When Insects Ruled The Planet

Chapter 3: Attacked Again

It was midnight, Liam lay in his bunk, listening to the sounds of the nature around him and the night crickets outside. He sighed inwardly, as no matter how nice or awesome this place was, he still missed his home. But then, that home was destroyed. It was no more than a big pile of dust. He shifted a bit, making a creaky sound as he did so. He reached out and held onto a small powerstone, the last of his collection. Liam had brought that to their beach vacation, and had held onto it: the last memory from home. He sighed again, running his fingers along the bright blue stone. He turned and buried his face into his pillow, falling asleep.

Bam! Boom! A bright flashing light, people screaming. Liam jolted to a start, just as the bunker room exploded in a fiery explosion. "Run!" Alma was up in an instant, stuffing all she could into her backpack. "Come on, Liam! We have to go!" she yelled, dragging him out of the bunker as it cracked and broke. Liam's eyes were wide with fear as their so-called safe camp was destroyed. Huge insects flew overhead, dropping more and more bombs down. The sky was stormy and grey, the stars and moon blocked out by the mushroom clouds of smoke. Alma pulled at Liam and the two siblings ran. " This feels familiar," muttered Liam. " Come on! Come on!" cried his sister, "we have to go faster!" As they ran away from danger once again, dozens and dozens of brave army men sacrificed themselves for their escape. The two siblings ran and ran till they were out of breath. By then, night had fallen and their second home was far behind them. Only then did they stop. Liam looked around, remembering a basic survival class tip : take inventory of your surroundings. They were in the middle of the desert Rubʿ al-Khali, the biggest sand desert in the world. A sudden memory jolted in his mind. He remembered Mr Green's monotonous voice echoing in the classroom: Rubʿ al-Khali— read rooob-ALE-kallie – not Rob robbed Callie, dumbheads! —is the biggest sand desert in the world. It covers an area of about 250,000 square miles in a blah blah lying mainly in southeastern Saudi Arabia, it blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah largest area of continuous sand in the world. Next, blah blah.... He would give anything to be back there, toying with his pencil and waiting for the bell to ring so he could go home to eat his mother's fresh baked brownies. Oh how he missed his parents! But now wasn't the time to sit and cry like an idiot, crying didn't help. He had to take action. He turned to his sister, who was rummaging through her roughly packed bag "Alma, I have good and bad news," he said gravely, " good news is that I know where we are, bad news is that where we are I don't know." Alma looked up extremely confused " what in the world are you saying? Did you hit your head or something? Giant beetle pooped on your head?" "I mean," rephrased Liam, " that I know where we are— we're in Rubʿ al-Khali, the biggest sand desert in the world, but where exactly, I don't know. So we're about as good as dead," he finished sadly. "No we're not!" grinned Alma, holding up the compass hanging from her bag. " All we need to do is to cross the night, then we circle back to safety camp—"

" Are you nuts!"

" hear me out,to see if there is anything or anyone left. We take the unscathed stuff and leave the rest. Then we find the closest city and see if there's more army people. Sound good?" Liam nodded ,reassured. His sister always had a plan. Now, to see what he had snatched in their last minute packing. His special stone– thank lord for that! — , a faded blue sleeping bag, a solar powered torch, his notebook, his gun, an army jacket, and ...some tent sticks? He nearly threw them down in frustration, but thought better of it when he saw his sister take out a foldable tent(without sticks).

" Should we set camp here?" asked Liam.

" No," replied his sister, " the winds are too strong, let's set it behind that big cliff," And so the two siblings walked a bit more and set camp.

Liam woke the next morning to a very annoying bird who just kept on chirping and wouldn't stop. "Shutupbird," he grumbled. Turning in the roughly made tent, he peered through the opened edges. What he saw made his heart freeze and pause in the middle of a "I wish I could kill that bird but noooo that's animal cruelty" sentence. There was a huge craven underneath the giant structure that protected Liam and Alma from the unforgiving winds. It was only a crack but Liam saw it clearly: many cascades raced down one side of the craven, circling a huge castle-like structure. The castle– no it was a fortress, Liam realised, had a large stone platform coming out of the central window. There was another one! Liam found out as he focused on it. However, this one was much lower and had a series of stairs connecting it to the ground. Liam blinked and looked again, this time downwards. The crack was directly above a sloping vine-covered wall. A gigantic tree grew along the wall and became the supporting beam of the carven. Suddenly, something moved. Liam focused on it, it was a tiny scrab beetle. Liam sighed, relieved, it was only a scrab beetle. Then he sat up straight, alarm and shock flashing across his face. Then he hit his head on the top of the tent.

"Ow!" he yelped, waking Alma.

"What is it, Liam, don't tell me you hit your head on the top of the tent again." sighed an exasperated Alma.

"Um no, er I mean yes I hit my head on the tent but with good reason!" "Let's hear it." "There's a cave underneath the cliff with a tiny scarab beetle! Like a tiny-tiny one! Like it's not big! So the cave—"

" — might not be affected by whatever happened on Earth!" exclaimed Alma, excited.

"That was my line," grumbled Liam, but he too, was extremely excited by his find. All of a sudden, their plans were forgotten. And with renewed energy, they packed up their tent and headed off to find the entrance of the cavern. Little did they know, they were just prawns of a bigger game, of someone who desperately wanted them dead.

To whoever's reading:

sorry the next chapter/part is still inprogress and will be finished soon.