The harsh desert winds blow strong. Creating a song of haunting notes, it passes over and through the empty husks of buildings half submerged in the burning hot sands. The crumbling skeletons of skyscrapers, now further from the sky than ever before seem tiny by comparison, dwarfed by the colossal dunes that surround them. These titans of quartz, white sand giants that glow in the endless heat of the sun, ripple and sway against the most unbending of winds. They appear to move across the desert. Grain by grain, their movements tiny and nearly unnoticeable, they march on. Each combination of a million footfalls reveals just as many secrets as they cover over, the action of consuming the tip of a building just as likely as excreting a warhead of a bygone past.

From one of these metallic relics, these buildings that nature has started to reclaim, a hand appears. It grasps at a broken window frame, pulling from the husk's dark intestines the body that the hand is attached too. A girl. She is a young adult, her hair dyed blonde from the sun's never ending onslaught, harsh and evident tan lines surrounding her eyes and lower head. She steps out onto the sand, shielding her eyes from the change in light. She takes a pair of goggles that hang around her neck and fastens them around her eyes, lowering her hand as she scans around her. On the side of her goggles, a blue symbol cuts itself through the dull grey and white tones that make her surroundings. The symbol is alien to the world it has found itself in, not only a colour that seems to no long exist, but is made of clean and purposeful shapes, these shapes at odds with the flowing beauty of nature that makes up the sprawling dunes. The girl unhooks a small flask from her belt, raising it to her lips and taking a gulp before wiping away a small green droplet that formed at the side of her mouth. She pulls up a ragged pale scarf to cover her face up to the bridge of her nose, leaving only a small slip of her sun scared skin showing between it and the goggles. She passes the flask back into the abyss as she steps further into the desert, pulling a compass from another hook on her belt.

From the abyss of the buildings, another person steps out. They do the same thing as the first, putting on goggles with the same strange symbol, taking a swig from the flask, pulling up a tattered cloth to cover their face and finally passing the flask back into the void. This second individual walks up to the girl as she looks at her compass, stepping away from the building as a few more individuals complete this strange ritual. As the second person reaches the girl, they peer over her shoulder to see the compass spinning in all directions. The girl takes the compass and slaps it against her leg a few times, grains of the white sand falling out of the cracks in its body. When she raises it to her face to check it again, the needle inside continues to spin.

The second person pulls down their makeshift mask. "So, do we know which way we are going?"

The girl turns to face this second individual, pulling down her scarf also. "We are on the edge of the disruption field. It shouldn't be more than a day out in that direction." She raises her hand and gestures towards a significantly larger dune, one so much larger than the others surrounding it that the sun seems to kiss it as it passes across the sky.

The second person gazes off into the distance in the direction the girl is pointing. "You said that yesterday, Sarah, and the day before. Why should I believe you today when you'll say the same tomorrow?"

"I guess, because you have no choice Martin."

Sarah starts to walk off, beckoning for the group of people to follow her. Suddenly, Martin grips at her shoulder, spinning her around to face him. "We always have a choice Sarah."

Sarah rolls her eyes behind her goggles, hidden from the others who stand further back. "Look," she says, putting her compass into Martin's hands. "Watch this." She turns Martin towards the direction of the dune and directs him to look down to the compass. The needle continues to spin at a constant, unending speed. Never speeding up, but also never slowing down. Sarah rotates Martin slowly, turning him away from the distant dune. As Martin turns away from it, the needle stops, pointing in a firm direction as Martin is spun. It does not paint north, nothing that should ever does, instead pointing towards the dune. As Martin completes his revolution, now no longer pushed to it by Sarah but instead by his intrigue to see this experiment to its conclusion, he faces the dune once more. And as he does, the needle begins to spin again at its constant and steady pace.

Sarah takes back her compass. "That's the distortion field. To be that effective, we have to be very close."

"But one day away? Can you be sure?" Martin gestures wildly back to the few people standing near the edge of the building, milling amongst themselves and checking their respective packs and goggles, each bearing the same blue marking. "Look at them. You can't give them hope and take it away again. They simply couldn't take it."

"Well, what would you prefer, Martin? Do you want to go back? The city is gone. Where we are going is all that is left. Who is going to help you? The government? They're gone too. There is nothing left of society, just where we are going. We can be protected."

"I'd prefer that we didn't kill them. Surely being wiped out instantly is better than this."

Sarah turns away from Martin. "Well, we did, and now we owe it to everyone we lost to survive."

Sarah raises her scarf once more, as does Martin. The group turn towards the dune, Sarah's flask being passed back to her as they continue to move along the sand.

For hours the group march on, only stopping to quickly drink down some more of the green liquid from all manner of receptacles. The sun continues to beat down hard on the group as they move carefully along the edges of dune after dune. Slowly, the sun begins to set behind the dunes, casting immense shadows across the white sands, like the darkness that consumes all light. As the shadows reach the group, Sarah stops and scans her surroundings. The group have arrived at the base of the great dune. Sarah stops scanning as she spots what she is looking for, another ruined building, this one barely poking above the sand, a single broken window providing shelter from the ever encroaching night. Sarah once again pulls out her compass and sees it now spinning so rapidly that no matter which way she turns, the needle is indistinguishable from the rest of the contraption. She turns back to the group, pulling her goggles from her face as the shadows now overpower the shining light.

