2 - Momma Scorpion

When I crawled out of my hole, the ring lit up, and the holo-screen appeared. I was level 2. My health stat had gone up. I felt better. Relatively.

My full-body sunburn was peeling, and the electric burns stung. The sores were still leaking pus and stank, so I forced myself to open them up and clean them out with sand and water. I cooked wet sand on the hot rock to hopefully disinfect it first. I thought that passing out from pain only happened in the movies. Turned out, it was a real thing. Hooray for new experiences.

I glanced up at the sky. “Wow, whoever put me in this position, if you’re listening, I’m so grateful. You should come on down so I can thank you. Permanently. With my spear up your ass.”

Hungry, I went hunting. I managed to bag another scorpion and cooked it before the sun went down. The next day, I would try to get another stinky fruit down from a palm. Without getting a face full of assassin tarantula. Or more flaming diarrhea. Hopefully. But too tired to do more for now, I went to bed again.

Alone in the desert with nothing but the stars, it was very peaceful. This was more nature than I’d had in a long time. I’d been there a while, and I was still alive. I hadn’t given up. No matter how much it hurt, I hadn’t given up. I would be someone Cerise would have been proud of. It had been a while since I’d been someone to be proud of, but I was finally doing it.

The next day, I felt more hopeful. Now that the fever was behind me, and with Cerise on my mind, I took stock of the oasis, trying to be more proactive about surviving instead of just wallowing and reacting to things in a bad way like a child. It was time to take charge of my life and move forward.

Since the water in the oasis never went down despite evaporation, I guessed it was a spring, the water constantly coming up from underground. So I had unlimited water. Even if it gave me the shits. I had a very limited supply of partially poisonous fruit which gave me the flaming shits. And scorpions which gave me explosive shits.

It was a really shitty oasis.

The limited food wouldn’t last forever. Assuming the dysentery, the heat, the deadly monsters, or depression didn’t kill me, I was going to have to find a more permanent food source. I hadn’t looked beyond the immediate surroundings, hadn’t gone more than ten paces past the trees and greenery of the oasis. It looked like the endless Sahara out there, just golden sand as far as I could see. But I needed to explore. Maybe there was a road nearby. Maybe the desert wasn’t as empty as it looked. Maybe, just over the horizon, was a fabulous city of gold filled with generous genies with huge boobs and Vegas-style buffets.

No. Turned out, I was the buffet.

I went exploring in the dunes. Those scorpions were everywhere. They must have been active during the night because during the day, they were lying in wait under the sand, tail poised to strike, lashing out with lightning at any tremor. Then they would burst out from under the sand, claws snipping and snapping, trying to cut your toes off.

After that happened three times, I started sweeping the ground around me with the spear whenever I moved. I covered about a quarter of a circle going around the oasis, staying fairly close. By the end of the day, I’d killed seven of the critters. Made me wonder.

If there were that many chihuahua-sized scorpions around, what were they all eating?

I knew what I was eating.

Fried scorpion. And lots of it.

That night, I stayed up late. The stars were gorgeous. There wasn’t even the faintest hint of artificial light in any direction, which made me think there were no urban centers anywhere close. Which meant I was probably in the middle of nowhere, which tracked for my situation so far. If I’d had a Luck stat, it would be -5.

I tried to take a few hours, just staring up at the sparkles in the sky, trying to appreciate it and let go of some of the anger that seemed to be my primary emotion since I’d arrived. I didn’t like being angry, didn’t want to be. I wanted to be happy.

I used to be happy all the time. When I’d been married to Cerise. Before she’d died.

It was easy to look up at that endless expanse and feel tiny or even insignificant. The galaxy was a sight that had been so normal for millions of years on Earth, but had become so rare. Maybe this world hadn’t suffered capitalist-industrial selfishness to the same degree. Yet, anyway.

Being up late let me see how the desert came alive after dark. Like a…metaphor of some kind.

All kinds of insects appeared. Where they had been hiding during the day, I had no idea. I saw rodents skittering and jumping. Huge gray moths fluttering by. The meter-wide tarantulas descended from the trees to hunt. Looked like they hid under palm fronds during the day and murdered things at night. They seem to be arch enemies of the scorpions. The two appeared to engage in some never-ending blood feud once the sun went down, eating each other. And their own kind. Out on the sands, it was an all-out war.

I hunkered down in the oasis pool, water up to my shoulders, a good three paces away from the shore, avoiding the fuck out of that horrifying nonsense.

