Dead by Daylight: Stories from the Fog II | English

The Whispering Sands

Killer: The Scholar

Lore:

"The scorching days in the Sahara Desert are hard to endure, but the dark nights are even worse. The hot sand cools quickly, making one believe they are walking on rough snow. The lucky ones survive a day in this landscape, the strong ones a whole year."

Quazim came from a family of nomadic traders, whose existence was despised due to their low level of education and poverty. They called themselves the al'aqwia', the strong ones.
At Quazim's birth, they consisted of 24 women, 16 men, and 12 children. Despite the contempt of the "civilized" people, the al'aqwia' traded in rare goods they found in the vast desert or crafted themselves. It was important that everyone, from young to old, worked.

Quazim, however, was an exception. His bones were frail from childhood, preventing prolonged physical activity. This made him the black sheep of the family at a young age, protected only by his parents.
But soon, only his father remained, as his mother succumbed to a severe illness, known today as cancer. From one day to the next, she vanished, swallowed by the sands of time. This deeply depressed his father. Only a few years after his mother's death, Quazim lost his father as well, who one night walked into the desert and never returned.

Without his greatest supporters and protectors, Quazim was only tolerated because people pitied him. But even the greatest grief doesn't last forever.
Quazim had to earn his keep through hard work. Since he wasn't a good trader, they sent him hunting with his cousins. But even there, his lack of strength and weak bones were an insurmountable obstacle.
And so, while he slept, those very cousins overpowered him and left him in the desert, far from any civilization, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a jug of water.

Quazim wandered through the desert, alone and frightened. His thoughts always stayed with his parents, who had raised him and wished him a bright future. A future where he would be showered with riches and celebrated greatly. An unrealistic future, but a glimmer of hope nonetheless.

After three days and three nights of wandering, Quazim finally collapsed. He had finished the jug of water by the second day, and his stomach growled louder than that of a starving camel.

But when all hope seemed lost, as Quazim prepared for his final moments, the outline of a small pyramid appeared in the distance, faintly illuminated by the bright full moon.
Hastily, Quazim crawled hundreds of meters through the cooled desert sand, filled with newfound energy from the unusual discovery. He didn't even know why a small pyramid in the middle of the Sahara filled him with such adrenaline.
But could you blame Quazim for not thinking in such a moment and just acting?

When his fingertips touched the pyramid, visions shot through Quazim's mind. Visions of a desert shrouded in black mist, of blood-soaked hooks, covered in rust. Quazim felt fear, but it wasn't his own, rather that of dozens of sufferers, eternally condemned to wander the hot sands. He felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and finally lost consciousness.

Quazim awoke in the dark, with only a single beam of light piercing through a crack in the ceiling. He was inside the pyramid; that was immediately clear. How he had ended up there, less so. Quazim felt along the walls but couldn't find an exit. With his weak bones, he couldn't have moved such a large sandstone block without collapsing from exhaustion anyways.
Then he felt along the floor, searching for a trapdoor or a simple hole. All he found was cold, soft sand, and no matter how deep he tried to dig, the desired exit was elusive.

Panic spread lightly through Quazim, and he cursed the people he once called family, as without their intervention he wouldn't be in this predicament. Quazim sat in the pyramid for hours, and hours turned into days. Days in which only he and the sand under his feet existed. Days in which the sun turned the room's interior into an oven, and the moon brought icy temperatures. Quazim was unsure why he was still alive. Someone or something was keeping him alive.
Was it God?