Imagine Chapter Two

I rose from my prone position on the hard metal of the bus floor with a cough and a long, drawn out groan. My head felt like it were being weighed down and my ears felt like they were filled with water. However, I didn't appear to be injured. There was no blood and I didn't feel any sharp pains from my muscles or bones, I was just covered in sand. The bus was tilted downward, the front half buried deep underground and only lit up by the trickles of light that seeped in from the windows above me. I coughed again, the sand tickling at my nose and scratching my throat as I accidentally inhaled it. The bus lurched forward and sunk another couple of inches, it wouldn't be wise to stay in a vehicle that was unstable like this. I looked up again, the sun was harsher than I remembered . I didn't know what the outside world was going to be like, whether it would be more dangerous than the situation that I was already in or if it would be much, much safer. I looked to my right, Karolina wasn't there anymore. I swallowed hard. That made my choice for me in an instant. If Karolina was braving the outside world then I couldn't let her do it alone, I couldn't be left alone. I needed to find her. For the briefest of moments I thought about how impossible this all seemed, we had been in the middle of a city just moments ago. I dismissed the thought as quickly as it arrived., the bus giving another harsh lurch downward. As Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes would say, 'whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, must be the truth.' I could touch, feel, smell and experience the world around me. It was impossible to deny the facts, so however improbable it was, the bus had definitely crashed somewhere. That was the stone, cold truth.
Climbing up through the bus was hard work. I wasn't a naturally fit person and exercise wasn't something that came easy to me. I wasn't overweight so much as unfit. With each chair mounted and clambered over the angle seemed to get steeper and steeper until I was climbing the bus almost completely vertically. As I rose the pinpricks of light filtering through the back door and upper windows seemed to get smaller. The bus lurched again and I almost lost my footing, teetering on the chair and almost falling back down to the front of the bus, a fall that would almost certainly kill me. I wasn't sure if something was burying the bus, dragging it down or if it were just sinking, but I did know that if I allowed myself to find out it would be the end. I hurried my efforts, my scrambling starting to become more confident with each step that I took. I was like a professional mountain climber without the gear, my usually weak arms seeming to give me strength beyond their normal bounds to allow me passage out of the bus that was sure to become my tomb. I erupted out of the bus just as the first trickles of sand began to seep through the big windows at the back. I crawled away over the hot sand, heard the bus disappear with a slight thump, and coughed loudly. I was out.
Of course, being out of the bus wasn't the end of my problems. The air was hotter out here, the sand and metal that had previously been wrapped around me had protected my body from the heat. I let out a low hiss of pain as I realised how hot the sand was against my bare hands. I quickly rose from hands and knees into a standing position. There were already angry, red welts forming on my palms. They would hurt for some time. I looked around, taking stock of my surroundings. I stood in the middle of a large, white, expanse of sand. There was no sign of the city I had been inhabiting not five minutes earlier, not to mention any kind of civilisation at all. The bus, too, had disappeared; whatever had been previously tugging it into the depths of the dunes had succeeded and dragged it deep under the Earth. I had only just escaped. I shivered despite the warmth and momentarily mourned those who may have been lost in the crash and subsequent destruction of the bus, though I hadn't seen any bodies it was a realistic thought that they could have fallen to the lowest point and remained out of view. Was it fair that I was free to live whilst those trapped had surely perished? What right did I have to continue in their place?  How would I tell their families if I were the last one left? I let out a sigh and gave another quick look around. There were no signs of vegetation or life, only a large expanse of sand to my left, right and rear as well as the sweltering sun above. In front of me a large sand dune rested, the very same that had swallowed the bus and those that were still on it. I began to climb.