The next morning, I was dining on blackened scorpion when movement in the sky caught my attention. I looked up and saw a very large vulture circling right above me. A vulture. Scavenger. They eat the dying and dead.

I tried not to take it personally.

But it probably knew better than I did, and I was probably doomed.

Eventually, the vulture must have had enough of circling overhead. It decided to land on the other side of the oasis. It just sat there on a dusty beige boulder, staring at me the same way that evil scorpion had earlier. I’d have gone over and shown it who’s boss, but the bird was about as tall as I was. Its claws left scratches on the stone. That great, hooked beak could probably tear my throat out.

So, the vulture, that’s who was boss.

Got me lickin’ my lips and thinking of fried chicken though.

I tried to kick that idea out of my head. I was way too weak to fight a bird as big as I was. It was a little wary but obviously not scared of me from the way its eyes just bored into me all day. The second I got injured or sick again, that thing was going to bury its face in my guts and eat them while I was still breathing. Probably peck my eyes out like picking cherries off a cake.

I tried to ignore it and spent the day circling the oasis again, palm fronds for a parasol, breadfruit husks for shoes because the sand was so hot, and my spear leading the way. The scorpions I uncovered slowed things down, but they were also going to be a steady food supply. And I didn’t hate the idea of there being fewer deadly creatures around. I’d been lucky as luck could be that nothing had killed me while I’d slept. So far.

Out in the desert, I came across a rocky outcropping poking out of the sand, just out of sight of the oasis. It wasn’t large, maybe the size of a fridge. The yellowish rock looked crumbly and fragile. I approached, slowly feeling my way with the spear. Scorpions jumped out of the sand in numbers the closer I got to the outcrop. Weirdly, as my spear poked through the desert sand, it also kept turning over detached claws, scorpion legs, and other body parts. I felt like I was traipsing through some kind of insect graveyard.

I kept going, curious about the outcropping. I figured it was probably nothing, but it was the only feature I’d come across so far, so I wanted to see it up close.

With the angle of the sun that morning, the craggy rock jutting out of the sand cast a shadow in my direction. I looked forward to some respite from the blazing sun. It was brutal. It would have been nice to do the exploring in the dark of night, but after seeing how the desert came alive under the stars, the sun might have been the lesser evil. At least I had clothes now. They were nasty against my sunburned skin, but would prevent further burns. And cancer. Just my luck, I’d get super skin cancer out here.

Would [Lesser Resistance: Disease] help with that? Dude, I sure hoped so.

Feet sliding through the superhot sand, clumsily protected by the breadfruit husks, I probed the edge of the shadows.

Sand exploded in all directions, not once, but twice, as the first buried scorpion triggered another right next to it.

I dropped the palm-frond parasol so I could get both hands on the spear. Sunlight flashed off the bronze spearhead as I stabbed at both creatures. Luckily, they were as distracted by each other as they were by me. No loyalty for their own species, they snapped one claw at their brethren while they skittered forward to attack me at the same time. I hastily backstepped as I fought them off. I should have looked where I was going.

A burst of sand sprayed me from behind. Another scorpion appeared at my heels while I backpeddled, so close that I stumbled overtop of it before I could stop myself.

A little lightning bolt hit me in the balls.

Screaming in pain, I rage-stomped the scorpion several times, cutting my feet, then jabbed the spear into the nearest attacking scorpion, nailing it right through the back.

The third critter curled its tail. Light flashed.

It hit me right between the eyes. Hate filled my soul.

Screaming, I clutched my face with one hand, blinded and stumbling about. With my free arm, I slashed in all directions, feeling the spear tip hit the scorpion and knock it about, but knowing I probably hadn’t hurt it much.

Without realizing it, I wandered closer and closer to the rocks. I stepped into the shadow. Something below crunched like breaking celery.

My foot sank calf-deep into the sand, causing me to lurch. I felt the sand rapidly slipping away, slipping down into the ground, draining. Had I stepped in quicksand or something? Furiously blinking my teary eyes, I tried to see what was going on while also pulling myself out of there.

But it was no use. There was more crunching. The ground was sinking faster than I could escape.

Then a hole opened up underneath me. I sank into a pit deeper than I was tall. It was completely in shadow, some kind of hollow space under the sand, like there had been a bubble there, and I’d popped it from above.

Panting, I stood there as the sand around me slowed to a trickle. I stood in a pile of sand, shards of what looked like dirty, broken glass, and a dozen half-buried lightning scorpions that had been buried under the surface of the sand in the shadow of the rock until I’d disturbed them all. My stomach turned ice-cold. I swallowed and tightened my grip on the spear.

