"Why are you here? Get out!" Jesse shouted.

"What? You can't send her out there. The worm might still be lurking!" Felix objected.

"I don't give a crap! They stole our camels and now she's here having a meltdown because that thing killed her friends. She needs to leave!"

Sintra ignored the bickering of her teammates as she staggered over to the blonde girl who immediately covered her head with her hands as she flinched.

"It's okay. No one's going to hurt you," Sintra consoled, crouching down to her level.

This was Sintra at the beginning of the game—scared and confused. As a matter of fact, Sintra's fear never subsided but as she recalled her own breakdown at the beginning earlier, she couldn't help but sympathize with the girl who on close inspection, was obviously just a teen.

She didn't care if they stole their camels. Not when each of them had nearly lost their lives to that monster. The death worm did not discriminate and if it's one thing Carter's group did get right, it was working together. Sintra's group however, seemed to be failing at that.

"What's your name?" Sintra asked her, rubbing her back gently.

"Lena," she answered with hesitance while slowly raising her head. Her brilliant blue eyes were filled with pure terror as she scanned Sintra's face warily.

"Okay, Lena. Just calm down for a second. We're all terrified here but we can't get through this with fear. Just try to relax."

"Try to relax?" Jesse mocked.

"Jess—"

"Don't Jesse me!" She interrupted Felix. "Did you forget that she's the enemy here? They stole our ride and now she's here acting like she's the victim. Throw her the hell out!"

"You know I'm getting real tired of hearing that big mouth of yours," Sintra stood to face her. "Why don't we throw you out?"

"Oh yeah?" Jesse approached her, their bodies dangerously close to each other. "Try it!"

"Stop this!" Vante shouted at them both, stepping between what would have certainly been a fight. "We don't have time for petty quarrels. We have to get out of here and to the target before the sun goes down or else we'll all be here til tomorrow."

Sintra's eyes never left Jesse's as they glared at each other, finally breaking away as Sintra retrieved the map from her bag. After turning it on, she realized they were still quite some distance away from their target.

"I'm going to check if it's still out there," Vante announced.

"No!" Sintra and Jesse said simultaneously, prompting them both to glare at each other.

"Did you 2 hear a word I just said?" Vante asked as he ignored their refusal while approaching the cavern's entrance.

They watched with trepidation as he leaned against the walls, pushing his hand out first before his head to quickly survey outside before stepping out of the cavern.

"I think it's gone," Vante reported and Sintra exhaled the breath she had been unknowingly holding as she clutched a hand to her chest that had not stopped pounding since they had entered the cavern.

"Let her go first," Jesse said, nodding towards Lena. "It's the least she could do after stealing our camels."

Lena broke down again, shaking her head in reluctance as she begged them not to let her leave.

"Hey, don't worry. I'll go with you," Sintra said gently, helping her up as they walked hesitantly towards the entrance.

"I'm coming too," Felix announced shortly after and soon the sun greeted them once more with full, glaring heat that temporarily blinded them.

Sintra squinted, her head turning omnidirectionally as she checked for the death worm but it was no where in sight. She would never admit it out loud but she was glad the camel thieves had distracted the monster long enough for them to get away.

She silently vowed that their deaths would not go in vain once she had gotten to the bottom of all this.

Looking at the map, she released Lena's arm as she announced their next move, setting off again towards the glowing yellow mark.

They made sure to avoid their original route incase the monster might still be there even though diverting from their path would take longer.

"Watch out for snakes," Vante warned, answering her unasked question as he pointed to the diagonal snake tracks in the sand.

"Thanks," she said dryly, shaking off the mawkish feeling that overcame her as a result of his concern.

They walked for what seemed like hours before finally arriving at their target, swaggering and tripping as dehydration began to take over.

"Where the hell is it?!" Jesse shouted in frustration.

Sintra's chapped lips pursed together while she tried to swallow the lump in her throat but her mouth was so dry that she coughed instead.

She spun herself crazily as she tried to find some form of irregularity in the scorching desert but there was nothing. She saw no gifts, no camels, no bags, no people, just sand and disappointment.

"W-what's that?" Lena asked shakily, pointing towards a black object in the distance. It was almost imperceptible as sand had covered the length of it but now that she had been made aware of its existence, it seemed to stand out in the sea of ochre gold like a black sheep among a white flock.

Sintra wondered how they had ever missed it before. She blamed it on the fatigue.

Her legs moved involuntarily as she took off towards it, the rest of them hot on her tail as she fell to her knees to open their treasure.

As she brushed the sand from the corners she realized it was no ordinary chest, much like the device she held was no ordinary map. In fact, the fiery heat of the desert apparently had no effect on it as the cold metal of the chest numbed her finger tips with each touch.

The intricate designs carved into its black body was similar to that of their map and a small scanner was engraved in the face of the chest's cover.

