I wiped a line of sweat off of my brow. The blazing desert heat was eating away at every uncovered peice of flesh on my body. I whispered a suppication under my breath, hoping, praying, that someone would find me in this godforsaken place. 

After discovering the death of all of my companions, I had no choice but to get away as fast as possible. There were 104 dead men, too many for me to try to bury every one. I tried my best to dig a grave for each, but my energy failed me. I was tired, injured, and starving. I needed to find a way out. My brain didn't have time to comprehend my losses, so I gathered as many supplies as I could and I walked. Not thinking, not wondering, not dreaming, not contemplating. I shut down everything that would take any unnecessary energy and I walked. 

My eyes stopped processing the site before me hours ago. Not that there was much to see anyway. Just hours upon hours of desert. I had tried to keep track of time, but I had failed. It could have been ten minutes sinse the massacre or ten years. There was no way to know.

A crackle of a radio broke me out of my thoughts. I stood entirely still, trying to survey the surrounding area without moving. I didn't see anything but a small lizard poking its head out from behind a rock about three meters away. I relaxed my posture for a second. I couldn't have imagined it, could I? But then I heard it again. And then again. And then a voice.

"Titan?" It crackled. "Agent, please inform us of your position, we have heard from no one in these past six hours."

The first thought that computed in my mind was that I had been walking for six hours. Then, I realized that I had a way to communicate with someone.

I threw my bags down, dumping out every pocket until I located the small device. I tugged on the switch.

"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"

"Titan?"

"No. Titan's dead. They're all dead. I'm the only one left."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Rasheed. I'm one of the men they recruited from the safe houses."

"Alright, Rasheed, listen carefully. We're going to get you out of there. There's a UPO van nearby, we'll redirect it's route in your direction. We need you not to move. Find cover under a tree or anything nearby. I repeat, do not move after you find a spot. These devices are helpful, but hard to track. Do exactly as I say and then put the device in stadby mode. Save battery for emergency."

The small device crackled and I knew the man was gone.

The only cover I could find was a small shrub a few feet away. I threw my stuff to the ground and tried to take cover.

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 My tired eyes fluttered open at the sound of tire trucks. My muscles tensed in reaction, but I was releaved to see it was a UPO van. 

A pair of boots stepped out and paused before me as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

"You must be Rasheed," a deep voice boomed while the man held his hand out to help me out. I graciously accepted it and stood up, dusting off my clothes.

"Yeah, that's me. And you are?"

"Simmo. I'm here to rescue you. Grab your stuff and get in the van quick. We need to get everyone out of here ASAP,"

"Thanks." I threw my supplies over my shoulder and jogged into the van. As I was jumping in, a collection of gasps greeted me.

"Rasheed?!" A familiar voice exclaimed. I spun around to locate the voice.

"MALAAK?!"

"Oh my gosh! What happened to you?" she mumbled as she gave me the one-over, doubtlessly checking for wounds.

"It's a long story. But I'm fine, don't worry,"

"I'm not worried about you. What's happened to Zahra?"

"Don't worry about her either. She's back at the safe house in California with a bunch of others. She'll be just fine,"

"Rasheed..." She said in a low voice, which I knew for a fact meant she was angry with me. "You left her out there in the middle of bloody nowhere. With a kid in her care NO LESS!!!!"

"Look. Duty called, okay. The Hunters are at it again near New York. I left Zahra on good terms and besides she's probably safer without me. The first people they are going to target are people like me. Young men with potential to bring them down."

Malaak gave me a long hard look before throwing herself down by a girl with bright blue hair. The girl looked between me and Malaak.

"So who is this?" she asked. Malaak seemed to realize that she had forgotten to introduce me.

"Oh, um, this is Rasheed, my sister's fiance. Rasheed, this is Mia from the UPO and... Aziz also from the UPO,"

I noticed Malaak's teeth clench as she spit out the guy's name. Hm. I was senseing some tension.

"Assalamu Alaykom (Peace be upon you), it's nice to meet you. Oh, and actually Malaak, about the whole fiance thing... We're actually married now."

Malaak looked at me blankly. Then a bit of the anger returned to her face.

"You JERK! How could you guys just elope like that??? Without ME?!"

"Okay, Malaak, we had no idea where you were, if you were even alive, and I wanted to be able to take care of Zahra and Abdul-Karim to the best of my abilities. So we signed a contract and had a small wedding with the people in the van with us, the only people we knew for certian were alive." 

Malaak looked defeated like she couldn't be bothered arguing. She waved away my words with her hand and went to sit in a seat far away from everyone else.