The Sands of Judgment

The whip cracked through the blistering air, and I tasted blood. My vision spun as the force of the blow drove me into the sand. Each grain scorched my hands, branding me as I collapsed beneath the unrelenting sun. The heat pressed down, the desert’s wrath a living thing. The crowd around me jeered, their voices a sickening blur of thirst for violence. It was as though they were hungry for my suffering. My humiliation.

And still, I wouldn’t scream.

Another lash. Fire ripped across my back. My breath hitched, and I bit down hard on my tongue, forcing myself to rise on shaking legs. I was swaying, my head thick with heat and pain. But I had to stand. I had to face him.

“Enough.”

The word slipped through the crowd like poison. The jeering stopped immediately, as if every person there feared the weight of that single command. Sultan Khadir stepped forward, his silk robes floating like black smoke in the desert wind. His smile was wide, too wide, and his dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Every inch of him was cold, calculated cruelty.

He moved toward me with that languid confidence, the kind only someone with power beyond imagining could wield. His palace, built into the cliffside behind him, loomed over the market like a monument to death. The sun gleamed off its golden towers, but even from here, I could feel the shadows it cast.

Khadir stopped in front of me, his smile curling up just at the edges, enjoying the moment. His men circled like vultures, Harun, his hulking enforcer, gripping the whip, muscles tensing beneath the heat. He was waiting for the Sultan’s word, just one signal, and I’d be on my knees again.

“You are a stubborn man,” Khadir mused, his voice low, silk threading through the heat. “I offer you wealth, power… medicine for your dying sister.” His head tilted, mockingly. “And yet you repay me with this.”

I glared at him through sweat-drenched eyes. The debt—that damnable debt—had once been my only way to save her. I’d gone to Khadir, sold my soul for the medicine she needed, but it hadn’t been enough. She died anyway. And now, I owed him. More than I ever could repay.

“This,” I spat through gritted teeth, “is your doing. You offered salvation, and all you delivered was death.”

Khadir’s laugh was soft and slow, but it filled the space between us like a rattlesnake coiling to strike. “Ah, the bitterness of regret. But you misunderstand, my friend. Death is the only sure salvation. It’s the only guarantee I offer.”

The crowd, silent now, hung on every word, their breath collective and shallow, waiting for the moment when I would break. But I wouldn’t. Not like this.

“Give me a chance,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, rough and broken. “One final chance to settle the debt. Let me earn my freedom.”

The crowd stirred at the idea—this was the spectacle they wanted. Khadir’s gaze flicked toward them, the smile never leaving his lips. He savored the anticipation, the tension building like a storm on the horizon. He loved this—loved making men dance on the edge of their own destruction.

“A chance?” Khadir said, drawing the word out like a question he already knew the answer to. “And how, pray, do you expect to earn what you’ve already lost?”

“Give me a task. Something impossible,” I said, my breath still ragged from the pain. “If I succeed, you clear the debt. If I fail—”

“If you fail,” Khadir finished for me, his smile turning razor-sharp, “I will collect, piece by piece.”

The crowd erupted in hungry approval. I didn’t flinch. I couldn’t. This was the only way. Khadir fed on this—the game, the risk, the slow tightening of his trap. And I was already deep inside it.

“Very well,” he said, the delight almost palpable in his tone. “There is a jewel, deep beneath the palace, hidden in the catacombs. Cursed, they say. Every man who has sought it has gone mad or worse.” He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. “Retrieve it, and your debt will be forgiven.”

I knew the stories. Whispers in the marketplace about men who’d entered those catacombs, drawn by promises of wealth or power, and were never seen again. Some claimed the jewel wasn’t cursed at all—that the catacombs themselves were alive, feeding on the souls of those who dared enter.

“And if I don’t return?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Khadir smiled, his teeth gleaming like a predator. “Then your death will serve as your final payment.”

Beside me, Rafiq tensed. I could feel the fear radiating off him in waves, though he kept his face impassive. My oldest friend. He had been with me through every bad decision, every desperate move. And yet, I had never seen this kind of terror in him before.

“I want no part of this,” Rafiq muttered under his breath, his voice thick with dread. “This is madness.”

“You’re already in it,” I whispered back. “There’s no turning back now.”

Khadir’s enforcer, a tall, barrel-chested man with a shaved head, a thick dark beard and arms roughly the size of tree trunks, called Harun, grunted, and motioned us toward the entrance of the catacombs. It yawned open, black and cold, like a wound in the earth. The air around it seemed different—thicker, charged with something foul, something old. The smell of damp stone and rot hit me as we neared, and a shiver ran down my spine despite the oppressive heat.

I swallowed, looking at Rafiq. His face had gone pale, his eyes wide, unblinking. He didn’t speak again, but I knew what he was thinking. If the stories were true, neither of us was coming back.

The catacombs swallowed us whole.

The world outside vanished, the light and heat snuffed out like a candle as we descended deeper into the earth. The stone walls pressed in, slick with moisture, the air cold and heavy. My boots scraped against the uneven ground, each step echoing in the dark, the sound bouncing off the narrow walls, amplifying every breath, every heartbeat.

Rafiq stumbled behind me, the silence between us thick, but not for long.

The buzzing started faintly. At first, I thought it was in my head—a dull, persistent hum at the back of my mind. But as we moved deeper, it grew louder, more intense, until it was vibrating through the walls, through my bones.