Climbing the sand dune was a simple enough endeavour and it briefly reminded me of a time where my Mum had taken me to the beach as a child. I'd been young, barely able to walk, and she'd had to all but carry me up the thing. She dragged me along by my tiny, pudgy, hands and let me roll down the other side. I remember being happy on that day, a golden happiness that shone brighter than the sand of the desert I was in as it reflected the sun light back into my face.  I banished the thought quickly. It wouldn't do to start crying in a desert, I needed as much moisture as I could retain and tear drops were a luxury that I could not afford to expend. I scrambled to the top of the dune and my breath froze in my throat. I let out a small, choked laugh and my lips spread into a wide grin.
Beautiful was the only way to describe the sight that graced my eyes. A pool of water surrounded by palm trees and shrubbery. An oasis, in the middle of the desert, was like a drop of fresh water in the middle of the ocean, incredibly rare and almost impossible to happen upon. Even rarer was the town that sat next to it. The town was made up of buildings that seemed to be built of a yellow stone, and was more than likely just a form of hardened sand. Most of the buildings were only a single story and had some form of metal as roofs, however in the centre of the village stood a tall tower. It stretched at least five storeys into the air and sat in the centre of the village. It was covered in ornate spiralling designs on the outside, the roof of the place seemed to be made of wood. Surrounding the tower was a small marketplace, from my vantage point on the top of the sand dune it seemed like people were trading and selling a variety of items, ranging from water holding devices to hard bread.
On the edge of the village were a line of sand skimmers, little wooden rafts with sails and a sizeable fan on the back side that the village people obviously used to travel the desert with ease. One of these little skiffs was just pulling into the sand harbour that the townsfolk had erected. On it stood two tall men, dressed in clothes that matched the colour of the sand that surrounded them, as well as long white bandanas to keep the sun and sand off of their cases. Slumped on the floor of their transport lay Karolina, as well as one other girl with brown hair that I couldn't quite recognise. Their arms were tied to the mast and they were not struggling. My heart started to beat faster, and I felt a flicker of rage glimmer deep in belly. Who were they to kidnap people from the middle of the desert? Who were they to hurt my friends.
I slid down the sand dune, though that hadn't originally been my intention. I had taken a single step and the soft, sandy ground had given way beneath me, sending me tumbling down on my bottom in a fast, but scalding, slide. I jumped up as I got to the bottom of the dune, my body feeling battered and bruised already. I put the pain behind me, Karolina was in trouble, and began the short trek toward the village. The two men seemed to be taking Karolina toward the market place in the centre of town, they probably planned to sell them as some form of slave. That thought alone made my blood boil. As I entered the village the heat of the desert cooled significantly. It was as if the area was trapped in its own micro-climate, unmoved entirely by the outside temperature. The village itself was even more beautiful close up than it had been from at the top of the sand dune, and I found myself wanting to stop and admire the scenery a great deal. It was only the duty I felt toward having to help my friend that stopped me. Eventually I made it to the market, worming my way through crowds and getting odd looks the entire way. I spotted the two traders that had stolen Karolina almost instantly.
They were standing on a large stage at the far end of the market, speaking loudly in a language that I couldn't understand. They were holding a pretty young girl roughly by the arm, she couldn't have been older than fourteen, and had drawn a large crowd. The man who was not restraining the girl was speaking fast, each time he stopped people would raise their hands and shout. I had been right, they were slave traders and Karolina looked like she was the next to be auctioned off. I spied a guard to me right. He was wearing armour that flickered in the light, it could have been a form of metal but it looked more like a twisting, glowing energy field. On his belt was a scabbard that contained, what seemed to be, a long thin sword.  If I could  snag the weapon, it would probably be little more than a case of sprinting over to the stage and brandishing it about in a threatening manner until I got Karolina back.
