Chapter 5: Blood And Sand

I slowly blinked awake to a chill feeling on my torso. I slowly sat up and realized that I was in a cage! That and all of my stuff was gone. Even my hoodie and shirt. At least they didn't take my pants... I looked around to see tents and people with odd clothing and few with masks on wandering around. I shivered, how was I going to get out of this...? And worse yet, what were they going to do with me? I heard a strange laugh come from behind me, I shakily stood up and turned around to see a guy wearing one of the strange red and white masks standing right behind me. He stood tall in a rock so he towered over me and his laugh was menacing.

"Hey, you look a little lost." He said, his voice muffled by the mask but still deep and raspy enough to be terrifying.

"U-uh..." I stammered, petrified and cut off by another voice to my left, where another guy wearing a matching mask was standing. Who are these people?

"Looks like he's got a lot of meat on his bones." My eyes widened in panic and I tensed up. I was in a savage camp, and by that sentence I could only guess these people were caniables. They both started laughing and the first guy grabbed me by my hair and pulled my face right up to his.

"This one is mine..." He hissed. I gulped and he threw me back and walked over to his buddy.

"How do we know he isn't one of the reapers?" A reaper? What's a reaper? Is that a code word?

"He isn't. He doesn't look like one."

"Wh-where am I?" I finally managed to say.

"Shut up."

"We still shouldn't take any chances."

"Okay, how do you want to do it?"

I bit my lip. What were they going to do?

"I'm the one calling these shots." The second guy said. "We're taking him outside of the town and lighting him up."

"What do you mean you call the shots? Who died and made you God?" The first guy growled.

The other guy made a menacing chuckle, pulled out his sword and stabbed the first guy, killing him. I flinched, these guys were insane. He stood up on the rock.

"Now that we know who's really running things around here, you guys better fall in line. Bring that outsider and let's go light him up."

I backed up into the corner of my cell. Just as he finished his sentence another guy came from another part of the camp yelling. "They've breached the perimeter! They've breached the perimeter!" He was followed by a huge hoard of zombies and I felt my stomach drop in fear. One was even holding a shovel. The savages all rushed to fight the hoard. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice from behind me.

"TrueMU."

I turned around to see Tavia coming towards me. "Tavia." I said. She quickly pulled out a tool and broke the bars to my cage. The battle between savages and zombies still going strong. "Tavia thank you so much-" she cut me off.

"Do not thank me, just go." She said quickly giving me back my sword, cap and clothes and my other really important things. I put my shirt and hoodie back on and quickly organized my things. "Here's your stuff, there is a cave at the top of the ridge. Get there, you will be safe." She said and shoved me the direction to go. I didn't feel like arguing with her.

Faintly behind me I could hear the savages finishing off the rest of the zombies. "Okay, where is he at? What happened to him? Find him! Bring him to me!" I didn't want to stick around to find out what'd happen if he caught me so I took off running.

~~~

The sun began to rise, I'd been going non stop all night the way Tavia told me to go. I was tired but adrenaline kept me going strong. I hoped Tavia got out of there ok. I also hoped I was going the right direction... That would suck if I'd gone the wrong way. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something green. A healthy green. That wasn't a color I'd seen in a long time. That also meant there had to be some water. I jogged towards it and saw it was a little cactus. I pulled out my sword. Sorry little cactus, but I'm really thirsty. I used my sword to cut down the cactus and carefully more the prickly parts of it aside to get to the sand underneath. I carefully dug in the sand till a small puddle of water appeared. "Ah yes, finally some water." I said cupping some in my hands and drinking it as best I could without inhaling sand, I drank as much as I could and continued on my way. I climbed over a small hill and in the side of a ridge was a cave entrance made of stone brick with gravel blowing the entrance way. "That must be the cave..." I said quietly.

I jogged down the hill and climbed up the gravel ridgeway leading up to the cave. I reached the top and looked for a switch or some way to get in, but as I got close the gavel slipped into a slit into the ground clearing the way. I took a breath and walked inside. I followed the stone bricks into a large room made of metal almost like a laboratory. "Whoa... What is this place?" I looked around, in the middle standing tall was a spaceship. "A spaceship...?" I walked over to a lil notch in the ground that was a blue and orange in conrast to the white floor and walls. When I got close it started to raise revealing a beautiful blue spacesuit with an orange visor. I felt my heart begin to race with excitement, this was the stuff I needed to help that one guy. "I can use the schematics to rebuild this ship. And what's in these chests?" I opened the chests and looked through all the supplies. "Wrench. Pipes. Ingots. Lava. Coal... There's everything I need to get started."

"TrueMU!" I turned around to Tavia right in my face, I jumped.

"Tavia, you scared me." She backed up a step.

"I thought you might need this." She said throwing me my backpack. I fumbled it around before I securely caught it.

"Uh, thank you."

"I brought you a friend too," she stepped aside revealing Jeffery.

"Jeffery! How you doing buddy?" I said petting his head. He oinked in reply and nuzzled my hand.

"Will he be going with you?"

"Yeah." I said with a small laugh. "Jeffrey's gonna come with me."

She nodded. "This is my fathers lab. Feel free to use it. It could be helpful."

"Thank you Tavia... Where are you headed to now?"

"I have to get back to my camp." She said and started to leave. "I hope you find what you're looking for." She stopped and turned to face me with a small smile. "Good luck." And with that she disappeared out the cave.

And I... Well... I got to work.