had the mental capacity to note their status as some sort of (extra?)terrestrial censor bar obscuring the eventual union between the star and its echo where the horizons met. It was juvenile, but it was the lightest humor I had allowed myself in months.

The mountains were what made the semi-flat miniature isles of rock so noticeable- they served as a point of comparison for the distortions in the clear image of the sky, causing the flats to take on a mirage-like quality. All of these illusions only became more intense as my vision began to blur as I welled up tears I absolutely did not have the water to produce.

Something else, however, did begin to come into view, beyond the mountains many tens of kilometers off. In my blurry sight, I could still distinguish something. Something far more alien than I had observed before in this world. A grey pillar- or really more a line- with ominous dark clouds swirling around it and framing its reach beyond the sky. It appeared to be leaning very slightly back and to the side, from my perspective. I could see red glows spew from the pillar's sides. Like fallen stars, they made their way toward the ground.

There was no way that was lava, right? And... What would I even do once I make it to the rock? My skin was drying, unknowns were literally under my feet, and on the off chance that I survived long enough to reach my destination, for all I knew it was worse than it was here. I wouldn't survive, howevere I decided to struggle.

'Not yet,' I repeated, much less convincingly this time.

My world was beginning to spin and my vision was beginning to narrow. The heat only seemed to grow more intense. It felt like my body was about to peel itself apart.

Over the course of the day, I felt every system within me pull everything it did or didn't have within it out, searching for every little tinge of energy they could scrounge up from my poor habits and junk food. It was by far the most intense physical labor of my life, and I'd love to say it was intoxicating or freeing. It wasn't. It was miserable in every single measure.

I wasn't built for this. There was no way I'd survive. In a place like this, I doubted there'd be water anywhere close to here. I wasn't meant to live in the first place. It was rigged.

But...

But I still needed to fucking try. If I could say I fought to live until my last breath, then the world would not have beaten me.

I don't recognize cheaters. Sometimes you needed to change the win condition if your terms were abused.

So I did. And the world closed in as my vision darkened both in my own exhaustion and by the waning luminance of the setting suns. I would die a speck under a vast infinity, laid bare against the totality of it all.

Better than in some semi-suburban wasteland's alleyway, at the very least.

--

My final dreams were peaceful. I was floating at the bottom of a cool blue ocean, sunlight flitting in from on high. I felt myself moving toward it, floating up and up and up and up as all else but the light fell away.

Then the water came crashing back in, and the light shattered into a million stars, other strange shapes I didn't process dotting the sky, interrupted a shadow standing over me. The shadow came into something approaching focus. I couldn't tell much other than that it seemed vaguely dissatisfied with my existence.

'Death? Wait, no,'

I shot up and hit my head on something hard. Whatever the shadow was holding. Something metallic. It seemed light, but it remained impossibly steady as I hit it. The ground below me seemed more secure, too. There was nothing against my feet, or perhaps there was considering the deep-fried state of my nerves, and I was sitting on something cold and hard...

"Well, I didn't expect you to wake up so soon after that... unique display of yours."

I whipped my head around, not even questioning the person who had found me or how I got here. My gaze locked dead onto what I now realized was a canteen in the shadow's hands. I yanked it out, not consciously realizing it was probably empty after having it poured on me. The figure who had held the canteen 'tsk'ed. I didn't pay it any mind. Or, rather, I didn't have the mind to pay.

I fooled around with the cap, eventually just biting it off. I paid no heed to the person's amused expression and I chugged everything. Or, at least, I tried to.

However much I drank, there was always more. So, unwilling to give up, I drank and drank and drank until I felt my stomach was about to burst. I was sweating and panting by the time I was done. Then, I realized how cold I was.

Right, desert rules. Hot during the day, cold during the night. That was really messed up, honestly. Fuck you, God.

I heard someone clearing their throat beside me, and I realized I was probably within their personal space. I backed up and spun around, holding the canteen close to me. An amused grin was plastered on my savior(?)'s lips.

He was certainly attractive, but my adrenaline-fueled panic didn't let me register that much in comparison to his slit and fiery orange-red eyes, his.. antlers, and the fangs I saw when he opened his mouth earlier I just now realized he had.

I pinched myself. I suppose maybe I should have said he was attractive by 'human standards'. Or he was a cosplayer, but considering the situation I found that unlikely.

He looked confused as I did that. Or they, maybe. Or she. They dressed androgynously by those same human standards that I was beginning to realize I may not be able to use here. They wore a robe I did not have the cultural awareness to trace the background of beyond that it seemed Asian. Their hair was fair and fluffy, blonde in contrast to their outfit and complexion's apparent ancestry, flowing around their face and extending out the back in a nape-length ponytail.

As much as I wanted to ask for pronouns, they could easily be from a backward conservative society that would take this as a grave insult to their masculinity or femininity. I still was half convinced this was all a dream, but nothing seemed to add up to that, at least emotionally.

I took my mind off of that. I figured I could just avoid the topic. I needed to remember that I was in no immediate danger.

To show that I had relaxed a bit, I pushed my hands to the chilled stone ground and rested back on them, lowering my shoulders. It was deliberately and undoubtedly awkward. He (I decided to assume he for now) looked curious as I did this, and apparently could soon not hold back a question as I made myself more comfortable.

"Why did you pinch yourself?" asked my antlered probably-savior in a language I had never heard. The words were alien, but something within me was 'feeling' what they meant. It was an odd sensation, and I felt so very vulnerable.

I was displaced, afraid, and I had a deeply intimate personal feeling within me I had no idea existed before speaking in intent. Was this a.. god of some sort? Was I actually in an afterlife? Or was this really just a dream? Unable to formulate my thoughts enough to actually come up with something to say, I dumbly parroted the first thought that came to my head.

