As he rode along, the hallucinations returned, first at the foreground of his vision; shifting imagery within his peripheral, much like the Weave of Mentalism. Crystalline, near-transparent, almost like glitches in his sight. Then, things became far more real. He began to see the dunes of sand dissolve before his eyes, but their particles did not disperse. Instead, the grains surrounded him on each side, flowing past him like a sea parted, great walls of shimmering sand everywhere but forward. 'Forward'. He repeated that word in his mind -- uttered by the mastermind of the delusions themselves. That voice within his thoughts. It was like the hallucination was meant to guide him, to keep him on his path. He wondered what would happen if he rode his Chariot into the wall of sand; how would reality react to his will to correct it? Was all of this even false?
The longer he laid immersed in these lies, the more he felt certain they were true. This... budding feeling, telling him that the life he led before now was the lie after all. That reality really was as sensational as his mind informed him. He veered his Chariot slightly so that he was close to the left-side wall of sand. Holding his hand out, he ran it through the grains, which he could feel as if they were truly real. He closed his eyes again; that song going through his mind, the strings of the guitar strumming as the woman sang. He could've slept like this. Maybe dreamt.
And then, he felt an incredible pain. "Fuuuuuck!" he screamed. Stopping his Chariot, he immediately fell off, landing hard on his side as he curled into a ball against the edge of a dune. There were holes punched through his hand -- small, like tubes had been plunged into them. It was painful. "What the fuck... Strain?!"
He was Overstepping. Blood escaped his nostrils, nausea flooded his system. He yelled out in agony. He could only ask himself: how? What had he done to overstep? He hadn't used any magic at all.
Looking back behind him, he could see the Weave, surrounding grains of sand and pulling them in in a circle. It was still active. He dispersed it immediately, another burst of pain shooting up through his back and forcing him to abruptly convulse. "Oh my God... I'm gonna die... I'm gonna die..."
He couldn't be Overstepping now -- not out in the desert like this, alone, with half a mile left at best in his Chariot. His hands were in agony; his whole body felt like it was frayed, his heart beating through his chest. If things got any worse... he was going to black out. And that would be it.
"The voice... it musta... did that; that illusion," he whispered. The sand running through his fingers -- he must've pulled the grains himself, plucking them from the dunes for however long. He had rapidly depleted his ether, and it was all a lie. He hadn't even intended to. How could his mind have that much control?
"Oh my God, Emmanuel! Here!" A voice called out in the distance, as a man pointed towards the tracks of his Chariot's tires. The group rode down the edge of the dune, swarming him and surrounding him as he laid back against the cool sands. He looked up towards them, vision flickering in-and-out. The pain was too much for him to bear. Better to sleep through it... he thought.
The first person to meet his half-lidded stare was Carlos, who smiled warmly as he took his injured hand, pouring an antiseptic fluid over it until the fallen Raider let out a harsh grunt. He wrapped a bandage over it, and as Jack's vision blurred, he could faintly hear the leftover members of the gang debating something fiercely over his fallen form. "Alice..." he whispered; everyone stopped, looking down at him. "She's dead," he said. "Had to kill her. She'd been... betrayin' us... to the Moons. For a long time."
"We know, Jack," Emmanuel said, tipping his head. He stepped out to the top of the dune, peering out and letting out a deep sigh. Jack heard it; it was the last thing he did, before darkness overtook his vision and silence followed. He did not dream in that sleep, maybe to protect him from Overstepping again. Instead, he slumbered peacefully, his mind replicating only the feeling of warm sands and the soft glow of the sun on his skin as he quietly laid.
Many hours later, the sun indeed loomed over them in the sky. They had stopped there to camp for the night, tarps all around them, sturdy and meant to resist the shifting form of the desert. They had buried themselves into one side of the dune, making it difficult to see them from outside of the little 'valley' they had sequestered. When Jack awoke, he did so to some degree of fanfare, as Carlos and Valerie greeted him with enthusiasm. They were glad he was alive. He was glad, too.
"...Did the Moons find you guys?" he asked, coughing.
Valerie piped up, parting her lips to speak. "No -- Carlos made sure we changed trajectory some; enough to avoid them. But then, we lost you, so..."
"Yeah, tell me 'bout it..." he chuckled. "I did that bitch in good, by the way. Beat her to death with her own mace. That's what she gets. You know... she's the reason Mindy, Parker, all of them died. She betrayed their location to the Moons. And then... she didn't want to talk about their deaths. No fuckin' surprise... guilty conscience."
The two both nodded. Carlos was, surprisingly, crying. Just a little -- the light shedding of tears. Jack didn't blame him; they had had a hard time of things, lately. So much misfortune, so much death.
"What're we doin' now?" he whispered.
"We're going to reconfigure where we need to go. We just need to change the path a little is all; the destination will be the same. Follow The Way."
"...The Way, right," he chuckled. "Well... I won't be of much use now, but at least we got the traitor. We should be alright."
"Yeah," Valerie nodded. "Get some more rest; we'll wake you when we're ready to go, Jack."
"Okay," he said back, closing his eyes again. Sleep came easy. It always did.
