"How long have we been walking?" Jesse complained.

Looking behind her, Sintra watched as she wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand before returning it to her hip, her face etched into a grimace as she staggered in the sand.

"A few hours maybe? I don't know," Felix responded a little breathlessly. He was walking along side her, his hands resting on the top of his head as if trying to shield it from the sun.

"Ugh, it feels like forever," Jesse replied tiredly.

"We'll get there soon," Sintra tried to encourage them but her words weren't even strong enough to invigorate herself.

The quartet was beyond exhausted. They had been walking for hours in the scorching sun of the desert for what felt like days and so far they had not even halved the distance towards their target.

Vante had remained quiet by her side, glancing at the map ever so often to see how far away they were. He claimed that talking too much made you salivate and since they were out of water, it was best to only communicate when necessary.

Sintra thought it was just a cover up so he wouldn't have to speak with anyone. He was cunning like that.

Jesse had also obviously pissed him off so his silence was just away to dissolve his irritation.

"What does a guy like you do to get stuck in a place like this?" Sintra heard Jesse say as she walked alongside him. She didn't even notice that she had caught up with them.

Vante seemed a little annoyed but Sintra quickly averted her attention back to the holographic map. She was almost sure he wouldn't respond based on what his chagrin but he did and his displeasure was almost palpable.

"Like I'd tell you anything," he told her and a smile formed across Sintra's mouth. She could not understand why but this response had pleased her.

"You're not nice at all," Jesse teased.

"I'm also not a real man according to your standards and by the look of you, I can understand why," Vante responded, a chuckle escaping Sintra's lips as he finished.

She quickly slapped a hand to her mouth as soon as it slipped, dropping the sunglasses she had been holding into the sand.

"That's funny to you, Ms. Sintra? I take it you and him are a thing?" Jesse questioned.

"I'm sure he wishes," Sintra scoffed.

Sintra caught sight of a frown on Vante's lips but he quickly turn it into a straight line, pursing them in exasperation.

"Hey guys, can't we all just get along?" Felix called from behind them. "And where the hell are those so called gifts they said we'd find? I'm thirsty and we're all out of water!"

Sintra agreed. They had been walking for hours now and so far there were no other symbols on the map nor were their any sign of people or gifts on the way.

"I think I see something," Jesse announced, walking past Sintra. "Right there!"

As Sintra followed the direction of her extended hand, her mouth spread into a dry grin, her chapped lips splitting further as she adjusted the bag across her shoulder.

"Are those.."

"Camels!" Sintra exclaimed as finished Vante's sentence, stuffing the map into her bag before rushing off into the distance.

"Wait!" She heard him shout but Sintra had already took off towards the animals.

Before she could reach she felt someone pull her bag, drawing her backwards as they held her in place.

"Why don't you listen?" Vante asked breathlessly while staring down at her.

Her mind harkened back to their time in the jungle and how his sturdy hands had held her the same way as they hid from the murderous giant women.

"You can't approach a camel like that. Are you trying to get spit on? Or kicked?" He asked, snapping her out of her memory.

"How... would... you... know.. that?" Jesse asked between breaths. Felix had caught up to them as well, both of them placing their hands on their knees as they panted.

Vante did not answer, letting go of Sintra as he lead the way towards the animals.

He was slow in his approach, carefully moving one foot infront of the other as he maintained eye contact with both camels while they knelt in the sand.

Sintra watched as Vante extended his arm, exposing the back of his hand as he neared them and she marveled as she saw the first camel's snout hover over his hand to sniff it.

Once they both finished, Vante rubbed their cheeks before turning to them, beckoning the team to do the same.

Sintra was the only one that didn't move. She was little nervous now that she could see the animals up close and she wondered if she had been insane to bolt towards them on first instinct without even considering what might happen if she approached a wild animal so carelessly.

She was just excited to finally see some sort of life in the barren wasteland. Also, she had never seen camels before so perhaps she had gotten a little too enlivened.

"Come on, Sintra. Just follow what we did," Vante beckoned, the worried line appearing between his forehead once again.

Slowly, Sintra approached the camel, watching it just as it watched her; curious but careful.

Its beady black eyes observed her before lowering its head to finally sniff the back of her outstretched hand. To Sintra's surprise, the camel came even closer, pushing its snout in her face.

"What's it doing?" Sintra froze as tried to shove the fear back down into her stomach.

"Just getting a better scent of you, don't worry." Vante reassured, a subtle smile appearing on his face.

"Can I rub him now?" Sintra asked as the animal sniffed her neck.

