I woke up to a gentle shake on my shoulder, and saw Dylan’s face looming over me. He asked me to have something to eat something before we could get going.

I sat up and went to wash my face and hands at the lake. I lifted my shirt to check the wound, and noticed that it’s healing much faster. I adjusted my shirt and I followed him back for the breakfast.

I could smell grilled meat from the distance, and wondered where he had got it from in the desert.

“Where did you get the meat?” I asked him, and he told me he had hunted before from around here, and processed the meat with salt to last it for few days. I fretted for the little fennec fox, but he assured me that he didn’t kill the fox which was huge relief.

“I wouldn’t kill it.” He had said.

The poor little thing had accompanied me in the desert, I’d have been devastated if he had killed it and fed it to me. However, ever since I woke up, I didn’t see that fennec fox.

“Are you not eating?” I asked him, but he told me he had already eaten when I was asleep.

He watched me eat in silence, and it made me a bit suspicious.

 The texture of meat was soft and tender; something similar to the taste of pork meat or veal which was quite odd in itself, but I couldn’t quite discern it. Since I had never had a taste of a wild animal before, I didn’t comment on its texture, but I couldn’t have more than few bites, and stopped eating as I felt nauseous, and told him that I became full.

“What is your plan?” I inquired him about closing the barrier. “Where are we going?”

“We need to find the caverns to get the door of the world in Alhambra.” Then, he said, “We are going to Granada.”

He got up to clean the place as to not leave our trace behind. I refilled the water bottles from the lake, and slung the bag on my shoulder as we prepared to leave. I fell in steps behind him as we walked Westward on foot to Spain.

The midday sun rose in the sky and burnt overhead. In the stifling heat of the desert, Dylan was having difficulty in walking. I looked at his stiff back, and noticed that he’s putting his entire weight on his left leg instead of right.

“Are you Okay?” I asked him, as he clutched his knee while walking.

“I am fine.” He brushed it off, but I could see him wincing in pain.

He took not more than few steps, when his right leg away beneath him, and he fell down on the sand.

“Dylan!” I rushed to his side, and turned him around to check on him. He’s pale and sweating profusely. Being a child of the desert, the heat had never bothered him, so it’s concerning to see him in such a bad state.

 I touched his forehead, and realized he’s burning up as well.”

 “You have fever!” I told him. My eyes fell on his leg, and noticed blood on his pants. I looked at him in confusion, and asked him why he was bleeding out of sudden.

 However, when he refused to tell me, I decided to check on his leg myself.

“Don’t!” He shouted in protest, and grabbed my hand to stop me, but I ignored his resisting, and blatantly tugged up his pants above his knee to see the cause of bleeding, and gasped upon seeing the condition of his thigh.

“What is this?” I stared at him in horror. There was almost 6 x 8 cm wide, an inch deep ugly red cut on his thigh exposing his leg’s muscle.

“There’s nothing to eat in the desert. I couldn’t let you starve to death.”

The nausea and disgust upon realizing that he had cut his own flesh, human flesh to feed me made my stomach churn in repulsion. Bile rose in my throat as a reflex reaction, and I gagged turning away from him unable to hold it down and threw up on the sand.

Tears stung my eyes as I wiped my mouth with back of my sleeve.

“WHY DID YOU DO IT!?” I shouted at him in rage and disgust.

 I didn’t know whether I was angry at him for feeding me human flesh, or hurting himself.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized feeling ashamed of his action. “But I would still do it if I were to do it again. I couldn’t let you die.”

“Why are you bleeding?” I asked him blinking back tears. “Isn’t your wound supposed to heal here?” By law of his world, he shouldn’t have been in such bad condition. Did his stab wound not get healed before too?

“It’s a self-inflicted wound.” He breathed out the words. “Besides, the injury of mine wouldn’t heal here. The balance has disturbed, so the law is reversed as well.”

“It’s because of me.” It dawned on me, and he nodded. Since I had come injured to his world, the principle changed when I started healing there. It meant, his wound would start festering if left untreated.

