1st Pov:
I didn't know when i got sting by the scorpion.
The world was fading to grey. The venom crept through my veins like slow ice, numbing my leg and spreading a deathly chill throughout my body.
The warmth of the pendant in my hand was a small, defiant anchor in a sea of encroaching blackness.
I lay beside the corpse of the monstrous scorpion, the acrid stench of its ichor heavy in the air. Above me, stars emerged, cold and impossibly bright against the ink black sky, indifferent witnesses to my end.
My breathing was shallow, a faint rasp swallowed by the vast silence. I closed my eyes. It was easier than fighting.
A sound broke through the dark.
The crunch of sand beneath a heavy boot.
My eyes snapped open.
A figure stood silhouetted against the star filled sky, tall and stooped, leaning on a long staff. The shape moved closer, and starlight revealed the details of an old man.
His face was a map of deep carved lines, framed by a wild mane of grey hair and a tangled beard. Layers of patched leather and dust stained cloth hung from his thin frame, and a pair of scavenged goggles rested on his forehead.
His eyes were sharp and alert, scanning everything in a single sweep. Me, the dead scorpions, the rusted rebar still clutched in my other hand.
They were the eyes of a man who had seen too much to be easily impressed.
"Well now," he rasped, his voice like stones grinding together. "Looks like you had a busy evening."
He prodded the dead scorpion with the tip of his staff. "Blight crawlers.Amazing you not only managed one but rather three."
His gaze dropped to my leg, to the dark swollen puncture wound. "But not without a price."
He knelt beside me, movements stiff but practiced. He did not ask if I was all right.
The answer was written in my shaking hands and shallow breaths. Instead, he slung a worn leather satchel to the ground and rummaged through it.
"Poison's already deep in you," he said flatly. "Maybe an hour before your heart gives up trying to push that sludge."
His cynicism was as sharp as the desert cold, worn like armor. He withdrew a wicked looking knife, its edge honed razor sharp.
"This is going to hurt," he said, not as a warning, but as a statement of fact.
Before I could protest, he cut into the wound. Pain exploded fresh and bright, ripping a cry from my throat and snapping my fading awareness back into focus.
He squeezed hard, forcing dark blood and venom to spill out. Then he produced a small pouch of grey powder and packed it into the open flesh.
The burning was immediate and unbearable. Worse than the venom. I clenched my teeth, a strangled sound escaping despite my effort.
"Hold still," he grunted, unimpressed.
He wrapped the wound tightly with a strip of cloth that looked improbably clean. "That will slow it. It will not stop it. You need a proper poultice."
He sat back and finally studied my face. "Who are you? Don't see many strangers this far out. Especially not ones who pick fights with crawler nests."
I tried to answer. My throat was too dry. My thoughts too empty.
"I don't know," I whispered.
The old man's expression barely shifted, but something flickered in his eyes. Pity?Curiosity? Or Perhaps both.
"Amnesia," he said quietly. "Figures. The wastes have a way of scouring people clean. One way or another."
He offered me a food. The water was warm and tasted of metal, but it was the finest thing I had ever known. I drank greedily, then coughed as my raw throat rebelled.
"Easy," he warned, taking it back. "Too much too fast will make you sick."
His gaze drifted over my clothes. Simple trousers. A torn shirt, bloodied, but intact not scavenged or patched like his own.
"You're not from a scavenger clan," he murmured. "Not a raider either. You're new."
My hand loosened around the pendant at last. The milky stone still pulsed with a soft, steady glow.
The old man froze.
His eyes locked onto it then he leaned closer, all cynicism stripped away, replaced by an intense, scholarly focus.
"By the sands," he breathed. "Where did you get this?"
I gestured weakly toward the dead scorpion. "It was on it. In its head."
His eyes widened. He did not touch the pendant, but held his hand over it, as if sensing its warmth.
"A Catalyst Shard," he whispered. "I've only read about them, relics of the Old Kingdom which are said to resonate with the source to amplify the blight or calm it , depending on who wields it."
He looked from the pendant to me, something new forming behind his gaze.
"My name is Jacob," he said. "I was a historian once. Before the world ended, I studied the dynasties that laid this curse upon us."
A bitter smile tugged at his lips. "All that knowledge, and what did it earn me? Couldn't save my family, couldn't save the world and now I scavenge facts in a land that only values water and bullets."
Later, he would say he saw resilience in me. But in that moment, it was the historian who decided. The man who could not walk away from an unanswered question.
"The poison is still working through you,"
Jacob said, his voice returning to hard reality. "The poultice I carry is at my camp and need half a day time from here, but there's a better option."
He gestured toward the dark horizon.
"A settlement, an oasis called The Well. They have a real healer there, a girl named Lyra. She might actually cleanse you."
He stared into the night, then back at me. "It's a hard journey, and I don't guide strangers, that rule kept me alive for twenty years."
His eyes dropped to the glowing pendant.
"But the world is already broken beyond saving. What's one more foolish risk?"
He sighed, deep and weary. "Get up. If you can walk, we leave now. The desert does not wait for the dying."
With his help, I forced myself to my feet. My wounded leg screamed in protest, but it held.
The journey had begun.