Chapter Twelve: Survival Instinct

When the sun crested the horizon behind him, Aiden was so tired he wanted to drop. He needed to make shelter for himself or he would never survive another day in the desert. Fine blisters formed on his forearms and rose on his nose and cheeks.

He pulled himself to a halt to put his next stage of the plan into action. Aiden dropped to his knees and started digging. It was slow going. The ground, baked hard by the pounding sunlight, made the top crust an unyielding slab. He kicked and clawed at it and broke through. He expended so much energy in the effort, he was forced to rest and take a sip of his precious water reserve before he could keep going.

Under the four-inch crust of hardened soil was a soft, sandy layer, the same yellow as the surface, but powdered from lack of moisture. Aiden used one of his sneakers as a scoop and did his best to create a sun break. The powdered sand was soft and didn't want to pile, drifting away from the top in a puff of dust. He rigged a break out of big chunks of the hardened top layer, propping them against each other and then filling them with sand.

By the time the sun was high enough to begin its steady moisture drain from the landscape, he had a half-decent shelter on the shade side of the hole he had dug. The dust inside felt cooler than the surface, so he shed the extra clothing he donned against the freezing night and used them to make himself a tent by draping them over the break. Then, he burrowed himself into the powder and passed out.

Desperate thirst woke him. He downed two gulps of water before he caught himself. He shook the half-empty bottle in despair, groggy from sleep and heat. He forced himself to eat the other half of his granola bar from the night before then chased it with a quarter piece of the chewing gum. The cool peppermint flavor refreshed his mouth and stirred his sluggish saliva. It didn't take away his thirst, but it was better than nothing.

He peeked outside his shelter to see the sun almost down. Aiden waited out the last of the heat under his clothing tent, conserving his strength. When the sky darkened and the cool came on, he dug himself out of the ground and redressed against the chill.

Aiden checked the stone, hoping, praying for the glow that never came. Instead, he found himself shuffling his way through the desert night, the weight of his pack digging into his body where he never noticed it before. He was weakening, far more quickly than he should have. He spent his whole life training his body to be strong, to endure feats others wouldn't even dream of attempting. He was quite aware, as the horrible oppressive moon rose over him, he too had limitations no matter what he might want to believe.

He set himself a water schedule, partly to ration what he had left and partly to track the time. Aiden caught himself staring at his watch as he walked, tripping on occasion over uneven patches, willing the hands to move faster so he would be allowed to drink.

When he stopped for his water sip an hour later, his body prickled with warning. He checked the pack and saw a telltale glow. At first he thought it might just be the moon's reflection until he shoved aside the top and saw the prize shining into the night.

...who are you?...

He was reaching for it when his hand froze at the sound of her voice. He could touch it, maybe go somewhere else, but where? She sounded disoriented, confused. Like a querulous old lady suffering from dementia. Gone was the strength he'd heard briefly in the gray. Now her tone warbled and wavered as though she could barely manage to speak.

I'm Aiden. It was weird to talk to her in his head. But she heard him.

...Aiden... Her sigh was full of agony. ...who am I?...

Aiden's hand trembled over the stone. She was clearly in trouble. What if she took him to a worse place than he was already? He had a quiet, impossible laugh with himself over that one, but calmed. It could be worse. He could be freezing to death for real, on an ice planet. Or land in a volcano.

He shuddered, pulling his hand away as his mother's voice whispered to him.

Last resort, Antoinette said.

She was right. He pulled the bag up around the prize as the glow faded to nothing, the old woman gone, and firmly fastened the top. He would wait one more night. If he didn't find help, shelter or water by then, he would try to use the stone.

Aiden just broke the surface of the hard pack and wiggled himself into the dust before falling into unconsciousness. He woke in the mid-day heat, delirious and parched. He managed to undress and drape his clothes over himself as a partial shield, working his way even further down below the surface until only his face was clear of the dust.

When he woke in the dark, he felt disoriented. It took him a full five minutes to focus and another fifteen to dig himself, panting and in stages, from the clinging sand. He lay on the hard ground, the heat of the day fading. He crawled to his pack, mouth as dry as the world around him.

