Chapter 585

Hassan, at 44, felt the desert grit scratch against his weathered skin. He adjusted his keffiyeh, shielding his face from the unrelenting sun. Decades he'd spent in these sandy wastes, yet it never got easier. He scanned the horizon. Nothing. Just endless sand.

"Just like yesterday," he muttered.

He tightened his grip on the old Enfield rifle slung over his shoulder. This wasn't just a trek for rare desert flowers this time. The village elders had entrusted him with a grim task: track and eliminate the landogadon.

A shadow crossed his face, briefly shielding his eyes from the sun's harsh intensity. He stopped, the silence amplifies the rapid beating of his heart. He scanned the flat expanse. This was their hunting ground.

Landogadons. The very name whispered in the village carried the sting of terror. Desert sharks. Creatures of nightmare.

His grandfather had spun the oldest story of landogadon attacks as a kid. They burrowed beneath the dunes, sensing vibrations, exploding upward to devour their prey. The stories were just fables, he'd thought then. Now, those childhood fears felt very real.

He walked onward. The sun beat down, reflecting off the sand in a shimmering heat haze. Every shadow seemed to writhe, every ripple in the dunes looked like a predator's wake. Hassan wiped sweat from his brow. He needed water.

He reached his designated point for the day's journey and sat, opening his canteen and taking a long drink. Water was life here. Each drop precious.

A slight sound made him stiffen, a soft thrum beneath the sand. A tremor in the earth beneath his bare ankles.

He bolted to his feet. No flowers grew here. He'd specifically moved to a completely flat spot so nothing would be covering anything. He strained his ears, listening.

The vibration came again, stronger this time, faster.

He chambered a round in his rifle. "Show yourself, you beast!" he yelled into the emptiness.

The sand erupted directly in front of him, a gaping maw filled with rows of razor teeth tearing through the surface. It was wider than any well. A landogadon.

He barely had time to register its horrifying presence before it lunged, its immense jaws snapping shut just inches from his leg.

Hassan stumbled back, firing his rifle. The bullet struck true, but the landogadon barely flinched. It thrashed, sending sand flying, then submerged back into the dune.

"Damn!" he cursed, his voice raspy.

He scrambled behind a rocky outcrop, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He knew how they hunted: ambush and relentless pursuit. There wasn't much he could do, as they are much faster. The heat played games with his vision. Was that rippling sand, or his mind?

He glanced around, his heart beginning to beat a little faster. How was he supposed to beat a giant sandshark? The rifle won't take it down, and his knives may tickle it, but nothing more. It wasn't the kind of opponent one could beat with force or even magic. The only thing he could do was...

The desert seemed to hold its breath. Everything felt off. The sky, his heart, everything! There must be something he can do other than waiting to die.

Another eruption of sand. This time, closer. Hassan fired again, aiming for its exposed throat, but the landogadon twisted, avoiding the worst of the blast. Sand filled the sky around them, it seemed to be playing the long game of drawing this out.

He dashed away. Backtracking through his prints he had created, he didn't want the beast to know exactly where he went next.

"I will send you back to the depths!" he roared. He felt panic welling up inside. He had to get away, find some high ground, something.

The sand pulsed. It was almost hunting him like some big-game trophy hunt. It would only get worse from here.

He sprinted. To the west, the dunes sloped upwards slightly, offering a minimal advantage. His breath grew ragged. The air felt thick and heavy, each gasp burned in his lungs. He had to hide it from those it hunts down.

Another explosion behind him. He risked a glance. The landogadon was gaining. Faster than he thought possible. It's speed was really something. If this continued, there was no telling if he would live.

"Yalla habibi" He cried, using all his energy to move away from it. It wouldn't work though. It knew what he had to do. And now, the landogadon's master would reap another life to fuel his terrible machine.

He stumbled, sprawling to the ground. He rolled over just in time to see the landogadon bearing down on him, a nightmare made flesh and sand.

He raised his rifle one last time, pointing directly into its gaping maw. The blackness threatened to pull him into something much worse than death.

"Go to hell, you cursed djinn spawn!" He screamed, squeezing the trigger.

The rifle roared and fired again before Hassan was quickly swallowed whole, disappearing into the sand.