Then I blinked and wiped away a few more muddy tears from my burning eyes.

There was a cave before me in the newly exposed rock that had been hidden until now. The outcrop above had been nothing but the tip of the stone iceberg.

From inside the dark cave, a metric ton of shiny little eyes stared back at me.

My hand tightened around the spear until my knuckles were white. “So, I guess this is where all you little bastards are coming from, huh?”

The scorpions in the sand and cave came at me en masse.

Adrenaline hit me. Lots of panic, too. I wildly slashed and jabbed every which way. Scorpions big and small, from the size of mice to the size of cats, scampered over the sand, claws snapping and tearing chunks out of my legs. They climbed up my white robe and tried to swarm me. Lightning hit me from all angles, so much that it didn’t just sting something fierce, it left me paralyzed for seconds at a time, flopping around like a dying fish.

It would have been over in a minute or two, but the sudden swarm turned on itself as well as me, becoming a frenzy of all-out destruction. Because scorpions are highly individual predators, always ready to destroy their own. Like corporate executives.

I screamed until I no longer had breath to do so, all my energy devoted to killing the little monsters while trying to back away. One died. Then another. Scorpion guts began flying, almost as much as I was shedding blood. I speared two more, my lungs rasping from the effort. With so little water and food over the past weeks, and the way it had been coming right back out of me, I was frail. I wouldn’t last long.

Then I levelled up. Level 3.

A burst of energy flowed through me. My ring flashed, but the screen didn’t come up. Perhaps it recognized that it wasn’t the right time to do so. I felt myself healing, and some of my energy was instantly restored. The many cuts on my arms and legs partially closed up. I wasn’t restored to full health, but it was still a boon. I also felt more strength in my arms. My strength and speed stats must have both gone up.

Trapped in a pit with dozens of scorpions and on the verge of death, I suddenly didn’t care about anything but this crazy feeling of rejuvenation and greater power. I cackled with glee. “Haha! Die die die!” I wailed all around me with the spear, smashing and cutting, insect parts flying, leaving dead things in my wake. I stomped and punched, heedless of the damage I was doing to myself just to stay alive, crushing anything in reach. I descended into a madness of pain and fear and desperation under a thin veneer of murderous abandon.

Soon after, I levelled up again to 4.

A minute later, a fresh burst of energy infused me. Apparently, a new skill had kicked in automatically. Must have been a passive skill.

More scorpions died.

Eventually, my body reached its limits, skills or not, and I slowed. But the number of scorpions dwindled as well. At some point, I speared the last of them and then fell back against the side of the sand pit, covered in gore, blood, and sweat. Tears, too, but let’s not mention that part. At least I hadn’t wet myself.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move except to heave in great lungfuls of air. Muscles trembled on their own from lack of oxygen. I had sand in my eyes, my mouth, and in every bloody wound. I might have given up and stayed there for a good long while, but that ominous black opening, that dark portal to hell where those scorpions had all been hiding, it scared the daylights out of me.

Achingly, I rolled over, belly against the side of the pit. Using the spear like a dagger, I dragged myself up the side, half-swimming through the sand until I was back on the surface. I saw the oasis trees and crawled forward. I left a trail of blood and scorpion goo in my wake.

I was sure that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

It took all day to recover the necessary strength, but after I returned to the oasis and rested for a while, I dug a bath next to the pool and scooped water into it. The water slowly drained away, but it was enough to wash the filth away and clean my many new wounds. I scrubbed them with hot sand and water from the stove. I’d probably experience a bunch of new infections, but what the hell. Washing might help.

I checked my ring by just concentrating on it. The screen came forth and showed:

3

Then stats appeared:

Strength, speed, and health had all improved so far. It was oddly motivating to watch simple numbers go up and actually see progress being made. That was likely why bankers were constantly checking their account balances and gym goons were constantly flexing in the mirror.

That night, I didn’t have to worry about any spiders or scorpions attacking me in my sleep. I woke up once and heard a trauma-scary war zone going on in the distance, in the same direction as the pit I’d barely crawled out of. All that death must have drawn everything with an appetite in the region, and they were fighting over it.

I figured I was probably safe so far from the action. I went back to sleep, hiding under the sand near the water, palm frond over my head and spear in hand, as always. Careful not to move and draw any attention to myself.

I woke again the next morning, barely able to move. But I sluggishly crawled out of the sand and warily looked around.

The vulture was still there. Sitting on his rock. Looking at me. With those bloodshot eyes.