Despair. Sometime during the day, he had taken a drink and hadn't stopped until the bottle was empty.

Aiden sat there for a long time, cradling the plastic container in his arms, shaking and rocking in grief. The desert was trying to devour him. He almost gave up. And would have, if his parents hadn't arrived.

Antoinette stood in front of him, Eric beside her. They smiled at him, in that wonderful way they always did. He felt how much they loved him, reached for them, falling on his face with the bottle squashed under him. He grasped for his mother's foot and was astonished when his fingers slid through her boot and impacted the ground.

Get up, Aiden, she said.

Get up, son, Eric echoed her.

Aiden shook his head. Can't.

You're almost there, Antoinette said. You have to get up, baby.

You can do it, Eric said.

Aiden never disobeyed them in his life. He got his hands under his chest and pushed. Grunting, arms shaking from the effort it took, he leveraged himself to his knees. He quivered, ankles protesting, calves seizing, as he got his feet under him and wobbled upright.

Keep moving, Antoinette said as she faded.

Don't give up, Eric said. Ever.

They were gone. But Aiden was on his feet and the cold brought him some clarity. He forced down the last of his food, knowing, without water, he had to do what he could to get some energy. The remaining gum went into his mouth, so sweet it made him gag at first, but there was nothing to come up besides dry granola and fruit, barely any spit to dilute the flavor as he chewed. But he did chew to distract himself, something to focus on as he shouldered his bag and forced one foot in front of the other.

Time was meaningless. Nothing to drink, so nothing to look forward to. Only the plod, plod of his sneakers on the dry ground, the brightness of the moon and the empty, horrible sky.

He wasn't sure when he felt the first brush of air on his cheek. It was foreign to him in that place. And he was so sunk into just keeping his body moving it seemed like another figment of his imagination.

When it came again with more force, he paused, one sneaker hovering over the ground, turning his head toward the source, sniffing the air like an animal searching for a scent. He pivoted toward the wind as it rose, pushing against him in gusts.

It was a good thing, a new thing, a novelty that made him happy. He grinned into the wind, as though it were an old friend come to visit, to keep him company and bring him pleasant news.

The first sting of debris on his abused face was a shock. It brought him out of his daze in time to swing him around with his back to the now howling wind and the storm of sand running behind it.

Aiden fell to the ground, pulling one layer of his clothing over his head, huddling against the scouring dust. It choked him, forced the breath from his lungs, turned his gum to grit. He spit it out, regretting the loss, but unable to do anything about it.

He was at the end of his endurance and had no hope but one. He struggled to open his pack but his fingers were stiff and didn't act as if they were attached to him. He managed at last to get the bag open and peered inside, his vision blurring and sharpening as unconsciousness threatened. He reached in, but couldn't feel anything. He instead nudged the bag with his useless hands and watched it tip sideways in the wind.

The prize rolled free and away a few feet, pushed by the roaring gale. He went for it, captured it before it got too far, but that was all it took to use the last of his energy.

Aiden lay face-first on the desert floor, the storm driving dusty death into his lungs, clinging to the dark and unresponsive stone.

Help me! His mind screamed it at the old woman, but she was silent, lost to him. His last hope, it appeared, had left him in the end.

Get up! Eric never yelled at him. Ever. Aiden didn't even look at him.

"Can't," he whispered into the dust and the darkness.

Please, darling. Antoinette cried so rarely, but he heard the tears in her voice.

"Sorry."

You are our only hope, Eric said. You must!

Aiden tried. He really, honestly tried against his worst fear of letting down his parents. But when he told his muscles to move, nothing happened.

"Sorry," he repeated to the wind.

There would be no daring rescue of his parents, no reunion when he found them again, no more adventures. He would have cried if he had tears left. He let his mother's weeping express his own regret and carry him away into the black.

Everything fell quiet.

A girl's voice said, "Guardian."

And then, he was gone.

***