Feeling as if his body no longer belonged to him, Grey tried to call for help, but he couldn't get up.
"Help!" a hoarse whisper escaped his parched throat.
He looked around, hoping to see some sign of civilization, but there was nothing but sand and rocks.
Panic began to rise again. His heart hammered like crazy, and his breathing turned shallow and ragged. Grey tried to stand once more, but his legs gave out, and he collapsed back onto the scorching sand.
"Mom... Bella... anyone..." he whispered, feeling tears well up in his eyes.
"Mom," Grey repeated.
The word seemed to echo in the deepest part of his soul, triggering a sense of depression and loss that terrified him even more.
Reason told him that his mother was fine. Only yesterday, he had put her on a charter flight and watched her plane take off. He dimly remembered seeing her selfie at the Moscow airport, yet an irrational sense of loss surged uncontrollably within him.
He closed his eyes, trying to shield himself from the blistering sun and quiet his racing mind to make sense of reality.
For the first time in a long while, he felt small and helpless before the merciless desert. All his wealth, his entire past life—it all seemed so distant and useless now.
Reality and hallucinations blurred together in his feverish brain.
Grey lay on the sand, feeling life slowly drain away with every bead of sweat as he struggled to get up. He didn't know how much time had passed, whether minutes or hours, but eventually, he managed to stagger to his feet.
Patting down his clothes, he confirmed he had no phone, no money, not even a watch.
His expensive suit had been replaced by a strange-looking white shirt, already soaked through with blood and sweat.
Overcoming dizziness and constant urges to vomit, he trudged in a random direction, though every step was a struggle.
His feet sank into the scorching sand, and the sun burned his skin without mercy.
He walked mechanically, like a robot. Left foot, right foot, left again. He didn't look around—there was only sand and sky, merging at the horizon into a single blurred line.
His mind was empty; all thoughts were crowded out by one consuming need—to survive.
Thirst tortured him unbearably. His tongue swelled and stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his throat was so dry that every breath brought pain. His stomach cramped from hunger, but that sensation had already dulled, giving way to pure exhaustion.
Time lost all meaning. Grey didn't know how many hours or days he had been walking.
Suddenly, something unusual on the sand caught his eye.
Tracks...
Grey blinked several times, thinking it was a mirage, another hallucination. But the tracks did not disappear.
His head cleared. The tracks were fresh; the wind had not yet managed to bury them. That meant they were left very recently.
A new surge of hope gave him strength. He began to move faster, carefully following the chain of footprints.
'If there are tracks, there must be people. Where there are people, there will be help. Who are they? Where are they going? Do they have water?'
He followed the trail like a hunter after prey, terrified of losing this thin thread connecting him to a possible rescue. Every time the prints grew faint, Grey dropped to his knees, staring into the sand until he found the path again.
He didn't know how much longer he could keep moving.
His strength was nearly gone.
But the fear of death and the hope that people might be somewhere ahead drove him onward.
He walked, stumbling and falling, picking himself up only to drag one foot after the other again. Every step could be his last, but it could also bring him closer to salvation.
As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, Grey saw dark silhouettes in the distance.
'People? Or another mirage?'
He squinted, trying to get a better look. Gathering his last bit of strength, he trudged toward the figures, praying they were real people and not a hallucination.
His appearance alerted the group, who sat atop strange animals that looked like a cross between a camel and a horse. With the last of his strength, Grey tried to approach them, ignoring the bizarre look of the beasts as a simple trick of his imagination.
'People. There are people here. They must have water. They'll help...' These thoughts repeated in his head like a mantra, pushing him forward.
Once he was close enough for his voice to be heard, he rasped with the last of his strength:
"Help... water..."
The men on the strange animals exchanged surprised looks. One of them spoke in an odd but understandable dialect: "Where did a kid come from out here?"
Grey felt a wave of confusion. A kid? Who were they talking about? He tried to look around, but his vision was blurred and his body refused to obey.
The men continued to discuss the situation, completely ignoring his plight:
"What should we do with him?"