I made my way over to the guard as casually as I could, leaning on a wall behind him in the cool shade. I wiped my hand over my forehead to rid myself of the sheen of sweat that had accumulated there, following that by wiping my hands on my jeans to get rid of more of the moisture. The guard was stood with his arms crossed over his chest; he was tapping one foot impatiently on the ground, as if he were waiting for something more interesting to happen. I snuck forward, grasped the hilt of the sword, and pulled. The guard turned toward me with a small exclamation of shock and I brought the sword up in response, the tip was barely tickling his throat. The weight of the sword felt good in my hand, the cool metal of the handle soothing the welts on my hand. I pushed him toward the wall with my weapon until he was leaning up against it. The guard made a strange choking sound, almost as if he were attempting to call out for help. I realised that I couldn't just leave him be, he would raise an alarm of reveal another hidden weapon and have at me as soon as my back were turned. But I didn't feel comfortable with ending the man's life, that would stick with me for a long time.  Before I could react or choose another course of action the very end of the sword split into two halves, a violent static energy flickering between them. The energy arced out and traced itself across the guards face. He didn't even have an opportunity to scream before falling unconscious. His chest was still rising and falling, the dosage of whatever that had been could not have been lethal. The sword snapped back into its original place, hiding the energy.
"Sorry," I murmured, before stepping over his body and making my way deeper into the crowd. I went almost unnoticed by the growing rabble. Once or twice someone noticed me, and then the sword in my hand, and would subsequently back away with a small gasp of fear. I made my way to the leftward side of the stage, where there were a set of steps leading up to the two men and their disgusting human auction. Slavery was always a concept that got my back up. The idea of a human owning the life, activities and rights of another human was something that made me feel sick to the depths of my stomach. Now that I was confronted with it, and it was a close friend that was about to be auctioned, those feelings of disgust and anger had reached levels that I had previously thought unreachable.
As I made my way onto the stage, unbeknownst to the two men auctioning people off, their crowd had become deathly silent. My sword was outstretched and pointed toward the oblivious men. They seemed angry that the interest in the bidding had come to a halt, shouting words that I couldn't understand at the crowd in anger. One member yelled something back and pointed at me. The two men looked like they had been shocked with electricity, they threw the girl away from themselves and whirled around to face me. Both of the men were heavy set, their arms bulky and well toned, though their faces looked as if they had seen better days. The man on the right had a clearly broken nose, and I could tell as he leered at me, that he had lost a few teeth to fighting over the years. The man on the left had a scar crossing his right eye, forcing it closed, as well as a large amount of chest hair on his bare torso. Neither of them looked particularly happy to see me.
One of them yelled at me, once again in the language that I had no hope of understanding, and made a series of unclear hand gestures towards myself and the sword, I figured he wanted me to put the weapon down. When I didn't react to his demands he snarled and pulled a pistol from his pocket. My mouth dried up instantly, the heat of the sun seemed to beat down harder from above and both my hearing and vision seemed to burn brighter and louder with more intensity. I was staring down the barrel of a pistol; I was staring down the barrel of death. His finger twitched on the trigger and my survival instincts kicked in to high gear. I dived to the side just before the gun fired; I heard a thud in the wood behind me, just where I had been standing a few moments before. If I hadn't moved, I would have been hit by a bullet. The people in the crowd screamed and tried to scramble away from the conflict, all but clambering over each other in their fear and desperation of the unfolding fight. I parried forward, the tip of my sword sinking deep into the man's flesh. He looked down at the offending weapon, and then at my face. My eyes were fixed clearly at the sword, whose tip was now buried deep in the man's chest. I felt it open and he gave another whimper of pain, teetering on his feet. It was a violent jolt of electricity that sent him falling to the ground, taking my sword with it. The man with the scar crossing his eye stumbled backwards and away from his friend that was rapidly losing blood on the ground. He was jerking unnaturally on the floor, the smell of cooked flesh drifting up with small puffs of smoke as the sword continued to electrify his insides. I stumbled back also, falling onto my rear. My previous thoughts of saving Karolina from the slavers was lost, instead my thoughts were anchored to the fact that I had just dealt a fatal blow to someone with a sword held in my own hands. I fought the urge to throw up.