Nightless Desert

“This winding river is much like life, only flowing in one direction, until a current strong enough comes along to pull you completely off course into a new direction; whether an adventure, or a nightmare, however, is solely up to the individual. You were that current to me, you know.”

“Oh my god, would you PLEASE shut up!”

Seth pursed his lips to keep himself from laughing aloud, not looking back at the other man behind him, said man hidden away in a small tent to keep out of the blazing suns beating down from above them.

Elias had never been good with heat, it put him on edge and reduced his temper to even lower than what it usually was. But, while he complained mercilessly about it, he never actually did anything to change his ways, to keep himself away from Seth.

Hell, if he DID, he would not be stuck on a boat, floating above water that exceeded boiling, with dunes of shimmering sand on either side of them. A scorching river within a nightless desert, even Seth agreed it wasn’t his first choice of a vacation, much less a dating local.

“We shouldn’t be long more, hopefully the next stop will provide some shade, if not relief from the heat” Seth, much less affected by the ungodly temperatures, said in what he hoped would be a soothing voice, thinking to himself that, of course, his attempt at bad flirting had also backfired.

Elias was good at resisting even the most romantic flirting, when he wanted too, at least.

Thankfully, Elias seemed to be feeling even a little bit bad about snapping, so he stayed silent, eyes in a crescent-shaped squint as he looked out at the nearby dunes of sand, the landscape dancing and threatening to show him illusions, even though this entire place has been nothing short of hell, for both of them, though his partner’s complaints were few and far between.

“We’ve been here...for over two weeks, now, Seth” Elias started, having to think with his own, internal clock, given that the sun never moved from its stationary position, meaning that there was no way to accurately tell the time apart from their sleep-wake cycles, “We haven’t seen another living soul, not even a SINGLE BUG, or even any local flora. Why would you be sent here, or are you supposed to terraform a tidally locked hunk of rock?”

“If there really was nothing to do, we wouldn’t be here, or we would have been sent back already, you know this, Elias. Also, if there was no one alive around here, then we wouldn’t have found this boat, it’s in a fine condition, even if it’s a bit rundown,  just give it some more time, we just have to wait it out” Seth said soothingly, keeping his eyes ahead for their supposed promise-land.

“Easy for YOU to say, last I checked, you can suffer, but you can’t die. Something your FIANCE back here doesn’t share” Elias growled, furrowing his brow when Seth looked back at him with eyes that almost instantly soothed him, even chilled his heated body and he asked softly, “What…?”

“That’s the first time you called yourself my fiance…”

It struck a chord in both their hearts, with Elias’ slowly healing injury and his returning mind and senses and Seth having to sit through all that, the man he loved more than his own life not even remembering him, but somehow remembering EVERYTHING else.

But they were healing, both of them, slowly but surely.

And that’s, of course, when the boat started rocking.

Elias hissed as water splashed up at him, just a few miniscule droplets landing on his arm, but instantly burning bright and hot as he frantically waved to dislodge them.

Seth took a step closer to him from where he was steering the boat, but the wooden rudder suddenly jerked to the side and he had to grab onto it again, holding onto it tightly as it tried to move frantically on its own, like it was purposely trying to tip their boat over, and them overboard.

“Get over here and hold this!” he shouted at Elias, who reacted immediately, coming over and firmly taking over the rudder, wedging himself tightly between it and the boat’s side to make up for his own lacking strength.

Seth hurried to the rail and leaned over, looking into the frothing and boiling water, but unable to see much of anything through the foggy whiteness.

He looked back at Elias and ordered sternly, “Don’t do anything stupid, keep this thing floating until I get back” and he jumped overboard before the other could reply.

What Elias had said had been correct; to both of their knowledges, he couldn’t die by any mortal means - or that one trip to a pseudo-Edo period with dinosaurs would have ended VERY differently than just him getting a few new scars - but he sure as hell could still feel any pain inflicted onto his body, albeit not easily on his mind.

The pain now wasn’t IMMEDIATE immediate, but he definitely felt it as soon as he was submerged; the visibility within the water not being much better than it was from outside of it, but he could at least now see the shape of the creature lurching and bucking against their little boat in its efforts of sabotage.

It was similar in appearance to an Angler fish, but longer, like an eel and closer in size to a dolphin, great and terrible teeth latched onto the rudder and the cause for the chaotic tugging.

It’s serpentine body coiled around the rudder tighter and Seth imagined the sound of wood splintering as he reached out with his left hand; he was fortunate that this creature, while vicious, was used to its prey being above water and most definitely NOT jumping in after it for an attack, to fighting back against it.

So it let out a loud squeal when the bright pink light hit it towards the end of the coiled tail, shaking violently as it swam away in a laughable manner, having been spooked.

Nodding to himself, Seth quickly swam up to the surface again and pulled himself up from the water, panting from having to hold his breath and shaking the water from his hair; his clothes were drenched and he could see them steaming a bit from the sudden exposure to the unforgiving heat, as well as his skin being a bright and ugly red that would no doubt stick to him for awhile.

He looked up at Elias, who was looking at him with a horrified look and said softly, “Found something living for you” before he collapsed to the ground.