3. A desperate struggle

It was a new day and the sun just peaked its head out from a distant sandhill. Gareth had woken up less than an hour ago and was currently inspecting his condition.

Right now he had a couple of fractured ribs, a slight skull fracture and a fractured hip. He had some partially torn muscles at his legs and right hand. All of his bleeding had stopped after resting, after having breakfast he did some light stretching and exercise. Just enough to prime his body and not exert his damaged muscles.

After checking if he didn't leave anything behind, he set off. Although he was fairly immune to the high heat, the nice cool morning left Gareth feeling refreshed and energised.

Gareth was still on constant alert as he would never know when the next step he took might be on a hidden predator. The mornings is the final period predators were still hunting trying to find that one more meal before the heat sets in.

Gareth had been walking for most of the 2 hours before he suddenly had a bad feeling, he suddenly caught out of the corner of his right eye the sand shifted slightly. Tensing his muscles he jumped back just in time to see the sand he saw earlier explode and a snake head with open jaws snapping at the previous location he had just been.

Garth didn't celebrate his near escape as he still felt the bad feeling coming worse when he saw only half the snake emerge. This snake appeared to be an arid snake, it spent most of its time underground hunting for other smaller burrowing creatures but seeing it attack him above ground made Gareth doubt himself.

Dropping his bag he equipped his home made spear, at the same time the snake realising it had missed turned and lunged at Gareth again this time from the sky down. Gareth having escaped an isolated space time dimension had adapted super human reaction and perception as well as a formidable physical resistance.

The lunge appeared slow in his eyes and with a small movement he dodged the attack leaving the snake with a mouth full of sand.

At the same time he stabbed the spear into the body of the snake. The spear penetrated the tough scaly hide but encountered hard resistance as he tried to push deeper.

Fearing he would lose his spear if he tried to push it in further he could only stop and take back the spear.

The snake clearly annoyed as it spat out the end tried to smash the pesky food. Gareth took a short sidestep and narrowly missed the smack. The snakes scales were all facing in one direction and were akin to a shredder. Those scales helped it move easier when burrowing through the sand and if Gareth were merely brushed by the scales his flesh would be torn off let alone a full strike from the snake.

Gareth had aimed for the eye of the snake and even though the snake spent most of its time under the sand it had decent vision. However Gareth misjudged the distance and with two of the three eyelids protecting the eye. Gareth only managed to barely scratch the eye after it had gone though the other layers.

Realising it had almost been blinded in one eye, it went mad and hissed. Gareth soon noticed a few meters away from the snake another arid snake head popped out of the sand. Soon after a large sand mound began to rise and Gareth then realised what his ominous gut feeling was about.