"Yes, you can rub him now," Vante laughed a little.

It was the first time Sintra had ever heard it and she wished she could replay it over and over. It was the most genuine thing he had done since their arrival in this otherworld.

"Interesting. So he does have feelings," Jesse said and the smile on Vante's face disappeared almost immediately.

Rubbing the camel's cheek, Sintra scowled at her. She was angry that Jesse had ruined a good moment but then she wondered why she even cared at all. Vante was her rival, not her friend.

Inspite of that, she was still annoyed.

"This will get us there a little faster," Vante changed the subject. "They've already straddled them for us."

Sintra watched as Vante mounted the camel, throwing his leg over the middle of the humps quickly.

She wondered how he knew so much about camels and had planned to ask him when he extended his hand out to her but Jesse had interrupted them before she could grab ahold of it.

"May I?" She asked nicely, staring at Sintra with expectant eyes as she removed the sunglasses from her face, stuffing the temple into her training bra.

It took a moment before Sintra understood what she was saying but then she glanced at Vante with his hand still extended and his lips pressed together.

Jesse was asking if she could go with him.

"Whatever," Sintra said, walking over to Felix who had already mounted the other camel, extending his hand to pull her up behind him.

Sintra watched as Jesse placed her arms around Vante's waist before they began to ride along side each other and did the same to Felix, using one hand to retrieve and activate the map for directions.

"So are you and Vante like—together or something?"Felix asked, his hands gripping the reigns of the camel firmly.

"Does it matter?" Sintra rolled her eyes, though she knew he couldn't see it.

"No, it doesn't. I just wanted to know since you guys seem so close," Felix said.

A chuckle from Jesse had caught Sintra's attention, her head snapping to the side to watch them.

They were talking but Sintra couldn't quite hear their conversation. She wondered what had been so funny that Vante actually had a smirk on his usually guarded face.

"What about you and Jesse? You guys seem close," Sintra changed the subject.

"We are but not like that. She's apart of my group counseling circle,"

"Group counseling?" Sintra frowned but before Felix could reply, something whizzed past her head in the space between them and she recognized the sound immediately from her previous encounter in the rainforest.

"Stop right there!" A voice followed after, causing Vante and Felix to yield their camels.

As they turned to the direction of the attack, they noticed a group of 6 people panting, all carrying weapons aimed at each of them.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Carter? I thought you said we weren't going to hurt anyone," A girl from the group said, her face as dusty as her blonde hair.

As she spoke, Sintra took the opportunity to regard the group of them. They were all dressed casually as an assortment of colored t-shirts and jeans framed their bodies while they held an array of knives, swords and bows in their hands.

Despite the deadly arsenal they held, their faces revealed hints of uncertainty, fatigue and apprehension. All except the man called Carter.

He had several tattoos running from his chest up to his neck and a scar across his left cheek told a story Sintra had no intention of ever hearing.

"It slipped. Sorry about that," He apologized but his tone told Sintra that he wasn't sorry at all.

"What's the meaning of this?" Vante asked, his voice as commanding as it always was whenever he did press briefings on his charity events.

"We need those camels,"  Carter responded.

"Well tough luck, we're using them. Let's go, Vante." Jesse responded.

"If you so much as move another inch I will send this next arrow into that hideous face of yours," Carter told her.

"Hideous? Do you see your mother anywhere here?"

Whoosh.

Another arrow flew but this time it was at Jesse who instinctively dodged it way better than a normal person should have.

"Watch it!" Vante said angrily.

"Off, now!" Carter commanded seriously, his expression changing to that of a killer.

As Sintra and her team dismounted the camels, she analyzed the situation and weighed their options. There were only 4 of them and this group had 6, each member holding a weapon.

They had been given knives in their rucksack but they would surely be shot by the archers before they could even reach for them given Carter's discernible conviction.

"Step away from them camels," a southern male  accent instructed but his voice held less force than Carter's.

"We want your weapons as well," the blonde haired girl said.

"We have none," Sintra lied. "And why are there 6 of you? I thought it was 4 to a group."

A look of horror washed over each of their faces as they shifted in the sand. Even Carter shuddered slightly as if recollecting a terrible memory.

"This desert isn't normal man. I suggest you folks get away as quickly as possible," the man with the accent said.

They hadn't noticed anything strange thus far but that made Sintra all the more worried. The rainforest had seemed peaceful as well, right up until a two-headed panther chased them and a tentacled monster grabbed Sintra's ankle.

Sintra watched as they rode away with their camels, an exasperated sigh leaving her mouth.

