It was, now, the deep of night. Evading through the dunes, he had managed to escape the Moons, though his Chariot was low on wurmblood and things were becoming too dark to properly see. Worst of all -- he couldn't find his people. His gang. How could he, after all? They were in the midst of shifting land that was nearly impossible to differentiate, from one area to the next. He wasn't even sure what direction he was going. How could he be?
"Haith, Ixos, Thane..."
The three stars they were supposed to follow. How could he even tell which ones were which? They all looked like... like stars. Like little, twinkling diamonds in the sky. He wasn't a navigator--he was a killer. A part of him wondered whether Emmanuel sent him out with Alice just to keep their bickering from interfering with the group.
He dismounted his bike. It only had... probably a few miles left in it. Climbing up to the top of one of the sand dunes, he peered out in all directions, seeking out the group. He almost wondered if he should look for the Moons instead -- following them, he thought, might lead him back to Scythe. But where were they? And how would he make sure they didn't use one of their lever-action rifles to blow off his face?
He wandered. In time, his wanderings became more desperate. He began to hum a song, then to sing it. An old woman named Clara used to sing that same tune; it was her ballad, composed to be strummed along with through her guitar. He remembered the old days, back when his family first came to the Badlands. Those... simpler times. Everything was so much better back then. There were gangs, sure, but they weren't like now. This place was the one refuge from all of the madness outside -- and yet now, those warmongers had allowed the madness to seep in. No... they encouraged it.
He could hear Clara's voice even now, playing through his memory as he closed his eyes. "A thing of beauty..." he whispered, and it felt - for a moment - like her voice was what followed his breath. Another one of his delusions... but one he didn't mind. There was a certain beauty to madness, he had come to know.
"Am I gonna die in this place?" he whispered to himself. Another voice answered. 'No.' It was the same one from his dreams. More and more, this strangeness encroached on his mind. More and more, he began to interpret it as real -- like it wasn't just an illusion, but an aspect of who he was. A second self, hidden within. "Show me the way," he whispered to it. 'Forward', it answered back.
He got on his Chariot again, and rode wherever that voice guided him. He followed along the stars; perhaps by instinct, perhaps through memory. In the moonlit darkness of that night, the voice was his solace and guide. It kept him sane. The first and only time it ever did.