I glared back. I was really hungry for some grilled chicken. I was wounded from the previous day, but also feeling a little bolder thanks to the levelling up. I began to contemplate taking the vulture down.

Something to the side caught the huge, ugly bird’s attention. Its head swivelled in that direction. Eyes widened. It raised its wings in panic and tried to take flight.

A proper lightning bolt hit it square in the chest. Thunder cracked. Black and white feathers flew in all directions. The bird let out a horrid squawk of pain. It tumbled backward off the rock, scrambled up, and tried to fly, but it must have been in too much pain. It hopped away, screeching, trying to put palms and bushes between it and whatever had attacked it.

Breathing fast, I turned to look in the same direction the now dead bird had looked.

From out of the bushes at the edge of the oasis came a true monster: a lightning scorpion the size of a German shepherd. Each claw looked large enough to cut one of my arms clean off. The tail curled up as high as my chest, a glittering, clear crystal where the stinger would be on a typical scorpion.

I despaired. “There’s a momma lightning scorpion? You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

The scorpion turned on all six legs to face me. The tail twitched, and the tip glowed.

Welp, I’d been hit enough times by baby versions of those lightning stingers. No way in hell I was gonna let a big one hit me after seeing that monstrous vulture get nailed. I gave that crystal a beat to charge up, then threw myself sideways into the oasis water with a splash.

Lightning zapped the air I’d just been standing in, and thunder crashed. The smell of burnt ozone dirtied the air.

I slipped around in the wet sand for a second, water up to my knees, and looked up.

The momma scorpion turned to face me, glaring, pincers ready. But it didn’t come at me. It didn’t need to with its own built-in ranged artillery.

If I stayed where I was, it was probably just gonna wait and pick me off. I could maybe duck under water when it fired. But didn’t water conduct electricity? I should have paid more attention in science class.

The scorpion sat there. Waiting. Watching. The crystal wasn’t glowing yet, so either it needed time to recharge after two blasts like that and was canny enough to wait, or it was biding its time for a better shot, maybe studying me.

There was nowhere to run and hide in the little oasis. If I wanted to survive, I was gonna have to attack the monster. I muttered, “This sucks.” I waded back to shore, gripped the spear in one hand, and watched the scorpion’s stinger.

The scorpion’s whole body turned on its six legs, following and targeting me.

I took a step forward and stopped.

The scorpion waited.

I took another. Then another.

A white spark of light appeared in the stinger.

I tensed my whole body.

The stinger’s glow intensified. One second. Two. Three.

I dodged, diving to the side, this time away from the water.

The lightning bolt zapped by overhead. Thunder rattled my bones.

Weak muscles protesting, sunburned skin aching, I hurriedly pushed myself up from the sandy grass. Legs churning as fast as I could in that state, I did the dumbest thing ever and charged the creature. Probably the slowest charge ever, and the thing was a good thirty or forty paces away. I was about a quarter of the way there when I realized it would probably charge up its next shot before I arrived in point-blank range.

I was halfway there when the stinger lit up again, twenty paces to go.

The stinger glowed.

I spotted some bushes with a small boulder to my right. I feinted left, ran right, and dove behind the boulder.

The edge of the lightning bolt caught me in the foot. Every tendon in my leg seemed to snap, like flicking a tense wire. The shock travelled up my leg and into my body. I flopped around for a few seconds, teeth clenched, helpless. The moment I got my senses back and could move, I shakily grabbed the spear and made ready to defend myself.

But the scorpion wasn’t charging me back. Poking my head around the small boulder, I saw it still watching me. I grumbled while painfully getting to my feet, “Well, that’s just great. Aren’t you patient?” With a deep breath, I ran forward again.

Fifteen paces.

The stinger lit up. I’d lost too much time on the ground after the last one.

Ten paces.

The stinger glowed. I tensed; I wasn’t gonna make it.

Eight paces. Six. Time was running out. I desperately threw the spear at its face.

The spear didn’t have enough power to penetrate, but it hit the scorpion between the eyes, just above the mouth. The creature flinched backward. The lightning bolt went over my head, making every hair I had stand up as I continued to charge. The pincers opened, and this close, they were even bigger than I’d thought.

I had no weapon as I ran at it. I was screwed. Sure, I had taken martial arts for several years, back when I was younger, but that had been designed for human opponents. None of it had ever trained me to fight something that could snip your arms and legs off. An idea hit, and without thinking, I dropped into a baseball slide. This close to the water, there was grass, but lots of sand too, and I sprayed that sand right in the creature’s many eyes.