"Well atleast we know why the map doesn't mark the other players. It's every man for themselves," Felix said as they started to walk again.

"I knew their was a twist to those pricks giving us that map," Jesse damned.

"Did you hear that?" Vante asked, his brows creasing as he stopped to listen.

"Ha Ha, very funny but don't mess around like that in the middle of the desert. Felix gets scared easily," Jesse teased.

"I do not!" Felix protested, earning a snicker from the troublesome woman.

Before Sintra could question ask Vante what he had heard, a loud shriek sounded in the distance, prompting the hairs on her body stand at attention as they alerted her of danger.

The frown that had already formed across her mouth from being camel-jacked deepened into a grimace as the sound grew louder.

"Oh crap! You weren't joking," Jesse said nervously, freezing in her tracks.

"What on God's green earth is that?" Felix asked as he pointed south of them, his voice shaking with fear.

Sintra followed his gaze to the most terrifying silhouette she had ever seen, her legs turning to jelly as she watched it barrel towards them.

At first she thought it was a snake but no snake was as large as a refrigerator or had a mouth the size of a gaping black hole. Also, it was coming in fast, hastening towards them with vengeance but Sintra did not wait until she could see the monster fully.

"Run!" She shouted and the monster shrieked in return as if agreeing with her decision to take off into the distance.

Sintra had never ran so fast in her life, not even when the giant women had been chasing her and Vante. In the rainforest, there were plenty of things that hindered their speed. Roots of ancient trees, unleveled, mossy terrain and thick vines coupled with heavy rainfall all played a role in their delay but right here in the desert of nothingness, her feet dug holes in the sand as it flicked behind her during her escape.

All Sintra could hear was the wind whistling in her ears while the air pelted against her eyeballs as she tore through the desert. She felt as if her lungs had migrated to her brain and her stomach was inside her feet, fueling her with the energy she needed to run faster. She couldn't even remember if there was such a thing.

The shriek grew louder but Sintra did not dare look behind her.

To much of her surprise, surprise she could not even show since her adrenaline had kicked into survival mode, they had caught up with the camel thieves in no time, speeding past them like human bullets as they only caught a whiff of the loud argument they were having.

She had no idea if her team was behind or infront of her. In fact, she could barely see anything at all as the desert became a golden blur she was swiftly passing by.

A scream sounded from behind but Sintra ignored it,  her eyes watering from the sand and air that peppered them as she darted across the desert, her bag flapping behind her like a flag.

A mountain of crumbling rock appeared before Sintra's vision to reveal the entrance of a small cavern at its mouth and she made it her sole duty to make it inside.

More screams echoed behind her but Sintra ignored them all as her fight or flight reflexes had long deserted helpfulness and replaced it with survivance.

As Sintra ran through the cave's opening she crashed into Vante, knocking them both to the floor roughly.

Sintra gasped for air on the ground, her chest heaving violently as she tried to replace the oxygen her body had forsaken for her sprint. Her heartbeat felt as if it had become cephalic as she hopelessly grabbed at the sand beneath her palms while heaving great breaths of air that seemed to not be enough.

"What— the," Vante tried to say but failed as he too laid panting, his eyes squeezing shut as he clutched his chest.

"Mongolian—death—worm," Sintra heard Felix say between breaths but she wasn't sure. She was too busy trying to blink away the phosphenes that had placated her vision.

It took a while before their breathing had returned to somewhat normal but Felix was the one that broke their silence.

"It's suppose to be a myth though," he continued. "They say it has skin so poisonous it kills anything that touches it. I think they say it also gives off electric discharge and shoots venom that can corrode metal," Felix told them.

"Jesus Christ," Sintra muttered.

"How do you know this?" Vante asked him. "Or better yet, when did you get the chance to look behind you?"

"My mom was a paleontologist. I had nothing to do but read her notes when I was being homeschooled," Felix explained.

When Sintra's breathing finally leveled, she tried to stand, grabbing at the walls of the small cavern as she examined the inside.

A craggy wall behind them confirmed that it was dead ended and only the sun outside took governance as the cavern's only source of light, making it a bit hard to see the faces of everyone inside.

The ceiling of the cavern had sharp rocks resembling stalactites extended from it and the sand below her feet crunched with every step, a harder consistency than that of outside.

"I don't even want think about what would have happened if we hadn't found this place," Felix said, his breath still uneven from escaping death.

"Uhm, I know we're called team 5 but there's suppose to be 4 of us so who the hell is that?" Jesse asked and soon all their attention fell on a young, blonde girl curled into a ball while crying hysterically near the entrance of the cavern.