This was crazy, Karyn reflected. Here she was, days into a trek across a ridiculously hostile desert, currently engaged in running for dear life across a field of shifting, deadly whirlpools, under the guidance of an eccentric old woman, while carrying an entire tent on her back. (Not to mention the part where she was now half-scorpion.)
"Stop!" Fazalune said, and they skittered to a stop, moments before the sand in front of them began to shift.
She had gone into the school year prepared for studying, P.E., and probably some miscellaneous high-school social drama on top of that. She couldn't really say that she'd anticipated "desert survival," "killer sandworm avoidance," or "life-and-death quicksand navigation" being part of the list. I could literally die doing this, she thought to herself.
"Go!" They took off again at full tilt as soon as the bounds of the developing whirlpool were clearly established, making their way around it at a safe distance from the edge, but not so far out that they risked stumbling onto another one. Probably.
And for what? She was going to see someone she didn't know, someone who chose to live at the center of a murderous desert, someone who was apparently some kind of major figure in a culture she knew nothing about, in hopes of getting direction from her clairvoyance that Karyn had no idea whether it was real or not. If it weren't for the fact that, as far as I know, Jon could be absolutely anywhere in the entire world, Karyn thought, this would be an even dumber thing to do than it probably already is...
"Karyn! Look out!" the older woman yelled sharply. She jumped at the realization that she'd gotten distracted and looked behind her to see a pit opening up, its rim expanding out towards her backmost pair of legs. Scrambling, she lurched towards Fazalune just as the ground began to give way beneath her. She felt a terrible sinking feeling as her back two pairs of legs stabbed at empty space, trying to find a purchase, and her body began to tip backwards.
Just as she was beginning to grapple with the idea that this was it for her, Fazalune caught her outstretched hands and gave a mighty heave. Karyn felt like her arms were about to tear out of their sockets, but it didn't matter; the important thing was that she was being snatched from the jaws of death. She landed somewhat roughly on the firmer patch of sand outside the edge of the new whirlpool and scrambled to her feet.
Fazalune didn't say anything to admonish her; it was hardly necessary. Instead, they both looked to the beginnings of the next whirlpool.
The really crazy part was that she wasn't much, much more freaked out by this than she was. It wasn't even an adrenaline thing; not to say that her blood wasn't pumping pretty good right now, but for all that she was shockingly calm. Maybe it had something to do with having Fazalune there; as much as the older woman led an eccentric lifestyle, she clearly knew what to expect and what to do here. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that Karyn herself had changed into one of these strange scorpion-people; maybe on some subconscious level she knew that this was her natural environment. She couldn't say.
There were more whirlpools after that one. They spent the entirety of the morning making one mad dash after another; when Fazalune was finally satisfied that they were out of danger, it was already getting on into the unbearably hot midday. Exhausted both physically and mentally, they quickly threw up the tent and scuttled inside; further progress would have to wait until the evening.
Athena sighed as she laid back on the floor in Zoe's room. She'd been unable to get her mind off of things ever since the beginning of the week. Even hanging out with her friend wasn't keeping her thoughts from wandering back to the issue of the old arcade game, and she still couldn't explain the strange fascination it held for her. She didn't even like that kind of thing normally, but she kept getting this feeling like...like it was trying to draw her to itself. It was a little unnerving. She'd had some kind of nightmare last night, too, though she couldn't remember it. She wished she could figure this out, put the pieces together, but there just wasn't enough information to go off of, and she was hesitant to do any more poking around in the arcade, in case something fishy was going on.
She did have one lead, though - she'd managed to dig up an address for the lead programmer she'd read about previously. He lived out in Forest Lake, a couple hours' drive away. Too far to go on a school night, but she could probably coax one of her cousins into letting her borrow a car and go see him on the weekend, if the weekend would ever just hurry the hell up and get here. She wondered if he'd even listen to her concerns.
"-so then she starts busting my ass about letting Mikey watch Alien while they were out," Zoe said, and Athena realized she hadn't even been paying attention to what her friend was saying. "As if I hadn't done enough by staying in with my kid brother while they were out on a date!" she continued. "I swear to God, sometimes I wish I wasn't the oldest kid. It's just not fuckin' worth it."
Athena frowned as a thought flitted across her mind. "What about your brother?" she asked.
Zoe gave a guttural sigh. "Uh, yeah, hello, I was babysitting him? Because he's three years younger than me and somehow that means he can't be trusted to microwave Chef Boyardee by himself?"
Athena shook her head. "No, I mean-" She frowned, trying to sort things out in her head. "...Never mind." She could've sworn...
"Man, you're out of it tonight, Athena," Zoe said. "You feelin' okay?"
"Mm, didn't sleep too well last night," Athena said. There was this nagging feeling at the back of her mind...
She got up and stepped out into the hall. There at the end, in that room...!
But she entered to find a neatly-kept but clearly unused guest room.
Athena felt a sense of foreboding. Now she knew something was up.
