Curse of the Phoenix

Chapter 3 - The Desert of Dreams

"Um... Hello? Are you alright?" Matt didn't respond. When he woke up, there was only orange sand around him. Where was he? Was he... dead? The fight should've scarred his body and torn his clothes, but he was back to normal.

Beside him was a teenage girl. She looked 17-ish, the same age as Matt. With glimmering golden hair reaching to her waist that glittered in the sunlight. Her eyes were a royal gold, gleaming brightly. Her white skin glowing, even in harsh desert conditions. She wore a simple white cloth like a poncho with golden stitches and no shoes.

Matt picked up some of the sand, trying to determine its realness. He was sitting on top of a large dune as a cool wind caressed his skin and the fierce sunlight shone above him. His hands shook and his breath panted. Then he screamed as loud as he could.

"C-calm down!" she said, but Matt kept screaming until his throat was sore. When he couldn't scream anymore, he coughed violently and fell on the sand, unmoving. He stared at the sand dunes ahead of him with empty eyes.

"Um... are you alright?" Matt still didn't answer, he just laid there. She kneeled beside him and touched his head. 

Matt jolted up and sprinted as fast as he could away from her. 

"Hey! Don't run away!" But he didn't listen. He didn't trust her. He didn't trust anyone. No one is going to hurt him again if he just ran.

He kept running and running. It was quite hard to run on sand, but when he looked back, the girl was nowhere in sight. When his legs went numb and heavy, he collapsed and let out a long breath.

There were a few critters, like scorpions and snakes, moving around in the sand, but there was nothing else. "Where... am I?" The girl had said this was the Desert of Dreams, but he didn't know what that meant.

"How am I going to get out of here..." 

Suddenly, a faint sound rang out through the air. His head snapped upward. It sounded like it was from the sky. There were no clouds, but nothing was there. Was he going insane? 

Wait. There was a black speck in the sky and it was getting bigger. Matt staggered to his feet as it came closer. Then the sound rang out again. Was it... A roar? His eyes widened as the speck became the form of a winged monster, speeding towards him.

He screamed and ran away. How did it get there? Was it going after him? He just kept running, but the monster had no trouble catching up and landed in front of him. In the effort to stop, he fell on his face. Then he sat back up, spitting grainy sand out of his mouth, and stared at the monster, wide-eyed.

The monster almost looked like a dragon, but with two legs. It had blue and white scales and orange horns. Wait, Matt knew this creature. He had read about it somewhere. His books call it... the wyvern. 

To the wyvern, Matt was as small as its claws, but it seemed to fancy him for lunch. He couldn't move. He was paralyzed with fear. And even if he did, the wyvern would just cut him down.

It strolled until it was right in front of him, but Matt still didn't move. He was quivering as it bent its neck down and opened its mouth. Just when the wyvern was about to bite his head off, a slicing sound resonated.

The wyvern halted and twitched. Its head fell off from its neck and its body fell on the sand, gushing out blood from the neck.

Matt shifted away from the blood and gaped at the severed head. He covered his mouth to stop himself from screaming. The girl was behind the dead wyvern and she walked up to him with a smile. 

"Don't run off like that. It's dangerous around here."  She sounded a bit tired. Maybe because she chased after him.

Matt wavered for a moment, then collapsed to the ground, letting out a long breath. The girl sat in front of him and stroked his head. "It's alright, It's alright. You're safe now."