"Oh, uh, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming."

Did that sound like a pickup line?

"What is 'draheamin'?"

Not yet, apparently.

He poorly pronounced 'dreaming' in English, surrounded by sounds I hadn't ever heard used in a word. Was that something that didn't work with the translation? Maybe it would work if I explained it to him. My thoughts spiraling with theories about the translation gave me pause, but, in my droning voice I so hated, I did scrounge up an explanation.

"I.. Uh... When you sleep..."

I paused for a moment. He seemed to follow. So I continued.

"Those visions in your head that play out. The ones that keep your mind occupied. Those are dreams."

He looked confused. Actually, now he seemed skeptical.

"Are you trying to sell me something?" he asked, leaving me even more confused than when I learned he didn't seem to dream.

"What the hell? Who would go that far to sell someone something? I was dying in a strange location with no water to be found and you think I was here to sell someone something? If people do that, that's a poor business strategy."

He grunted and turned his head, but I think I saw a... a blush. A tinge of red on his face for just a moment.

"Well, I just figured you were trying to get some money out of me. Doesn't look like you have much on you," he huffed out. He sounded... angry? He looked to be similar in age to me, about 16 or 17, so I could see some immaturity, but usually, you'd try to be a bit more subtle about your childishness. Maybe business economics was a sore spot.

"That's fair. Uh... So where are we, exactly...?" I asked tentatively. I had been 'uh'-ing and 'ah'-ing a lot, but, in my defense, I had no clue who or what had saved me from a place that seemed utterly alien to me. And not to mention extremely dangerous.

"You came here without knowing? At this time of year? Either you're a great liar or the luckiest boy in existence. You're in the middle of the Daimoon Flats. Is that why you were running? The crawlers can startle some newcomers, but your guide should tell you they're harmless..."

I facepalmed. So they weren't chasing me to eat me. I was never in any danger. My mind flashed to Olivia. A conversation we had before it all happened. She told me I look back too often in search of something I won't find there. She would have told me there was nothing I could do, and that I made the right decision with what I knew. And that there was no changing it now.

Was I really loathing myself this much over something so insignificant?

This was such a strange situation and I was alone and afraid. But I figured I'd try my best to look forward anyway. So, I took a deep breath and continued. The fiery-eyed person(?) in front of me seemed visibly irritated but willing to give me time. I'd thank him for that later.

"I didn't come here with a guide. Actually, I didn't come here at all. When I opened my eyes, I was here," I admitted. Maybe this wasn't a good thing to say, but I needed answers to latch onto. I needed to jump first now so I didn't keep stumbling around until I began holding myself back.

He seemed mildly amused earlier, but now he was staring at me dead on. It wasn't out of suspicion- Somehow, he seemed to get I wasn't lying to him.

"Either you're an incredible liar with a Second-Classer's [Unintelligible] Obfuscation, or you've been caught up in an incident I don't think should be possible."

So the translation worked by telling me the most congruous concept to the words I know. It seems like that means whatever he said after 'Second Classer's'was not a concept I was familiar with. It sounded sort of like... Yintigium? It definitely stood out, sounding closer to Latin than the rest of the language.

"What is a... Inteejiuhm?"

"By the old gods, you really aren't lying, are you?"

He looked utterly dumbfounded at the question I asked. So, it seemed like that was something important. Maybe it was related to our translation?

"Is that the thing that's letting us talk?"

"That, and so much more. I can't understand how you could not know. Do you not have a Skill? I thought it was something relating to your Dah-Reeming. You're not even a dragon, are you?"

"Wait, are you trying to say you're a dragon? Like, with wings and fangs and fire and stuff?"

"So you know what dragons are, but you don't know what a [Unintelligible] is?"

"Well, they were just fiction where I'm from. Do you have wings?"

There was probably an embarrassing sparkle in my eyes at this point, and I crouched up to get a better look at his back. Sadly, there were no wings tucked away, though I did notice that the robe was cut around the back as if to make room for a pair.

In a fit of sudden panic, I tried to check to see if he was offended. Thankfully, there was no offense in his expression. He seemed to be pleased with it, even.

"Even where we don't exist, our greatness is still recognized. Fitting. So, what do your people call themselves?" He closed his eyes and puffed his cheeks. For some reason not questioning the role of dragons in our fiction or the coincidence that led to that strange overlap between our two vastly different existences.

"Uh, we're humans. Or... I'm a human. I don't know if there's a we anymore. We thought we were alone back in our world. This doesn't seem like the same world, it's all so alien," I replied, reminiscing. If there was a dragon here and I was assuming I wasn't dreaming, I may not even have been in the same universe.

"To have made it here by teleportation, what strength are you hiding?" he asked, some healthy suspicion creeping back into his voice.

I, in my infinite wisdom, answered his question with another question.

"Is there something special about this... Place?"

"This world, actually. It's sealed off for beings without sufficiently powerful [Unintelligible]s through supernatural means. Usually, you'd need to walk here, but I've tested your strength. Unless you're hiding an astronomical intellect, there should be no way for you to get here through a World-Bridge, let alone through spatial phenomena."

I felt sort of insulted by a few things said there, but I could forgive that for now. There was something else, however, that I couldn't let wait.

"Wait, you can walk to worlds, how does that work? Did you build... bridges between worlds?" I asked, referring to the unfamiliar, but still translated term. I really didn't get how that worked.

He seemed surprised but as if this was expected. Like he didn't dare to believe it. In fact, he looked a bit excited.

"You've never seen the Web? Then look up, and have a nice belated Viewing."