Maggie opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry at first, but after several blinks, everything snapped into focus. She was on some straw in a small shed or something. Looking more closely at the walls, she could see that they were textured. Did this shed have stucco walls? No, looking even closer, Maggie saw that the walls were made of dirt and straw. She was in one of those huts she had passed earlier.
“I have to get up and find Shawn,” Maggie thought to herself. She put her foot on the dirt floor and, as she stood up, experienced sharp pain in her leg. Examining the source of the pain, she saw a large gash in her calf. It had been filled with what looked like sand. She reached in her pocket for her phone, intending to call for help, but found it smashed beyond usability. There would be no calling for help, let alone selfies, today.
Ignoring the pain, Maggie walked out. The hut opened onto a common area around which other huts were arranged. The injury slowed Maggie’s gait, and her grunting drew a crowd of the tribespeople around her. It was mostly women. Sure enough, they each wore just loincloths, their large brown breasts flapping in the breeze. Their bare feet were adorned with numerous rings and the same ritualistic scarring that marred other parts of their bodies. The toenails were exceptionally long, yet somehow each foot looked clean. Their faces were heavily pierced as well.
Maggie tried to press through the crowd, but the woman she and Shawn had passed stood in her way. Maggie, forced to confront this dreadlocked primitive, couldn’t take her eyes off the metal rods running lengthwise through her large, flat nose. After a moment, the woman grabbed a handful of Maggie’s blonde hair, held it up, and spoke to the crowd in a kind of sing-songy / clicking dialect. The assembled all laughed uproariously at whatever the woman had said. Next, she pointed at Maggie’s boots and said something else. The crowd found this even funnier. Finally, she pointed at Maggie’s chest and uncorked a real knee-slapper.
Tired of being the butt of jokes, Maggie, painfully, pushed her aside and walked to the road. As she pressed through the crowd of women - about 25 in all - she saw that among them was a tan blonde, looking to be about 20 years old. She was as pierced as the others, with a series of septum rings and rods traversing her nose’s width up to the bridge, and dressed precisely the same, though her small, white breasts poked forward instead of down. “Weird,” Maggie thought, “but a mystery for another day.”
She made it to the road and spent the better part of the day slowly walking in the direction she believed Shawn’s car to be. After a while, she could smell burning in the air, an odor that grew more potent as she continued, until she finally arrived at the charred out husk of Shawn’s Jeep, next to the charred remains of the giant mammal Shawn had hit while she was blowing him. And of course, there in the front seat was a charred corpse. It must be Shawn, Maggie realized, as she pieced together what had happened.
The collision had thrown her from her seat. She injured her leg and was knocked unconscious, destroying her phone in the process, and the Tineris must have brought her back to their camp and “dressed” the wound. Mercifully, her ejection from the vehicle threw her clear of the conflagration that ensued as the gas tank ruptured. If Shawn wasn’t killed in the impact, he probably died an agonizing death, Maggie realized. The thought sent a chill down her spine.
That chill was followed by an even bigger one as she realized that she was alone, with no food, water, clothing, shelter, or means of communication. And no one knew where she was. She began to sob.
After crying for a bit by by the Jeep, Maggie collected herself. She was aided in doing so by night falling, which brought a significant temperature drop and, Maggie realized, nocturnal predators. With this realization, every rustle in the brush startled Maggie. Lacking better options, and with her mobility hindered by her leg injury, Maggie lay prone and rolled herself under the husk of the Jeep, where she spent a fitful and anxious night.
*****
The sun’s warmth raised the air temperature even under the Jeep. Maggie awoke in a sweat. Her designer safari duds were torn and ruined with grime and blood. She had gotten almost no sleep, between her leg pain, concern about becoming some animal’s next meal, and dread about her present situation. She considered her options.
First, she could walk back to civilization. The Tineris did it, after all. With her wounded leg, though, it could take her days, even assuming she followed the path correctly back to the highway.
Second, she could wait by the Jeep for help to arrive. This was a gamble, as no one knew where she and Shawn were headed and they were far enough off the beaten path that it seemed unlikely anyone else would be coming down this way in the near future. Most likely, no one would even realize she was missing until, at the earliest, tonight - Juliana was in her own world and probably hadn’t noticed that her friend was missing yet.
That left one more option - go back to the Tineris and ask for some help. Maybe they knew a shortcut back to the civilized world, or maybe they could even go get her some help.
Maggie’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since breakfast the last morning. She set aside her pain and began the slow march back to the Tineris’ camp.
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