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Darkness. Complete and absolute. Hassan felt a crushing weight, then nothing. He thought that death had come at last, but there was a dull pain resonating throughout his head and then, his other body. But there should only be one. This should be hell. Why would it include what was real?

Then, a flicker. A dim, cold light. Hassan opened his eyes. He wasn't in hell. He wasn't dead. He was inside something.

He looked around, disoriented. Walls of slick, pulsating flesh surrounded him. It smelled of decay and brine. He was inside the landogadon.

But this was no normal creature. This was…something else.

He scrambled to his feet, or tried to. His legs felt heavy, unnatural. Looking down, he screamed.

His legs weren't his own. They were…crab-like. Chitinous, multi-jointed limbs. He had more than two. Six, in fact. He tested their grip on the pulsating, meaty ground beneath him. This wasn't any natural cavern.

This was part of the Landogadons themselves. The master. The beast of the dunes was no regular creature. And now he was one of them.

Panic clawed at him. He tried to scream, but only a gurgling, guttural sound escaped his lips.

He had to get out.

He lurched forward, his new legs moving awkwardly, bumping against one another, but the walls closed in, guiding them towards their destination whether he liked it or not. This was beyond a hell he had ever seen. And the heat was only increasing from here.

The passageway opened into a larger chamber. In the center, a colossal, pulsating organ. It pulsed like a massive heart, pumping a viscous, black fluid through the landogadon's monstrous body. But on closer inspection, the viscous substance moved in intricate shapes and design to control them all.

And embedded within the organ…faces. Hundreds of them. Human faces, twisted in silent screams. Men, women, children.

Hassan recognized one. The village elder. The one that first sent him on this trip to put him down for good. So that they can join. The old traitor. And, now Hassan could do nothing, not even shout at him for betrayal. This isn't what they deserved.

He lurched forward, towards them, but he was quickly stopped. His new crab legs struggled for even a single moment. He understood now. He wasn't just inside the landogadon. He was part of it.

A new wave of terror overwhelmed him. He was trapped. Assimilated. He will be assimilated into a new and higher form of Landogadons, a monster like the other, yet at least more powerful to fight back on his own. This wasn't the first body. And it sure wouldn't be the last. This time, he will find something to grasp. A single idea to carry his soul, even if only one last thought is had.

He watched, helpless, as his face contorted, his features began to dissolve and restructure themselves into a grotesque, inhuman mask.

A voice, not his own, echoed in his mind. Welcome. You are one with us now.

Hassan fought against it, every fiber of his being screaming in silent defiance, he could still think, and the last vestiges of himself and those thoughts can save him. No! I am Hassan! He tried to scream with that very breath of will.

And as his flesh transformed, his own mind began to fade, merging with the collective consciousness of the landogadon. Even a little piece. He could tell those near.

He focused with all of his might, clinging to the last flicker of his identity. He had to warn someone. He must have found the landgadon master now. But who, what? It won't be easy with the creatures everywhere.

The creatures were beyond anything he thought possible, their hunger eternal, the desert a playground to reap those from nearby settlements and villages. It may seem peaceful, but only now did he understand their plight and how dangerous they were.

He still hated that elder with a burning passion, but as the Landogadons started consuming everything around him, he had something more important. He has something to do.

His consciousness slipped further, the collective will of the landogadon threatening to engulf him completely. The feeling was almost there now. He thought of his daughter. The memories, a small flicker, nearly out.

The moment of dancing in his arms as a baby. The warmth of his wife's smile, long gone now. He must not fail her memory. Not his daughter.

Tell them He pleaded to anyone in his mind. Anything. Even nothing, he had to put all of his heart out into the sands to call. His daughter has to stay safe, forever, now, for his final task. She has to keep all memories of their time together, no matter what. Landogadons…beneath…sand…. He used a single will.

A final surge of resistance, born of pure paternal love, pushed through the encroaching darkness. He had to finish! His wife had shown the way, with courage. This time, it had to work, by all means possible.

Now or never, right now. Or death could come, soon. Even the elder who had brought him out here was nothing in his heart, as saving his family now weighed a thousand times more.

Then, nothing.

The landogadon pulsed, its new consciousness integrated seamlessly into the collective. The other forms called as he started walking. In his stride was a familiar form of something. Determination. And as the beast marched away, he will stop and call again for help once more in due time. With a heavy heart he will protect.

The cycle begins anew.