Chapter 1

“Black, why did I have to wear black?” A man trekked along the dusty roads which were deserted as the sun blazed down, occasionally creating mirages. For as far as his eyes could see there was absolutely nothing, which made you wonder why a person would decide to risk his or her life to come to such a heaven forsaken place.

 It did not help at all that he wore a black leather jacket over a black V-neck T-shirt. Yeah, very smart of him. The duffle bag hanging over his left shoulder was not making his walk any more comfortable. His car with his comfortable air condition had already broken down more than a few miles back. It was part of his stubbornness after all, because he was told the place he needed to find no car could go, but he still tried bringing it anyways. Not that it mattered to him anyways. In a way he was happy. It meant he was on the right track.

Maybe the only consolation was that he was wearing his favorite jeans; a well faded tight-fitting pair. He had it for years and it was surprising that even after so many years passed, he could still fit…almost well enough in it. Regardless of her years of constant naggings about the jeans he had refused to leave it alone. She always joked about the jeans being his only allowed mistress, and they would both laugh about it. They were more a lucky pair of jeans to him than anything. Heck, he even wore it on their wedding day against all protests from both families.

Thinking up to here, he smiled a bit as he peeked a bit into the bit duffle bag as he scratched his newly shaven beard. He was a complete mess for so long that he had almost gotten used the extremely overgrown and messy beard he was sporting, which now made him feel slightly uncomfortable now that he had shaven it.

‘It will work. It will work!’ He closed the bag and thought to himself as he seemed to find new energy. He marched with a bit more enthusiasm despite his aching feet. It had to work. Else this time, he would have to break the promise he made to her. He could not stand it anymore. He tried. Her God knew he tried.

It was funny. He thought back to how much she loved her catholic God, trying so many times to convince him to join her in her worships, only to make up a different excuse every time. He was not the religious kind. He dismissed it as nothing more than fairy tale and stories to scare the children. After the incident he eventually tried to ask him, no, beg him to save her but nothing happened, which only further solidified his belief, and yet, here he was. He laughed to himself and steeled himself even more.

After what felt like a few years of walking to him he finally saw it. The crossroad. The roads were dusty yellow with a few cracks travelling through them. The man stood on the left side of the road where at the edge of it stood an old wooden sign post that threatened to fall at any moment. The signs were pointing towards a direction with the names on them. The forwards, left, right arrows read ‘NOWHERE’, while the last arrow which pointed towards the road that he came from read, ‘MAYBE SOMEWHERE’.

Finally, he found it! He had been through too much, lost too much but he had finally found it. The tears in his eyes threatening to pour out in happiness but unable to, as if they were afraid they would evaporate and die if they did. The man smiled slightly to himself, not knowing if he was trying to give himself courage or it was a self-depreciating smile at what he was about to attempt. He had already come this far, there was no going back now. He looked up to stare at the sun which hang so high up in the sky feeling every bit of its unforgiving heat.

He took a deep breath to calm his raging heart. “Let’s do this” He said to no one in particular before setting down his large duffle bag, feeling the relief while he massaged his shoulders. He began taking out a few things from the bag as carefully as he could. He was afraid to even scratch one of them.

The man took out four sharpened poles about 20 inches in length. They were black in color and had carvings of symbols and inscriptions of unknown language on each. Walking to the edges of the road, he nailed down each pole right at the center of the beginning of all four roads exactly 10inches deep not an inch less or over. It helped that there were road signs at the edges of each road he could use as a marker in order to strike the poles in the middle.

Digging ten inches into the hot hard ground was arduous. He felt like he was in those old cartoons where the captured crooks kept digging into a hard rock. He chuckled in his mind at his own joke. It was enough to keep him from questioning the reason he was out in the dessert sun digging a nigh impenetrable ground to start something that had a high chance of not working. The man paused and shook his head to get the thoughts of impossibilities out of his head before he continued to his hard digging.

After what felt like hours, he was finally done. His jacket had long since been tossed to the side. The black V-neck shirt was soaked with sweat. He looked like he forgot to take off his shirt before diving into a pool. Taking a deep breath, he walked to his duffle bag and took out a slightly large container filled with red liquid. Even with the closed lid the container released a putrid smell and yet his face did not even scrunch. Who knew, maybe he was at the point too tired to make time for that.