The Descent

Chapter 7 - Darkness To Light

As the darkness of unconsciousness threatened to drag Denton down into its depths, he desperately fought back, determined to not pass out. His eyes darted left and right as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing around him while adrenaline coursed through his body. His feverish and newly oxygen infused brain bombarded his mind with hundreds of equally implausible scenarios, one more absurd and alarming than the next. His field of vision was clouded further as more silhouettes gathered around him. Urgent voices shouted commands he did not understand. Alien hands checked his body from head to toe. His attempt to protest resulted in firm hands of the unknown beings placed on his arms and legs, which further amplified his protest. He felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest as the urgency of the situation escalated, and his pulse pounded inside his head as if the gods of thunder were hammering their anvils inside.

He continued to struggle against the strong arms that held him down, even though his legs and arms felt like jelly and refused to support his attempt to throw off those that held him down. A mask was placed firmly over his face, and he felt a fresh blast of air on his face. His first instinct was to rip the mask off but with his hands held down, he couldn't. Moments later he felt his body grow limp and completely stop responding to the commands his brain sent. He tried to move his arms and legs, but there was no response. A renewed sense of panic surged through his body as he felt the inevitable approach. He had survived the Descent only to die in the hands of what? Desert savages? He had heard of them, of course, but he had never thought them to be real. His mother had often told him stories about them. They were misfits that roamed the desert, she had said, taking every opportunity to ravage and destroy whatever they encountered. She had told tales of abductions and the outrageous ransom demands, some more successful than others. He had always been dubious about his mother's claims as a child and suspected the stories were mostly intended to keep him out of the Wastelands. Had she been right after all? Were the savages real?

He gasped for air and fought to get up. He didn't want to become the headline of another abduction story. He had to tell them who he was before they went too far. He could offer them leniency if they let him go, even better, he could forget about the whole thing. He wouldn't tell a soul. He tried to open his mouth, but the words came out as mumbles, further jumbled by the mask on his face.

The hands that held him down suddenly let go, and he felt his body lifted from the ground onto something else. Then, an upward movement and additional unintelligible shouting around him. He realized he was on a stretcher when they started walking away from the landing zone. No, he couldn't let that happen. He had to stop them. If they took him away, the landing team would never be able to find him. As he tried to fight against the restraints that now held him down, he realized that there was nothing he could do. His body still did not obey him, and his protest came out as muffled grunts. He was stuck and his fate in the hands of his captors.

After what felt like several minutes, they stopped. Denton heard a commotion around him and felt the stretcher being put down and slid onto something. His view of the sky was replaced by a set of fluorescent tubes mounted on a metal ceiling. A cyclops sat down next to him, likely to keep a constant watch over him and prevent any attempt of an unlikely escape.

He sensed movement, and as the body of his guard swayed in rhythm with the movements Denton felt, he knew they were on the move. He couldn't see where they were going. Not that it mattered. Even if he could have looked out the window, the desert area was unknown to him, and the direction they were going would mean little. The only thing he could tell for sure was that they were driving north. The Eternal Sun was behind them, as it always was when one traveled north. It meant they were heading away from the desert.

Denton made several more attempts to move and get up, but the combination of sedatives and restraints kept his limbs from moving. Eventually, the gentle rocking of the vehicle and the uneven road slowly lulled him into a fitful state between sleep and unconsciousness where he found himself chased by cyclops intent on having him for dinner.