"I can't open it," Sintra told them as she strained while lifting the lid.

"Let us try," Vante said before he and Felix both took turns trying and failing at prying the chest open.

"That's a scanner right? Let's try our passes," Jesse suggested but that too proved futile.

Frustration swept the 5 of them and their anger begun to spew on each other in the form of meaningless arguments.

Sintra turned her attention from her irritated teammates towards the blinking yellow mark on the map, running her fingers over the sides on the cube. She had never noticed it before but their were small buttons in the grooves of the device with even smaller words labelling them, prompting her to put it closer to her face as she squinted to read it.

"A game enhancer," she said to herself while recalling the robotic woman's speech. An idea popped into her mind as she pressed a small button marked "key" on the map while holding it over the scanner. To her excitement, the chest beeped before clicking shortly after to indicate that it had become unlocked.

"Yes!" she celebrated, catching the attention of her teammates as she eagerly lifted the lid. Much to her dismay, her face quickly fell into a frown at revelation of its contents.

"It's empty!" Jesse said, a curse leaving her mouth immediately after.

"Is this suppose to be some kind of sick joke?" Sintra questioned as she stuck her head inside the empty chest for a better look but before she could remove it, a dispenser hidden on its floor went off, spraying a mysterious mist in her face.

"Ahh," Sintra gasped as she both inhaled and ingested the vapor, an assortment of chemical ingredients bombarding her sensitive palate with the unknown.

Her eyes crossed from dizziness as she quickly withdrew her head, steadying herself with her arms as she tried to grab hold of the sand behind her.

"Sintra, what's wrong?" She heard Vante ask but she was unable to respond, her consciousness quickly leaving her.

"Th-the chest.." Sintra tried to say but failed as the last thing she recalled was Vante's arms catching her just as she descended into a dream.

Or what seemed like a dream.

Sintra was still very much in the desert. Though, it had been drained of all color as her eyes consumed only black and white images across the distance.

"What in the world—" Sintra whispered, staring around the dreary grays of a once blue sky and wavy, golden dunes of sand.

She flung her arms across each other almost immediately, a bizarre action given her current location as the cold of this back world began to sink into her pores, realization setting in as she finally noticed that her lovely, bronze skin had also been drained of color.

"Sintra!" Vante shouted, prompting her to turn around.

Her lips parted unconsciously, disbelief rattling her body as she stared at her unconscious body still lying in his arms while Team 5, and Lena surrounded her.

"How?" Was all she could muster, her face twisting in confusion.

"Sintra!" He called again, shaking her body vigorously.

"I'm right here!" She shouted, running over to them.

"Ofcourse she passes out in a time like this. Just great! What are we suppose to do now?" Jesse asked.

"I'm right here guys! Can't you—can't you see me?" Sintra's voice lowered as cognizance set in while staring at her limp body.

Sintra wondered if she was dead but as she dropped to her knees to look at herself, her chest still rose and fell normally which meant she was still breathing. She watched as Vante ran a hand down her cheek, shaking her slightly as he beckoned for her to wake up.

The worried line had formed between his brows again and Sintra tried not to gawk at his stunning side profile, settling for a closed mouth smile instead.

"Well atleast I'm not dead," Sintra said to herself, standing as she surveyed monochromatic desert once more before sighing.

This frigid netherworld of dreary tones of gray enhanced the lifelessness of the empty wasteland of sand and only Sintra could see its bland existence.

"Check the chest again. Maybe there's some button inside or something," Lena suggested.

"No!" Sintra reached for Felix's shoulder to stop him but he had already dipped his head inside.

"Nothing," he said as he withdrew himself from the chest, flopping to the ground beside her and Vante in a breath of frustration.

Sintra's sullen expression remained as she wondered why he too was not spritzed with the mystery drug that had knocked her out while examining the inside of the chest.

As her teammates erupted in another argument, Sintra peeked her head inside again, her eyebrows rising in surprise as a pill container along with a piece of paper sat inside.

She retrieved them both, unfolding the paper first before reading aloud as if her teammates could hear her.

"Take one red and one blue. Any other combination will bring certain death. Good luck!"

Sintra grimaced as she reread it a few more times before crumpling the paper and tossing it behind her. She then opened the pill container, scowling even more as she stared at 4 gray tablets.

"How can do I know which is red and which is blue if I can only see black and white," Sintra complained aloud, dropping herself in the sand.

"We need to hurry! Before someone— I mean before that thing comes back," Lena warned, causing Sintra to frown at her change of sentence.

The anxiety radiating from her mannerisms felt palpable even in the colorless world as she fidgeted with the hem of her t-shirt, constantly looking around as if she was expecting someone.

"She's right," Felix agreed. "It's not safe to be out here like this."

