Between The Crystals

Ch 7 Get Ready to Bounce!

My mind drifted back to awareness slowly, with a peculiar feeling of something being wrong. Why was there sand under my hands? I finally pried my eyes open and stared into the shadowy recesses of an abandoned house.

Sluggishly, my mind roused enough to form something akin to coherent thoughts. A quick check of my ankle confirmed the events hadn't been a heat hallucination. I groaned and crawled out of the hiding spot; the empty shoulder-bag strapped to my back reinforced the reality of my recent close call.

The village was deserted, as per usual. I groaned as I stood up and stretched the stiffness out of my muscles. I gauged the sun, guessing I'd slept for about four hours. As much as I wanted a second nap, Grant would be getting worried about me.

Even though I didn't want to go to the Guard Station, it was a necessity. With a sigh, I plodded over to the crystal. I frowned as I remembered how I had needed to use the location phrase during my last attempt to port. I rested a hand on a spire, and light hummed through my veins once more.

I reached for the Guard Station crystal with my mind. With a dragging sensation, my view hazed over. Relief flooded through me. I must have been too panicked to properly direct my mind last time. The haze cleared to reveal the familiar location. One of the guards was already coming over with the scanner.

"Mind scanning me?" I asked. "The Saursunes seem to be lurking around the crystals lately."

"We noticed that. Three others narrowly escaped so far today," he replied.

"Three?" I asked, blinking in shock. People porting to safety after glimpsing a Saursune happened about once a month, but having one get so close they might have stuck a tracker on us was rare. If the aliens got that close, their target rarely survived, and I'd never heard of a story like mine where they'd been let go.

A woman replied, "The lizards are out in full force. A hunter from Sandstone Village was killed, although the porter got the others out. Teriel had one on his heels when he ported. At least a dozen others bounced here when they spotted one in the distance."

"No trackers," the man proclaimed. "You're clear."

"Thanks." As I walked to the resting hides, I asked the woman, "Which hunter? Do you know which crystal they were at?"

"Freddie. The group was at Sunflower Farm."

I winced. I didn't know him well, but the name was familiar enough. She named the two locations where there had been close calls, both of which had been near fields. The other locations, where Saursunes had been spotted, were varied. I memorized the names, although one didn't ring a bell. Grant would have to check his notes to figure out what we called it.

I told her about my encounter and advised them to let porters know to avoid that spot.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "It just let you go?"

"Yeah. I was positive it had planted a tracker on me. Maybe it fell off in the scuffle?"

"I don't like it," a man grumbled, staring out across the desert. "Too many sightings, too many encounters, and now this? We haven't seen them this much in decades. They're up to something, and it has me worried."

The guards told me all the recent gossip, and my brows creased with every new detail as I listened to what they said—and what they weren't saying.

Every village, even the ones who got most of their food by raiding the storage bins on the Saursune farms, were beginning to avoid the Saursunes' lands like the plague. One guard's comment about seeing how long they could hold out against hunger painted an unfortunate picture.