The Chosen (Contender #1) - SAMPLE OF NOW PUBLISHED BOOK!

Chapter 7

Place: Unknown 

Date: Unknown 

Year: Unknown 

Heat. It was almost all Cade could think about. The red moon and its smaller, pale satellite had sunk below the horizon hours ago. But a sun, white and hot as Earth's

own, had risen to replace them, turning the flat plane of white into a glaring, dry desert, and leaving the horizon shimmer- ing with heat.

They were traveling blind, trudging endlessly in what Cade hoped was the right direction, aided only by the glimmering thing he might have seen, but what could well have been a mirage or his own, desperate imagination. Their only bearings were their footprints trailing in a straight line, point- ing away from the outcrop of rocks.

Stranger still was the sight of two outcrops, identical in size and shape, beside their own. Cade assumed there could be other people there, facing the exact same situation that they had.

It had been too hot to discuss investigating it. Only to acknowledge it and continue on.

"Is something out there, or am I seeing things?" Eric croaked, pointing with his uninjured arm. "The gleam?"

Cade looked up and squinted at the horizon once more. The view danced and shifted in front of his eyes, and before long he had to close them and shade his face.

"I don't see anything," Cade replied, forcing each word through his parched throat.

"Maybe we should turn back?" Scott rasped. "Get one last drink in before we die. I'd prefer a Coke, but beggars can't be choosers."

"No," Eric said, stumbling past Cade. "It's there. I know it's there."

Cade didn't look up. He followed Eric's footsteps, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. It was more than likely a mirage, but there was no turning back. He'd rather die fast in the heat and have had a chance than slowly waste away in the shade.

Left. Right. Over and over, he stumbled forward, refusing to let his gaze stray to where they were headed. Not even when Scott let out a hoarse cry, and Eric turned his walk into a run. If he didn't look, it still might be real.

But something strange happened. The crystal-white ground had suddenly ended, and now he was walking on soil. Soil and dried grass.

Left.

Right.

Then a shout of surprise from Eric. Cade finally looked up, wincing at the self-inflicted crick in his neck. And gaped. A corpse sat on the ground, hunched over like a monk in prayer. 

It was practically a skeleton, though the skin still clung to its bones. It was a desiccated mummy, preserved by the arid heat of the desert. Scraps of red cloth hung from its body in a shroud, and a metal disk dangled from its neck on a leather braid, twisting in the faint breeze. It barely shone now, for the sun was beyond it, but it was the only reflective surface he could see.