“Do you hear that?” Rafiq’s voice was barely a whisper, brittle with fear.

“I hear it.”

The tunnel twisted, leading us deeper, and the buzzing grew deafening, filling my ears, my skull, drowning out everything else. Then the walls started moving.

It began slowly—just a flicker at the edges of my vision. But then it spread, the stone itself shifting, undulating. My stomach lurched. Shadows poured from the cracks in the walls, and with them came the swarm.

Insects. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They poured from the cracks, covering the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The buzzing became a roar, a living, breathing wave of legs and wings and pincers. They crawled over my boots, up my legs, swarming over my arms, my neck, my face. I could feel them skittering under my clothes, their tiny bodies moving in frantic, unnatural patterns. Their wings vibrated against my skin, filling the air with a droning, suffocating hum.

Rafiq screamed.

I turned just in time to see him stumble back, his arms flailing as he tried to swat the bugs away. His face was a mask of horror, his eyes wide with primal terror. He clawed at his skin, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts.

“I can’t! I can’t do this!” His voice was raw, choked with fear.

I grabbed him, shaking him hard. “Focus! Look at me! They’re just bugs—don’t let them in your head!”

But it was too late. I could see it in his eyes—the way they darted, wild, unfocused. The buzzing wasn’t just in our ears anymore. It was inside us, crawling through our minds, pulling at the edges of our sanity.

Rafiq collapsed to his knees, his body shaking uncontrollably as the swarm covered him. His screams echoed through the tunnel, mixing with the deafening roar of the insects. I could feel them burrowing into his mind, breaking him piece by piece. And I knew—if I didn’t get him out, they’d take him entirely.

“Rafiq!” I shouted, my voice barely audible above the noise. “Get up! We have to move! Now!”

His eyes locked onto mine, and for a brief moment, I saw a flicker of recognition. But the fear was still there, gnawing at him, hollowing him out. He was slipping away.

I yanked him to his feet, half-dragging him forward. We stumbled deeper into the catacombs, the swarm clinging to us, biting, stinging. Every step was agony, my body screaming from the pain, the cold, the suffocating weight of the insects. My skin crawled, each bite, each sting sending shockwaves of revulsion through me. The buzzing pounded in my skull, growing louder with every second, until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

And then we saw it.

The chamber was vast, the ceiling so high it disappeared into darkness. At its center, the jewel sat on a pedestal, glowing with an unnatural, sickly light. The air in the room was thick, charged with something wrong. The buzzing stopped, but the silence that followed was worse. It was the kind of silence that comes just before something terrible.

I could feel it in my bones.

The jewel pulsed, and with it came a pressure—an invisible hand pressing down on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. The walls seemed to ripple, the shadows shifting, moving toward us. They weren’t just shadows. They were alive. Watching. Waiting.

Rafiq stood frozen, his face pale, his breath shallow. “I can’t… I can’t do this,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

“You don’t have a choice,” I said, though the words sounded hollow in my ears.

The air felt thick, heavy, like I was drowning in it. My legs trembled as I stepped forward, every muscle in my body screaming in protest. The closer I got to the jewel, the worse the pressure became, pressing down on my skull, my chest, my heart. It was like the entire room was alive, breathing in sync with the pulsing light.

I reached out, my fingers trembling, and as I touched the jewel, the chamber exploded.

The walls shook, the ground buckled beneath our feet. Cracks splintered through the stone, and from those cracks came the swarm—thousands of insects, pouring into the room, their wings beating in furious unison. The buzzing returned, louder, more violent, filling every corner of the chamber, every inch of my mind.

“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Rafiq and pulling him toward the tunnel. “Run!”

The chamber collapsed around us, the ceiling falling in chunks, the swarm closing in from all sides. The sound was deafening, the air thick with dust and the whirr of wings. My skin was on fire, the bites, the stings, each one sending a jolt of agony through me.

We sprinted through the collapsing tunnel, the swarm chasing us, tearing at us. The buzzing was everywhere, inside my head, inside my chest. It was suffocating. I could barely see, barely breathe, but we kept running, faster, faster—

And then we were outside.

We burst into the sunlight, gasping for breath, the air clean and bright and too sharp. The tunnel collapsed behind us with a deafening roar, sealing away whatever horrors still lingered inside. But I knew they hadn’t stayed behind. The terror was with us now. It had followed us.

Khadir stood in the courtyard, his smile cold and cruel.

“Well,” he said, his voice cutting through the noise of my ragged breathing, “it seems you’ve succeeded.”

I tossed the jewel at his feet, too exhausted, too broken to care. “We’re done,” I rasped, my throat raw, my body trembling.

Khadir’s smile faded, and for the first time, I saw something dark flicker behind his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly, though his voice was thick with malice. “We are.”

But I knew, as I stood there, gasping for breath under the blistering sun, that it wasn’t over. Not really. The darkness from the catacombs had come with us, clinging to our skin, burrowing into our minds. It would never let us go.

Not fully.

And the worst part was, I could still hear it. The buzzing.

Always there.

Always waiting.

Yes, we were alive. For now. And in the desert sometimes that was enough. As I walked out away from the desert though, I knew I would never again be truly free—in this world or any other. Whatever we had encountered was still out there—hunting. And somehow I knew even when it caught up with me, it would still continue hunting until it had consumed every morsel of my dying soul.