Stranger Lands - Sci-fi and Fantasy

Chapter 2 In the high hours of the night, she begins packing. Her cloak - threadbare as it is - is draped across a table in the corner of the room she woke in. She presses on the bulb beside her, feeling it give way under her touch and then build resistance as it fills partly with the luminescent fluid. The dim orange glow casts a muted shadow by her movements. She gathers her few belongings; her goggles, gloves, and moccasins are bundled in her shirt, tucked in a chest at the foot of the bed. When she carefully unfolds the wrapped package, her dagger gleams up at her, catching the light on its sinewy edge. It seems to shiver in the rippling shine, slithering into the palm of her hand. The raider it had belonged to had not given it easily. They had struggled over it, rolling down the salt dune that she’d tucked herself against to sleep. She still felt the sting of white grains in fresh wounds, still smelt the metal tang of his blood as he’d stared up at her from the shadow of the ridge...

Chapter 1 A wanderer stumbles, chastised under the blinding sun. Her limbs are heavy, full of sleep, her mind clouding as the simple release of dreams swim to her vision. Mirage-images flicker, all too promising. A crowd of people in the desert. The absurdity makes her laugh, like a harsh bark - a sound from deep inside that pulls her weary body and distressed mind into the waiting darkness of exhaustion. It is cold, down here. Away from sensation. Her dreams are not peaceful as they chase her back into the recesses of consciousness. All sharp angles and buzzing talk. Intelligent things. Above that, behind the gnawing metal prongs strangling her mind; something dark and twisting. There is pain, a familiar pain, the shock running through her. Around her, coalescing; a shifting vision - the salt desert under high sun and crumbling, vinestreaked ruins meshing inexorably until the strange dream-clarity takes over and she is plunged icily into the scene of flesh rending and reknitting, shak...