Sand sticks to every part of my body, the grains irritating my skin with every little movement. Pushing myself to my feet, I spit mountains of sand from my mouth, the grains decorating my lips. Looking around, a beige wasteland surrounds me, spanning hundreds of miles.

“Aku! Mofu!” I call out. “You guys there?” My voice echoes in response, filling my heart with an extreme panic. My head whips around me, searching for the ones I came with, the eerie silence filling me with anxiety. The fear and panic in my body feels unnatural, my body going into autopilot, sliding down the sand dune and sprinting forward. Each step increases my fear tenfold, my afro bouncing with each step. Coming to a sliding stop, I barely manage to prevent my body from flinging itself off of the cliff in front of me. I peer over it, revealing a giant drop off into more sand. Here, I understand the full scope of my situation, the cliff revealing nothing but sand mountains that stretch into the horizon. I’m alone, and lost, in the middle of the desert. Deep breaths, Ame. Deep breaths. I crouch down and shut my eyes, the sun beating down on my neck. My mind travels a mile a minute, ideas leaving just as quick as they enter. I refocus it, the sound of my breathing becoming my anchor, slowly bringing me back to earth. I lift my head from my knees, my panic finally under control. The sun falls as stars replace it, the white specs spanning across the black space like the sand in my hair. The sight doesn’t last for long, though, as they all disappear, one by one. The sand below me shifts, little bits constantly tumbling behind me, before they all explode upwards, a fountain of beige pellets showering the air, giving birth to an otherworldly creature. My head doesn’t move, my eyes of awe shift into eyes of absolute horror as the monster splits it lips the size of battleships, revealing hundreds of rows of tungsten needles bigger than skyscrapers, oceans of spit barreling out of its ravine as the beasts tongue darts out, missing me by centimeters. I break free of my hypnotic trance, quickly jumping off the cliff. The behemoth’s cries mix in with the wind in my ears, my hands frantically firing ropes of ice above me, desperate for it to catch up to me. The ice races towards me, much like my body to the ground, which narrowly escapes a sandy demise as the ice encapsulates my foot, my body swinging in response. Tens of red dots light up under me, little chirps and cries emanating from them. The titan has a nest of babies, which I am dangling over, locked in place upside down, with the mother above me. Tears fill my eyes, the realization hitting me like a nuclear warhead. This is it. This is how I die, how it all ends. My final moments are alone, in a desert, my foot frozen, cursing Mofu and Amani while being picked from my bones by baby nightmare fuel. The mother’s foot crashes in front of me, her eyes bolting down to meet mine. One good look at my killer, such a bittersweet end. The giant lets out one loud, terrifying roar in my face, saliva moistening my dry skin, before a singular hand emerges from its throat. It pulls up a head, then a body, and a sword. Sye stands on the roof of the mother’s mouth, covered in only god knows what. Her sword glides through the mothers mouth, splitting her tongue.

“Hey Ame!” Sye yells, waving enthusiastically as the beast falls, Sye jumping onto me. My face is buried deep into her tummy, an atrocious smell invading my senses. It lingers as Sye climbs my body, slicing the ice suspending me in the air. We both plummet onto the corpse of the mother, her fur breaking our fall. Sye and I climb off the corpse, our feet sinking back into the sand. My arms wrap around Sye almost instinctively, my tears adding to the plethora of bodily fluids covering the woman. Sye’s hands awkwardly rub my back, a motion slightly replacing my tears with laughter. “Uh, shh shh. It’s all ok now.”

“You suck at this,” I laugh through tears, letting go of Sye. “Sorry about that.”

“I didn’t know we were that close,” Sye jokes, elbowing me in my stomach.

“To be completely fair, I would’ve done that to pretty much anyone,” I say. Sye sucks her teeth and throws her hands into the air, her eyes rolling in frustration.

“You should’ve just let me have the moment,” Sye scolds. I laugh in response, to which Sye’s bright smile returns.

“So, are you really going to make me ask?”

“No, I have zero clue what I’m covered in right now.”

“No, not that.”

“Then yes, you’re going to have to ask.”

“What the hell were you doing INSIDE that thing?”

“Well I landed directly into its mouth and slid down its tongue. Hell, the only reason I was disintegrated by its stomach acid is this sword. It was stuck in its intestine, so I grabbed onto it and got to swingin’.”

“Well you have the best timing in the world, without you I would’ve been in its baby's stomach.”

“I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me how awesome and amazing I am.”

“Man you sound so much like Aku it’s freaking me out.”

“Well at least you’re not crying anymore. And speaking of whom, do you know where everyone else is?”

“Not at all. You’re the first person I’ve come across so far.”

“And we’re stuck in a desert baby!”

“Well at least we have water, and this big beast should keep us fed for a while if we can start a fire.”

“We have water?”

“Well, kind of. We’d need to melt my ice.”

“Which would be easy if we can start a fire…” Both Sye and I stand still for a moment, scanning the terrain for anything flammable. There is no tumbleweed, no shrubs, no cacti. Just dunes of sand and this big, dead creature.

“Man, Aku is never here when you really need him,” I whisper to myself, kicking sand in frustration.

“Well we could burn our clothes if we can find something to start an actual fire,” Sye suggests.

“And just be naked in the middle of the desert?” I ask.

“Well we need to eat.”

“We also need to stay warm. The monster's fur should be more than enough fuel.”

“A fire would burn through fur in seconds, Ame.”

“There's enough fur here to make a fire good enough to cook food. We can just cook as much as we can before the fire goes out and hope to make it out of the desert before we run out.”

“But burning our clothes would take longer to burn and we could use the fur to make new clothes.”

“With what thread or needle?”

“We can figure it out. I’ll have you know I was an expert seamstress when I was alive.”

“Sye, we’re not close enough to get naked together in the middle of the desert.”

“I bet if Aku said it you would’ve said yes.”

“If Aku suggested we strip naked in the middle of the desert to start a fire I would’ve smacked him in his mouth”

“Yeah, his casting is fire after all.”

“I wonder if the boys are together right now.”

“I sure as hell hope so. I haven't known either one of them for very long, but I feel like leaving Aku alone for an extended period of time is a bad idea.”

“Yeah, you have no idea. He always finds a way to get himself into as much trouble as possible. I’ve learned that you just have to go with it, fighting against it will only make it worse.” A long silence fills the air as seeds of worry begin sprouting in our heads, fearful of what’s happening to our friends.

“Mofu seems reliable, even on his own, right?” Sye asks.

“Yeah, I bet he’d fare fine if he was on his own,” I respond, taking a deep breath.

“Yeah, but they’re together right now, right?” Sye asks.

“Yeah, they’re together right now. Mofu is the perfect partner for Aku to cause havoc. They probably have their hands full doing that right now,” I respond.

“Yeah, totally. We’re just a jump skip and hop away from them too.”

“Absolutely. In the morning, we’ll get out of this desert and follow the breadcrumbs of chaos the boys left behind.” Both Sye and I flop onto the corpse of the beast, its fur soft and warm. I take another deep breath, calming my nerves and slowing my mind, rejecting the idea that Aku and Mofu might not be ok, that they might be separated, they might be hurt, they might be across the world, they might be…