ᴀʟɪᴇɴꜱ【𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥 𝐀𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬】

ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ

"We made it" Paul panted as we sailed through the dust at the top of the storm. One of the wings in the back had fallen off but it was pretty smooth now and we were getting ready to land somewhere in the middle of the desert. "As soon as we land run for the rocks," he said 

"Ok, yeah" I nodded getting ready to unbuckle my seatbelt. Suddenly a wing fell off and we started plummeting towards the sand below us when we hit it wasn't a hard landing. We slid for a few yards before the thropter came to a halt. 

"Come on" Paul yelled as he climbed out the top. I followed him as we ran across the hot sands and towards a mound of rocks. It was a short distance and as soon as we made it we started looking through our packs on a flat surface. We both had suits which we put on quickly, they were a little heavy and not very comfortable but we had to do everything we could to survive. 

"Let me help," Paul said softly as I struggled with the straps in the back. He pulled them tightly and held out a small tube connected to the suit "you breathe through this" I nodded and fitted it to my mask. 

"Look" I pointed at a wave of sand that went by, wormsign. It must have heard our footsteps 

"Now we have to find the Freymen" Paul shielded his eyes and looked over the vast desert, he turned to me with concerned eyes. "Are you ok? you know after losing everyone" 

"Yeah, besides I still have you," I told him with a small smile that I realized was pointless because of the mask. I wondered if his mom was ok, she was pregnant after all and the desert was going to get scorching. Paul took out a compass that was given to him by Duncan, it was supposed to lead us to the seitch. 

"Look" Paul handed me the binoculars "you can see the green over there." I peered through the lens and sure enough, I saw it. 

"What does it mean?" I handed the binoculars back to him

"It means Freymen live there, we'll cross after dark. That's how the Freymen do it" he gave me a grave look "we're about to enter worm territory" 

"The sand walk" I mumbled nervously 

"That's right" he nodded "if we walk normally we're dead." We began to practice our walk, inching closer to the worm's land with every move. 

When it became dark we started crossing at a faster pace, I underestimated how hard the walk was because I was out of breath within minutes. Worm sign passed us regularly. It was quite nerve-racking because at any minute we could be attacked. We walked over mounds and mounds of sand. It seemed almost endless. 

"Mila wait" he held his hand out in front of me before stomping on the sand, it gave off a louder noise than most sand

"Shit" I growled in frustration "drum sand, what do we do?"

"We run" he yelled pointing at wormsign which was headed straight towards us "go go go." I ran as fast as possible towards the rocks, my thighs were burning and my lungs were aching as I crossed foot after foot of the desert. Paul let out a cry as he fell forward