Chapter Text
Y/n woke to heat. Not the gentle drift of morning, but a crushing pressure — the sun so close it felt as if it were waiting for her to open her eyes. Sand had become a second skin: in her hair, in the corners of her mouth, a gritty film that turned every breath into work.
She pushed herself upright with a ragged gasp. Her throat felt scoured, a raw pipe of salt and dust. A violent cough racked her chest and sent the world tilting at the edges.
The desert spread in every direction — flat, pale, fundamentally wrong. The sky was an unbroken hard blue, scrubbed clean of clouds and birds. No trees. No tents. No voices.
Her chest constricted until the quiet felt loud.
“Hello?” she croaked.
The word fell into the sand and disappeared.
She turned slowly, dread blooming with every sweep of her gaze. Hours before there had been laughter, neon nylon, backpacks piled like small promises; there had been a half-circle of sleeping girls, a campfire’s dark ring. Now there was only sand and horizon, a brightness that offered nothing back.
Her stomach seized. She scrambled up; her boots sank into the shifting dunes.
“No,” she whispered, voice breaking. “No, no—”
She ran until her lungs burned as if she were inhaling glass, until the world blurred into gold and panic. She screamed names — the girls she had braided hair with, shared candy with, whispered secrets to beneath the stars.
No one answered. The desert swallowed her calls.
She dropped to her knees, hands clawing uselessly at the ground as if she could dig them back into the night. They were gone. All of them.
Then a sound broke the silence — low, mechanical, alien to the dunes. The horizon fractured into motion.
Dark, angular shapes crested the dunes. Relief hammered through her so fast it made her dizzy; she staggered up and waved her arms, throat raw as she screamed for help.
The trucks skidded to a stop, throwing up plumes of dust. Doors hissed. Men climbed out — not rescue workers, but figures in charcoal-gray uniforms, faces shaded by tactical sunglasses and expressions carefully neutral.
They did not rush her. They watched.
One of them spoke into a shoulder radio in clipped tones. Another signaled for the others to fan out — not searching, but containing.
A man approached with deliberate, heavy steps.
“Easy,” he said, his voice flat in a way that offered no comfort. “You’re safe now.”
Y/n frowned at the word. Why were they more afraid of her than she was of them?
He reached for her shoulder with a gloved hand. When his fingers brushed her skin something inside Y/n snapped. Instinct took the wheel; she shoved him away with whatever strength she had.
Men shouted. Weapons came up. The man she’d shoved hit the sand hard and, for a breath, everything was chaos — practiced composure breaking into sharp alarm.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, kicking out, fighting to rise. The air felt thick, as if the desert itself leaned in to listen.
“Sedate her!” someone barked.
“No!” Y/n begged. “Please — I just want to go home.”
She didn’t feel the needle. She felt the cold bloom of something sliding through her veins, the world tilting as her knees folded. Gloved hands closed over her, forcing her down while light fractured into shards of sound.