[I-0]

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Camp was running low on water, so somebody had to race out to the north oasis with their fingers crossed and a bit of faith in their heart that it hadn’t dried up yet. We drew straws, and I wound up with the shortest one. Whined about it for a little while, tried to call a redo, and Bennett started swearing at me and waving his gun around.

I took the hint, threw on my coat, and got moving. It isn’t the first time I’ve been out scavenging, obviously - I’m not new blood - but my last venture spooked the shit out of me. Scorpion bigger than my fuckin’ head popped out of the sand and started rattling at me while I was trying to take a drink.

Fired a warning shot off near it, trying to scare it off - didn’t want to run the risk of hitting the ninety-percent of the thing that’s bulletproof - and I just made it madder. Heard it click its claws together, and I ran off. Pretty sure it chased me for miles before it got bored, hungry, or lost, and left me alone. Shit trip.

Anyway. This time, I only made it about halfway to the oasis before I found something. A weird hunk of metal, half-buried in the ground. I nudged it with the end of my boot before I realized there was a person inside, and I thought that covering yourself in a ton of steel and fuck-knows-what had to be the shittiest protection against heat stroke I could imagine. Muttered something about the poor bastard and started to get on my way.

Only had time to take a few steps before it started moving. Guy started digging himself out of the dirt - I couldn’t believe he wasn’t dead. Still, I gave him a hand, and tried to help him up enough to at least sit with me.

Couldn’t tell how old he was, but he had some gnarly blisters. Waved a hand in front of his face to see if he was conscious, and he got kinda pissed - grabbed my wrist and told me to cut that shit out.

He asked me where he was, and I told him we were a ways north of Camp Zaz. He looked at me like he had no fucking clue what that was, then he just… stared at me for a little while. Blinking, breathing, but not doing a whole lot else.

Next thing he asked me for was my name. Told him my name was Faizel, and he said it sounded like a Sarradian name - not that I had a clue what that meant. He squinted, asked me if I was one of those, and when I looked confused he told me to forget about it.

I didn’t ask for permission before I picked him up, half-tossed him over a shoulder, and hauled him all the way back to camp. He was pretty quiet through the whole ordeal, and every so often I’d ask him if he was dead yet. Those’re the only times he spoke up, saying either ‘nope’ or ‘I wish’ depending on his mood. Pretty terse, but that might be dehydration.

When I got back, I told Bennett and the rest the gist of what happened, and they decided to leave the weirdo to me and send somebody in my place for scavenging.

Took him to my place, got him out of that awful metal tomb and into a much lighter duster, the sort people wear when they’re trying to not die of heatstroke in the middle of the desert. I also tossed him a drink, hoping it’d make him more talkative.

I asked him for his name, and he told me he couldn’t remember, with a little shake of his head. I only got the one question out before he started rattling off a full interrogation of his own.

Asking me how the hell he got here. Told him I didn’t know.

Asking me again where he was. Told him it was our camp, and he tried to pry some more - asked me what city it was in, I told him I didn’t know what that word meant. That made him real frustrated.

He started clattering out a bunch of names I’ve never heard before that I’m pretty sure he made up on the spot, getting angrier with every single one. Asking me if he was in Agartha, Esshar, Britannia, whatever. I got real apologetic, and told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. It looked like he wanted to shoot me, but he took a breather and tried a different tack.

He asked if there was anything past the desert. I told him that nobody had ever found an end to it - at least, nobody's ever come back saying they found something past it. That must’ve freaked him out, and the next thing he asked was whether or not the sun ever set.

Told him no, and he asked me if I’d ever heard of ‘night’ before. When I told him that I didn’t know what that meant, he accused me of lying to him, making fun of him. He promised he’d go outside, sit in the shade, and wait for night time.

I waited a little while inside, too, expecting him to come back in and apologize for everything, tell me he’d made a mistake and that I was telling the truth. Got really, really worried when that didn’t happen, so I went outside to look -

And I couldn’t find him.

Found a trail, sure, leading out of my tent and a short way down to the eastern outcrop. I’m assuming that’s where he stopped, to sit in the relative shade and wait for ‘night,’ but I can’t say for sure.

Oddest thing, though. The tracks just stopped there, like he keeled over and got swept off by a really big vulture. Maybe a roc.

I’ll try not to think about it too hard. Enough wandering without water can drive anybody batshit.

I’m just hoping crazy ain’t contagious.