I took a deep breath to calm myself and said to him, “I’m going to take you out of here. Your wound needs medical treatment.”

When my injury could heal faster in his world, it meant that his leg would be heal too if I took him back to my world.

I opened the bag to retrieve a water bottle, and pulled him up in a sitting position. I brought the bottle near to his mouth to drink and wiped the sweat off his face and neck. I looked for the clean roll gauze and bandage, but there weren’t much left as both had already been used to dress my own wound in the desert.

I ripped the hem of his pants to clean and bandage his wound, and tied the torn cloth around his thigh as well to prevent infection before he could get stitches.

The antibiotics that I had carried on me, I ran out of them, so the last one of the pill that was left, I fed it to him.

I soaked the cloth with the water bottle, and put the damp cloth on his forehead to lower his temperature. Then, I squatted in front of him and put his arms around my shoulders to pull him up.

“You can’t carry me on your back.” He spoke, but I told him to shut up and carried him across the desert backtracking our footprints.

It was not much farther from the lake, but having no strength myself, it was difficult to carry him on my back. His frame was taller and broader than mine, so his feet were being dragged through the sand as I walked across the desert.

I managed to go back to the lake, and dropped him on the sand to catch my breath. I splashed water on my face, and soaked the cloth again to keep his forehead cool.

Now, the biggest question was how to take him through the water without getting his wound wet. The cloth wouldn’t stop the water from seeping into his cut, and there’s nothing in the bag either to cover his wound either.

“The water acts as a portal. It will not wet you if you carry the dagger.” He told me, and it made sense why the contents of the bag were dry and not ruined after I fell into the water.

I took the dagger from him, and asked him to hold his breath when I put my both arms around him before lunging down into the water.

The impact hit us with a full force; the underwater current separated us, but I swam to catch him again and pushed us upward to break through the water surface and gasped for breath.

I pulled him onto shore, and was surprised to see that none of us was soaking wet.

I immediately checked his bandage, and was relieved to find it dry.

I lay on the sand beside him, and rested for a while since carrying him back had drained my energy. Then, I stood up and slung his arm around my shoulder to continue walking in the direction opposite to the setting sun till it got dark, and we stopped to rest, and pitched on a camp for the night.

I checked on Dylan, and he still had mild fever and shivering. There’s no fire, no light, and the desert had become cold at night as well. Without food and water, it would be difficult to last in the desert for few days because I didn’t know how long would it take to make it back to the campsite.

If only I had bothered to take the satellite phone with me to contact the others, it would have saved me a lot of trouble that I went through in the desert.

If we got lost, the outcome would be simply death. While I was thinking about getting back to the campsite, I noticed a glowing light in the dark. I immediately got up, and saw burning fire at some distance from our camp.

Becoming hopeful that it might either be bedouins or passing ghosts of the desert who may help us, I woke up Dylan, telling him about fire and unpitched our tent to walk in the direction of glowing fire.

However, after walking for some time, I noticed that I still had to walk for some distance as fire seemed farther than I had anticipated. The night progressed, and another hour passed, my feet started aching from all the walking, but the further I walked towards fire, the farther it seemed to be as of I would never be able to reach that place.

“Going in the direction of fire?” A voice in the dark caught me off guard, and I turned my head to see Kasim walking beside us. He’s the last one I wanted to see at the moment.

“What happened to him?” He inquired me about half-conscious Dylan on my back.

“He’s injured. I’m going to see if someone can help us.”

“You will never reach that place.” He told me, but I ignored him and continued walking with Dylan.

“That place isn’t meant for humans.” He insisted, and this time, I unsheathed the dagger and held the blade against his neck in warning.

“Do you think that I’ll fall for your lies?” I threatened him with the dagger, and he stepped aside letting us pass, but kept following me from distance. I might have walked for another half an hour, but sensed that the fire was growing further distant.

There’s a fallen tree log in the desert. I made Dylan lean against it, and sat down on it to catch my breath.

Could it have been a mirage? I had asked myself. ‘Is it fire or something else?’