"Why let good stock go to waste? He'll die anyway. Let's just sell him in the Thorned Cloaca and be done with it."
"Agreed. We're close to the city, we have enough water, and we won't even need to watch him much. Bind him and that's that. The extra coin won't hurt."
Grey was shocked by what he heard.
'A slave market? Sell a child? What is happening? Is this some kind of fever dream?' His thoughts raced in a final attempt to make sense of their conversation. 'No, wait... What is this strange language? Why can I understand it?'
"I...." Grey tried to speak and explain who he was, but a sharp blow to the back of his head cut him off.
The world plunged into darkness, and he lost consciousness.
Grey drifted on the edge of reality, his memories fragmentary and blurred.
He remembered cool water pouring down his parched throat, bringing both relief and pain. A constant swaying sensation haunted him, whether from the movement of the strange beast carrying him or from his own weakness and vertigo.
At some point, he felt hands probing his body. The touch was methodical and professional, as if a doctor were examining him. It reminded him of being in a hospital, and for a moment, Grey thought this had all been just a nightmare.
But reality snapped back when he tried to get up and received another blow to the back of his head.
His confusion didn't trouble his "kidnappers" in the slightest.
The cycle repeated again and again: the swaying, the water, the examination, the blow. Grey lost track of time and could no longer tell truth from hallucination. Gradually, however, he began to make out new sounds—the noise of a city was drawing near.
Self-preservation kicked in, forcing him to feign unconsciousness. He lay motionless, afraid to even twitch lest he give himself away. His heart hammered with a mix of hope and dread.
'There must be police and doctors in the city. Someone will definitely save me. What kind of lunatics treat an injured person like this?'
They were already moving through a busy street. Various voices drifted from here and there.
Grey hoped to hear something like, "There's an unconscious person here, help him."
But no one paid any attention to his plight. His kidnappers continued to discuss their plans in that unfamiliar language that Grey, strangely, understood.
"Where's the best place to stay?"
"The Crooked Fang. They don't ask unnecessary questions there. We'll spend the night."
"And where do we sell the boy?"
"The market by the East Gate. There's always a demand for young slaves there."
"I heard there's a proper brothel south in the Thorned Cloaca called Venus's Embrace. They say the madam is a beauty like the world has never seen. Maybe we stop by on the way?"
"All you think about is drinking and screwing whores. You got spare coin for that?"
"Well, we'll get a nice bonus for the brat. Why not spend it to warm up in some tender arms? Gah-ga-ga!"
"Idiot! Have you looked at him? Skin and bones. One silver piece for him is already an overpayment. If it covers supplies, we'll be lucky."
"Fine... Fine... Don't get worked up... I was just suggesting. If not, then no. How long do we have to rot in this hole?"
"A couple of days, no longer. We'll head to Harmon's now. Maybe we'll get lucky and the kid turns out to be a 'heavenly talent.' We sell him, restock, and leave immediately."
Every word was like a knife twist for Grey. Slavery? For sale? The Thorned Cloaca? It all sounded like the plot of some fantasy novel, but the pain and fear were far too real.
Grey felt panic swelling inside him.
He didn't understand what was happening, where he was, or why these people thought he was a child. The only thing he knew for certain was that he had to find a way to escape, and fast. He strained every sense, trying to soak up any information about the world around him without revealing he was conscious.
The camel slowed down, and a burly brute—apparently the captain of this bandit group—heaved him over his shoulder. Damn, the man was so massive that the sensation was barely different from being on the camel's back.
'Why the hell does nobody care about this? What's going on here? Did I end up in some third-rate novel? Am I in a kid's body? Fuck, I can't even open my eyes to check...'
While Grey was lost in his own thoughts, he was jolted awake by a couple of rough slaps across the face.
"Wake up, brat. Time to be sold," he heard the raspy voice of one of the bandits, and realized his chance to escape had never come.
=============
Dear readers, please don't forget to write the reviews, support book with Power Stones, and express your opinion in the comments.
Your reactions not only inspire me, but also influence the algorithms that promote the work and allow it to find more readers.
Thank you so much for your support.