The scorpion defensively crossed its arms in front of its face, probably thinking I was drop kicking it or something, but the sand didn’t seem to affect it at all.

But I was able to get a hand on the spear again. I rose back to my feet, took one step, and leaped into the air like the hero on a movie poster. It would have been nice if I’d looked badass at that moment, like a hero, but I probably looked like a crazy homeless person about to get himself killed. Both hands on the spear, I drove it down into the scorpion’s back, while my weight drove the creature to the ground, its legs unable to support my weight.

The scorpion’s exoskeleton was like plate armour. The spearhead only penetrated halfway. But it was enough for the scorpion to panic and flail about. Or it tried to. One of the legs cracked from my weight. Even with five, it shook back and forth. But it was the tail that got me. It struck, the crystal slamming into my forehead.

I reeled back, falling off the scorpion and pulling the spear free.

The creature instantly turned on me. It jabbed, almost too fast to follow, sometimes punching, sometimes snipping those pincers.

I scrambled backward, feet slipping in the soft, sandy soil, fending off as many strikes as I could with the spear. Some got through and bruised or cut my chest and legs. The tail lashed out, and I barely dodged it by leaning left and getting the spear up.

The scorpion used that distraction to dart forward, getting inside my defenses. It snipped at my ankle, which I barely lifted out of the way. It snipped with the other pincer and gashed my other shin. The tail came at me again, a big, overhand blow. I just got the spear up with both hands to block, but it was largely a feint. The scorpion stepped closer and delivered a massive uppercut to my balls.

I hated this world. My balls hated it even more.

Thank all that’s holy and unholy both that the pincer had been closed or it would have snipped certain precious things clean off, and I wasn’t sure I’d have the will to keep fighting or even living at that point.

The hit hurt. My stomach felt like it was trying to climb up my throat. My legs went weak. One hand clutched my man pearls while the other feebly held the spear in front of me.

The tail struck again. It hit me in the chest.

I fell backward and landed with a splash in the shallows of the oasis pool. With what little strength I had at the moment, I whimpered like a baby, tears falling down my cheeks, and lamely kicked myself into deeper water.

The scorpion didn’t give chase. They didn’t seem keen on getting wet. It also didn’t need to. It still had that long-range stinger. So it stood there, favouring the broken leg but still mobile on the other five, staring at me.

I held up two fingers in a V sign. “Peace? I didn’t know they were your kids. I only ate them because I had no choice. And, honestly, they tasted horrible. ”

The stinger sparkled.

“Aw, come on!”

I was too weak to throw myself at it. So I turned around and clawed my way underwater. The slope of the underwater sand was steep, the middle of the oasis pool about four times my height. Spear still in one hand, I dove under the surface and tried to escape. I almost made it.

It seemed like electricity doesn’t penetrate water deeply, mostly shooting through the surface of the water. My head had gotten a couple of meters down, but my feet were still closer to the surface when the lightning bolt landed and decided it wanted to go right through me to the floor of the pool, grounded on some glittering black and gold rocks in the mud and sand.

Every muscle snapped taut. I thought I was going to snap all my own bones and teeth. Then I blacked out, still underwater.

Losing consciousness isn’t like in stories. You don’t pass out for more than a few seconds before you start to get brain damage. You see someone get punched out in a movie and wake up in a different building, which took an hour to get to? They’d either wake up a vegetable or not at all.

I woke up a few seconds later. You ever see someone dynamite a lake? Fish just float to the surface, stunned. I was doing that! I found myself face down, hanging in the water, arms dangling, spear in the mud below me. My heavy, wet robe probably kept me from rising to the surface. Well, there followed lots of inhaling water, splashing, coughing, flailing around like an idiot, that sort of thing.

I’d barely gotten any air when I saw that stinger light up again like a vengeful spotlight. I dropped and tried to get as low in the water as I could. This time, it worked. I sat on the bottom of the pool, ass in the muck while white lightning played over the surface. I felt about for the spear and noticed the water warming up overhead. I guess if electricity has nowhere to escape from water, it heats it up. That meant I couldn’t hide down here forever. Plus, there was the whole breathing thing. It was getting really important at this point.

My fingers touched the shaft of the spear, wrapped around it, and I kicked off the bottom, straight up. My head broke the surface, and I inhaled, only to get into another coughing fit. Fought through it this time, but this time, I bee-lined directly away from the monster.