“Didn’t I tell you that you would never be able to reach that place?” Kasim appeared next to me again. “Do you realize what place is this?”

Becoming tired of his riddles, I finally asked him, “Where is it?”

“It’s a forbidden valley: The Valley of Djinns.” I grew pale and stared at him in horror.

His eyes glinted in the darkness as he said, “The fire burns to lure humans in, and trap them inside the valley. Humans can’t leave this place alive. If not for the ring you’re wearing, your flesh and blood would have painted this entire valley red.”

Fear seized my heart, and sweat broke out on my forehead when his pupils changed.

I immediately got away from Kasim, and put Dylan’s arm around myself to take him away from there and dared not to look back.

“Do you even know how to get out of the desert?” Kasim accompanied us again, and started walking behind us.

“Why do you want to help me?” I asked him. “You are also one of them.”

“I’m different from them. There’s good and evil among us, just like you humans.” He said, and I scoffed at the thought how he would make travelers turn against each other and kill.

“There’s a price for everything in this world. No debt is free.” I said to him. He could have been pulling a trick on me like last time for all I knew, so I had to be cautious.

He looked at unconscious Dylan and said, “I can help you heal him, but you have to repay me as well.”

“What do you want?” I became alert. Once you enter into a contract with a demon or djinn, they will take your life you in the end.

“I need you to tell me some new tales. I get bored in the desert.” He innocently said.

“That’s it?” I was surprised. I thought he wanted me to stay behind with him. Kasim nodded, and asked me to put Dylan down, so he could take a look at his injury. He rolled up his pants and undressed his wound to see his leg.

“I can’t completely heal him since I am of the lowest rank, but I can prevent the wound from festering till you get him out.”

 I agreed, and he put his hand on his leg before asking me to look away since it’s against their rule to heal someone in a human’s presence. I turned my back to him, but heard Dylan groan and shout in pain, and couldn’t bear it.

“Don’t turn back!” Kasim firmly told me. I had no choice but to wait in silence as he worked on treating Dylan’s injury.

Then, he’s done and dressed Dylan wound again with the used bandages. I opened my mouth to ask him about the infection, but he told me not to worry about it.

“I can carry him on my back in your place, but don’t look back till we arrive at the campsite otherwise I’ll have to kill you.”

“Why?” I shuddered at his words.

“I can’t carry him in my present form, so I have to change it and as a human, you won’t be able to take it.”

A 13 years old child wasn’t his true form, and the thought gave me a chill in the darkness.

Had I not been worried for Dylan, I’d have been dead because of fright.

Okba had told me not to show fear when encountering these things in the desert, because they feed on person’s weak mind and it makes easier for them to possess them.

Nevertheless, I turned my back to him and started walking as he carried Dylan on his back. 

As we walked back to the campsite, I told him countless tales about the haunted woods of Romania, the castle of Vlad, the Impaler, and the stories about werewolves, sirens, skin-walker and monsters in human form that exist in the society.

I clutched the ring in my hand, and prayed to reach at the campsite as earlier as possible. However, there’s still an hour before the dawn, and I forced myself to stay awake and not to fall asleep due to exhaustion.

The night seemed endless, as if I’d never wake up from this nightmare. Then, the dawn finally broke, and rays of sunlight tore through the darkness of night. Kasim disappeared the soon it became morning, but at the campsite, there’s a man waiting for me in a jeep.

I ran to the jeep, and the man became surprised after seeing me.

“Are you Ms. Cordon?” The person asked me. “Mr. Joachim had asked me to wait for you in case you come back.”

Turned out Joachim had sent back one of his man to wait for me in the desert for few days, so that if I had returned to the campsite, I could easily go back.

Tears brimmed up in my eyes, and I asked the man to help me take Dylan inside the campsite where I looked for the first aid-box, and changed his dressing. His fever had gone down, but he wasn’t awake yet.

I cleaned myself at the campsite, and gobbled up food before leaving in the jeep with Dylan. I closed my eyes, and let myself sleep till we hit the road and were taken to hospital.