"We're very close now, it should be just over that dune. But the sun has set, and you all know it's not safe to travel at night. I suggest we shelter in that ruin for the night and finish the journey tomorrow."

A grumble rings out from the group, but despite the resistance, they start to head towards the empty building. As the group begins its walk towards their solace for the night, a voice sounds out loudly from inside the group.

"You promised us one day, that we would be there by now."

Sarah turns back to see who it was speaking, locking eyes with an angry looking Martin, who is rapidly making his way up the side of the dune. "If what you say is true, then true safety is closer than ever. We can make it now, why would we stop."

A cheer quickly gains momentum in the group as they watch Martin quickly become to scale the dune towards its crest. As he runs past Sarah she spins in an attempt to stop him, but he slips through her grasp. She reaches helplessly towards him as he continues to run into the distance, but as his foot hits the ground, it is already too late. A low rumble bursts forth from the ground, followed by roars and screams akin to those of the insane. Hands, covered in a pale white flesh like that of rotting corpses, burst forth from the ground, then heads beset with green glowing eyes sunken into rich red fleshy sockets and bodies that more resemble the malnourished than the healthy.  "LURKERS," Sarah yells over the screeching. "EVERYONE, GET TO THE BUILDING!"

The group dash towards the ancient husk, pushed on only by their panic and fear. Sarah gets to the window and looks back to the ground, only to see more lurkers had appeared from the sand, cutting off the rest of the group from safety. The lurkers chasing her had stopped and rejoined their pack, making aggressive charges towards the group of survivors, each time tearing a person limb from limb. Soon, only two remained, Sarah and Martin. Martin watched helplessly as the pack swiftly disposed of the group, throwing the dismembered bodies around the sand, coating themselves and the surrounding sand in the scarlet blood of what was once he friends. After no more was left, the lurker pack turned their eyes on him. They began to swiftly charge up the dune towards him, making bounds over the sand more like an animal than any man, quickly spreading out in an attempt to block off his lines of escape. They surrounded him swiftly, encircling him and slowly tightening their grip. Martin closed his eyes, preparing for a death that would soon come. But it didn't. The screeching, the sound of the sand moving under foot, the violent gnashing of teeth and bone, it all stopped. Marting opened his eyes. The lurker pack had turned their attention away from him. Still surrounding him on all sides, the pack's gaze was elsewhere. He followed their sight lines down the dune, seeing Sarah standing outside the building she was sheltering in, holding something long and metallic.

"Hey freaks, you want this don't you," Sarah called out to the pack. Above her head, she held an old artillery shell, one that had never gone off. "Then come and get it."

She twists the tip of the shell and a ticking echoes across the desolate desert, and suddenly the pack begins to charge towards her. She smiles at Martin with a hopeful face, one so out of place amongst the scene spread out before him. "Run," she mouths as the pack decends, but Martin doesnt. Frozen with fear he can only watch as the pack reaches Sarah and begins to tear her appart, parts of her body being thrown into the air from the frenzy of the pack, her screams of pain covering the entire desert like a warning to any who try to do as she had done. Then the screams stop. Martin, still frozen in fear watches as the pack turn their gaze from her back to him. They let out another roar, one that shook Martin to his core. He was all that was left, and because of him all of the group died, and soon he would too.

Suddenly, the ticking stops, and the artillery shell that Sarah was holding which now rest on the ground bellow the pack exploded in a brilliant blast of orange, sending whole Lurkers and Martin flying from the blast. Martin hit the ground just bellow the crest, this shocking him back to his senses as he attempts to get to his feet, the sand now loosened by the blast falling away beneath his every move. But not all the Lurkers had been killed by the explosion. The ones at the edges of the pack had mearly been stunned and thrown around, and far quicker than Martin they got back to their feet and ran towards him. Martin continue to scrabble, finaly making it to his feet he clambers to the peak. No sooner does his foot touch the crest before a Lurker manages to catch up, launching itself towards Martin and sending them both flying down the other side of the crest. Martin and the Lurker continued to tumble, sand flying around in the air as the rest of he Lurkers swiftly gave chace. Martin covered his eyes with his hands to protect them from the sand and prepared himself to meet the end, as he was sure as soon as he stopped rolling it would be over for him. But as his body gently came to rest at the bottom of the dune, nothing. He uncovered his eyes once more to see the Lurkers writhing and convulsing, some fallen to the floor as they attempt to claw at their rotted excuses for ears and eyes. Their screetches of war replaced with screams of pain. Quickly, those that didnt die outright of a form of insanity beyond Martin's comprehension ran off back up the dune, disapearing back over its peak.

Martin, shaking and covered in the blood of his friends finally managed to stand. He looks around in an attempt to find what saved him, and finally as he turned he saw it. Behind him, not further than a mile away, lay the corpse of a collosal being. Its flesh a peutrid heugh and parts of it stripped away to show the bones beneath, its body lay motionless in the sand. Martin realised that this creature, once humanities enemy, was the sanctity that Sarah spoke off. "Guys we made it," Martins calls into the darkness, spinning around to find the group only to remember what had happened to him. A tear rolls down his face as he realises Sarah will never see the sanctuary she tried to lead people too, the safety from this new world she wholeheartedly believed existed. She was the one to drag them from the dangeous ruins of their city in hopes of a new promise, and she never saw it realised. Martin turns back to the being and began to walk towards it, safe in the knowledge that no danger would find him here. "For you Sarah, in honour of your sacrafice, I will endure."