No, I wasn’t fleeing. It was a strategic retreat. There was no escaping the thing. If I tried to leave the oasis, it would just follow me out into the sand of the desert and shoot me in the ass. But I needed a breather.

Got to the far shore, and looked back, expecting the next lightning bolt any second.

The scorpion sat on the other side of the water, staring. The stinger was dull. Maybe after all that shooting, it needed a breather too. I had no idea how the thing worked other than assuming ‘magic’ was the answer. But maybe even a magic beast couldn’t shoot forever. Of course, that had me second-guessing myself. Should I have attacked instead of running away? Or did the momma have another bolt or two in her and was just resting? No way to know.

On the far shore, I kept an eye on her as I slogged out of the water, up the sandy grass, and into the bushes. There wasn’t much vegetation to hide in. The bushes were sparse.

A vicious screech came from the side.

I jumped, then belatedly turned toward the sound, both hands on the spear and ready to kill whatever new threat was coming at me.

It was the human-sized vulture. It hadn’t been able to fly away. It had been doing its best to hide in the greenery as well. It seemed pretty pissed that I’d arrived, bringing unwanted attention to its hiding spot behind a dense bush and some tall clumps of really dark green grass. Glaring, it was hunched over with a disgusting fleshy blister bubble on its chest where a bunch of feathers had gotten blasted off.

I speared it in the face.

The vulture dudged with that long neck.

I stabbed again and again. “Die, fucker! If I survive, I’m having chicken wings tonight!” I lashed out, pushing the huge bird back until it lost its balance and fell over with a panicked shriek. Not wasting the chance, I pounced, driving the spearhead into its back. I leaned all my weight into it, driving the weapon through the bird, feeling the bronze tip sliding through organs and bouncing off ribs or something. It was pretty gross.

The vulture flopped and kicked and tried to snap at me with its beak, but in a couple of minutes, it slowed and died, falling limp. The eyes stared without seeing, just like that lizard person had.

I stood over the lifeless thing, panting. Even when it’s not a human, seeing dead eyes, seeing a corpse, felt wrong. Unnatural. Something inside me was deeply disturbed by the sight. Beneath that feeling, I tried to take comfort in knowing that I wasn’t a natural killer. I didn’t enjoy this sort of thing, and even doing it out of self-defence and survival, it was unpleasant.

Ain’t no vegan chicken wings out here though.

My ring flashed. I’d levelled to 5 from the kill. In the back of my head, I briefly wondered at how fast I was levelling. Was this normal? Was it just like an RPG where the first few levels are stupidly easy to get you hooked?

Remembering the big threat, I looked back over at the scorpion.

There was no scorpion.

That side of the oasis was empty of giant, lightning-throwing creatures from hell.

“Shit!” I yanked the spear from the body of the bird and spun around, ready to defend myself. After a panicked search, I slowed down and took my time to scan the ring of green around the water. Had it decided to come after me? Was it circling the oasis, sneaking up on me? Or was I lucky enough that it had decided to retreat back to the cave, or wherever it had come from?

Me. Lucky. Ha!

With a white-knuckled grip on the spear, I backed away from the water. The scorpion could have gone around either side of the pool; I had no way to tell which. So I had to back away from both. Unfortunately, there was only so far to go. Within a dozen paces, the sand of the open desert was nearly at my back. But there was still no sign of the creature. Damn thing was stealthy. At the edge of the sand, I crouched low, hopefully making myself harder to spot. Trying to quietly control my breathing, I continually scanned the oasis for any sign of movement.

Minutes passed.

In the sun and heat, sweat dripped down my face and arms. I felt my grip slick on the wooden shaft of the spear, and had to wipe my hands off. The minutes dragged out. It was beginning to look like the scorpion had strategically retreated as well.

Something moved to my left, and I glanced over.

A baby scorpion was unearthing itself. It was probably coming out to hunt. It came free of the sand. Then it turned and looked at me.

I tried to stay silent, willing it to go away with all my mental power.

The tiny stinger began to glow.

I whisper-hissed under my breath, “No! Go away. Shoo!” Very quietly, I tried to sidle away.

The little lightning scorpion fired. It hit me right in the hand.

“Ow!”

Three meters to my right, the momma’s huge scorpion tail curled up out of nowhere, turned, and pointed directly at me, glowing brighter fast.

I had no time to even cry out as I threw myself backward.

The lightning bolt streaked past my chest, every hair on my body standing out.

The momma scorpion wasn’t content to sit back any longer. It was on the hunt. It burst from the grass and bushes, pincers open, horrid mouth gaping wide, and came at me with a fury.