Heir Of Chaos

He walked to the door and turned back at her.

As Erin walked, he occasionally made slight jumps or avoided walking on some places entirely.

This made him wonder if she had a fear of falling down a hill of sand.

Dale shrugged and opened the door, feeling a wave of cool air hit him. Due to the heavy contrast with the outside, goosebumps flared across his skin.

"Much better." He closed his eyes to fully delve into the relief from the unbearable heat of the desert.

With his eyes still closed, he shut the door behind him before opening them.

Despite the outside of the building being so large, the insides were actually modest with no decorations whatsoever.

The only thing that made the place seem like where someone would be living was the small wardrobe and bed provided on the ground floor for him.

"Greedy people, this entire desert is deserted so why are they conserving space?" Not only that but if only the ground floor was meant to be his living area then why were there three floors?

Dale raised an eyebrow and dropped the phone given to him on the bed. With no reason not to, he climbed up the stairs all the way to the top floor.

Just as Erin had said, there was indeed only a telescope — and the window it looked out of —there with nothing in the room.

The telescope faced the East... or at least the direction they had come from.

He was meant to watch the worms so first, he had to find them. Dale walked to the telescope and placed his eye against the eyepiece.

A blinding pain shot through his eye as the sun’s light entered it and burned his retina. Dale jumped back, tripping and rolling on the ground.

"Ahh! Dammit!" His entire right eye was burning and he could barely see anything with it. He hoped he wasn’t blind.

’Maybe I should wait for my eye to recover before taking a look searching for the worms.’ He wanted to but for all he knew, the worms might have already been on the move.

Dale kissed his teeth, cursing silently. He almost regretted picking the task.

Before placing his left eye on the eyepiece, he pushed it up, adjusting the lens away from the sun and back onto the desert floor.

As he looked through, he could see Erin walking back to the helicopter. She approached it and got on.

The blades started spinning and they took off, flying off to wherever.

Despite knowing it would happen, Dale felt a bit off. It was odd being completely alone.

He shook his head. "This isn’t the time for nostalgia!" Then he paused. He had done it again.

When he was alone, he had the odd habit of saying his thoughts out loud. It was something he hoped to stop.

Dale turned his attention back to searching for the worms yet his tireless efforts came back fruitless.

’What am I meant to be looking for?’ Now that the thought about it, there weren’t any particular details regarding what he had to look out for and specifics about the worm.

A small movement on the sand drew his attention and he turned to it. He adjusted the telescope and the small figure came into focus. A lizard.

Dale kissed his teeth and was about to move when the sand underneath the lizard burst out, revealing a large maw lined with rows upon rows of sharp teeth.

The lizard fell into the pit of the worm’s maw and the beast shut its mouth, devouring the reptile in less than a second.

Small hills of sand and dunes collapsed as movement started to take place all over where the lizard had been.

Dale watched, paralyzed as another worm shot out and attacked the first. The two wrapped around one another with their dry flaky skin, trying to snap the other in half.

As they tussled, they unleashed blows, biting and ripping out the flesh of one another.

’Such speed!’ Despite being as wide as a bus, the worms didn’t seem any slower than a sports bike. Their top speed had to be at least 40 miles per hour.

Dale lost track of who was who and it didn’t matter. What did, was that a worm twisted its own body, successfully snapping the other one in two.

Yet before it could even begin to enjoy its meal, a mountain of sand fell apart, and a giant worm with a mouth no smaller than an adult whale shot forward with a speed that was meant to be impossible for its size.

It completely swallowed the two worms in an instant and dug itself back into the sand.

The only trace left of their ferocious battle and feast was the few drops of black blood but even those were soon covered by the sand was wind blew by.

A shiver ran down Dale’s spine. All of a sudden, he prayed his luck would be good and that the beasts wouldn’t move.

’Is this why the military won’t kill them?’ It didn’t make sense though, they had the likes of Lord Byron who could easily slay all the worms.

Not that it mattered anyway. Dale’s eyes glanced at every hill of sand or mountain. For all he knew, they were all worms.

If for any reason he had to move, he would assume them to be. It made sense that the military would also want constant surveillance on those profane beasts.

He could easily imagine the massacre that they would unleash if they managed to get to any city in the world.

’Did they really send a Dormant recruit to monitor such beasts?’ Dale forced an awkward smile on his face.

No matter, it wasn’t like the beasts were prone to migration and it was a few days anyway.

Plus he could use the opportunity to have some proper privacy away from fights and scuffles.

All he had to do was watch them. Nothing too big.