That much Sintra believed to be true. She turned the contents of the container out onto her palm, staring at the pills as she inspected each of them for even a hint of color but it was useless. The pills were identical—the same sizes and dimensions. As far as Sintra knew, only her out of body 'spirit form' could see it which meant it was up to her to figure it out.

There was movement behind Team 5 as Sintra's attention was caught by a group of 10 people heading towards them, each appearing to be carrying weapons in their hands.

"Hey guys! Someone's coming," Sintra said, clenching both her fist and jaws when she remembered they couldn't hear her.

Ofcourse Lena was angsty. It was obvious that she knew something that they didn't.

Sintra focused her attention on the pills once more as she tried to figure out what to do. She had to warn them and they needed to get out here as quickly as possible.

"Think, Sintra, think!" she willed herself, diving into her brain with hopes of splashing into an idea.

Shaking off her frustration, Sintra examined the pills again as she silently hoped for something to change but there was absolutely no way to discern the red from the blue. She knew she couldn't randomly ingest 2 since the consequences of that would be certain death and after all they had experienced, these game masters were not messing around.

"The sun will set soon and we're not even half way towards figuring out where the hell the pass is," Jesse complained.

Sintra shot to her feet, her palm clenched with the pills inside as she struck a gold mine of an idea rich with the goal of success.

"That's it! Take half of each pill," Sintra beamed.

"Jesse, you're a genius!" She praised, rejoicing in the fact that she couldn't hear her. The last thing she wanted to do was commend Jesse and that rotten attitude.

Sintra broke the pills in half, dry swallowing half of each of them while uselessly patting her chest for them to go down faster.

A cannonade of unknown and bitter substances ravaged her sensitive palate as it passed into her throat, slowly descending into her stomach.

She shook off the immediate nausea that followed her intake, staggering a little as she blinked away dizziness.

A glitter from the box caught her attention and she dropped to her feet to look inside again, grabbing the cobalt blue pass that had suddenly appeared as quickly as she could before she fainted unto the sand.

Sintra's eyes flew open immediately after, this time in her real body and she thanked whatever God was listening as she awoke to a blue sky and a voluminous, golden desert.

"Sintra?" Vante called as they held each other's gaze.

"Thank God you're back!" Felix said relieved. "But what's that?"

"I got it," she said in a whisper as she squeezed the pass a little tighter.

"I got it!" She announced again, breaking free from Vante's arms as she waved the blue plastic in the air.

"But how?" Vante questioned.

"No time to explain, get your weapons, there's about 10–"

"Don't move!" Someone said, catching the attention of all 5 of them. "We'll be taking that."

"Who are you?" Vante asked, ignoring their command as he rose from the ground.

"Doesn't matter. Hand over the pass," the man said more forcefully this time.

He wore a soldier's uniform of camouflage, his thick brown boots sinking into the sand as he pointed a metal sword at them. It seemed as if his skin had tanned a few tones darker in the sun but his eyes were brilliantly green and terrifying. The crew of 10 comprised of mostly young men but this team wore no hints of hesitance nor apprehension.

"This isn't even your target!" Felix told them.

"You're wrong. Look," one of the men in the group instructed as they watched him hold out his holographic map to show them the blinking yellow target situated at the exact location his team currently stood.

"Give us the pass. We won't ask again," the soldier said.

"Screw you! We're not giving you jack shi—"

Whoosh.

Before Sintra could understand what was happening, an arrow flew past Jesse's shoulder but Sintra was more shocked at the fact that Jesse made no attempt to dodge nor did she flinch.

"What the hell!" Felix bellowed before asking her if she was alright.

The soldier squinted a little as he cocked his head to the side, regarding Jesse curiously before speaking again.

"Like I said, I won't ask again."

"Give it to him, Sintra." Vante instructed.

"What? No! You don't even know what happened in order for me to get—"

"Just do it!" Vante told her.

Sintra scowled at him before walking over to the soldier to hand him the pass. She wondered if Vante actually had a plan or if he was so fond of Jesse that he was now willing to lose the game and die in this wretched desert.

"On second thought, we'll be taking her too," another man from the group said as he held on to Sintra's arm.

Crows feet danced on the corners of his pale blue eyes as his bald head glistened in the sunlight. His teeth showed all the signs of a heavy smoker as he smiled at Sintra and she had to suppress the urge to gag as she looked at him.

"Let go of me!" Sintra said as she tried to yank herself free.

"Let her go," Vante warned, his voice more dangerous than any of the men who spoke.

"Just leave her, Phillip," the soldier told him.

"Why? We could have some real fu—" Phillip said before a shriek interrupted him.

"Oh no!" Lena exclaimed.

"Why oh no? What is that?" The soldier asked.

"It's coming. Thank God too. You pricks are gonna die with us," Jesse tittered.

"What's coming? Answer me now!" the soldier demanded.

"Death," Sintra sneered at him, knocking the knife out of the man called Phillip's hand before punching him in the face.