“Mayday, Mayday! This is Max 5! I repeat, this is Max 5! We are losing altitude! We are going down!” The pilot screamed into a radio as he frantically tried to control the craft. Everyone held on for dear life. The crash came on them suddenly, and the aircraft broke up in a fireball as it slammed hard into the sand. Most of the crew were thrown far in the confusion. Gabriel Shay was the first one awake. He lay face up towards the sky, looking up at the clear blue sun. He was trying to fathom what just happened. There was a crackling of fire from shouldering wreckage. “Ughhh.” Came a nearby voice, and Gabriel spotted Sarge laying on the ground nearby. He went over to the Sarge. “Are you okay?” Suddenly the Sarge scrambled to his knees frantically, and began sifting around the sand. “Where is it!? Where the hell is it!?” Gabriel noticed him grab something shiny and blue and slip it into his pocket quickly. “What was that?” Gabriel asked. “Nevermind that, Soldier! Check on the others!” Sarge barked back. Gabriel obeyed and swept the crash site. In total he found two more survivors, A man named Fox and another named Brill. The rest of the fifteen passenger crew had all died. The radio equipment from the craft was completely destroyed. Now the four soldiers were lost in the middle of open desert. “Alright, there’s no point in waiting here for rescue.” Sarge announced as he had everyone gathered round. “We should gather what supplies we have and start heading towards the Rendezvous point on foot.” Everyone agreed, and they began to scour the crash site once more, this time for anything useful. In the end they managed to compile a backpack for each of them, canteens with various amounts of water, a compass, among other things. Within the hour they held the compass west and began to march through the desert. The terrain was deep sandy dunes. The sand was orange and hot to the touch. It was an endless sea of it, with no plants poking out from anywhere. No rocks to protrude the landscape. Just sand, and sky, and worst of all, sun. They walked without speaking, single file across the land. They did not stop, but they did not move quick either. The heat was slowing them down significantly. After a long distance, Gabriel could no longer see the Crash site anymore. Then it truely felt like they were lost. The first night came. They sat in the sand, watching the last scraps of light disappear over the horizon. “Sarge, What’s That?” Brill asked suddenly. At the Sarge’s breast-pocket, there was a blue glow beneath the fabric. Gabriel had recalled him scrambling in the sand for an item. . . Pocketing it. . . Sarge silently reached up and pulled a path of cloth across his shoulder. The same cloth he used to cover his face in the desert. The glow was no longer visible. “Nevermind about it.” He said so softly it could barely be heard between them. Brill pressed the subject. “Sarge you got something? Is it a radio? GPS?” The Sarge suddenly bolted upwards weilding a gun and waving it in front of all the men erratically. “I am your Sargent! I am your commander! I raised you soldiers not to question me! If you want to survive you had better stop questioning orders!” All of them nodded in compliance, reluctantly. The Sarge stopped and looked Brill straight in the eye for a long moment before holstering his pistol. That was when Gabriel noticed a dangerous fact. He was not sure if his other two companions had realized it or not, but he saw it now clear as day. The Sarge was the only one of them who had a weapon. The thoughts eroded Gabriel’s mind well past the time in which they all had settled down and forgotten the incident. Gabriel kept thinking about The Sarge… who he was when they had joined the force. The man who taught them everything they know, gained their trust and admiration. . . But now a different face. A different person, with threats and excuses. The dread thoughts continued onward. Deeper. . . The next morning they continued onward. The landscape began to change from endless dunes to a rocky wasteland. Crevices and cliffs were cracked into the ground. Before long they found themselves stranded, trying to navigate vast canyons of rock. At the end of a route atop a large canyon, the group was forced to stop. “What now?” Asked Fox. “How steep is the cliff?” Asked the Sarge. Next came the order. “Brill, go peer over the edge.” The Sarge followed a few steps behind Brill. Brill walked right to the edge so the toe of his boots were just over the edge. “Its a sheer rock wall, without any climbing equip-“ Suddenly Brill seemed to lose his balance. In an instant he was going over the edge, Sarge appearing to reach for him. Brill’s scream echoed through the canyon as he fell to his death. Fox and Gabriel immediately ran up beside Sarge. “What happened!?” Asked Gabriel, now looking over the edge himself. “He lost his balance, he fell!” The Sarge exclaimed. “We… we have to go back the way we came.” Gabriel noticed little remorse in Sarge’s eyes. It was almost as if he was trying to hide a grin. Wearily, they left the scene and retraced their steps. Now falling behind from the Sarge, Fox and Gabriel walked together, out of earshot. “I can’t believe Brill just fell like that.” Gabriel said after a while. “He was a careful person.” “He didn’t just trip and fall.” Fox said in a low angry voice. “He was pushed.” “Pushed!? You mean-“ “That’s right.” Fox acknowledged. “Sarge pushed him over the cliff. I saw it Gabe, with my own eyes. He shoved him at the waist.” “Why would he do that!?” Asked Gabriel. Fox replied with his own question. “What’s he hiding from us?” The second night came, this time they were well into the valley of the canyons and found an overhanging rock to sleep under. Tensions were up between the men now. No words has been spoken between the two soldiers and Sarge all day. Now they sat in silence, just staring at each other, reading each other. Sarge tried to break the tension first with some reassurance. “I think it should only be one more day’s walk back to the base.” The other two did not respond to that. Gabriel could see Fox getting visibly more angry towards the Sarge. He tried to put a hand on Fox’s wrist to slow his intentions but Fox stood up pointing a finger at Sarge. “You killed him.” “He fell off a damn cliff, soldier!” The Sarge snapped. “You pushed him! I saw it!” Fox accused. “You pushed him right off that cliff like it was nothing because he asked about whatever you got in your pocket!” The Sarge stood up, getting face to face with Fox. “Is that right?” Fox didn’t back down. “Thats right. You’re a murderer!” And then he lunged at Sarge. The two wrestled on the ground, throwing punches and kicking up dust. Gabriel tried to intervene, but Sarge had already drawn his pistol. The shot came instantly and Fox slumped over on top of the Sarge. He was dead. The Sarge rolled the body off of him and then got up, keeping the gun aimed at Gabriel. He wiped a spot of blood off his tongue with the back of his hand and then smiled a red smile. “Now… let’s you and I have a little chat.” Moments later, they were sitting cross legged across from one another, Fox’s body between them. The Sarge still had the gun pointed at Gabriel. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the object and held it in the palm of his hand. It looked like a glowing, about the size of a golf ball. It was radiating its own light, and lit up the underpass as he held it up. Gabriel instantly recognized it for what it was. It had come from the place they had been sent to originally on the mission, known as the Oasis. It was a large settlement of cultists who worshipped the very object that the Sarge was holding in his hand. It was called the ‘Hexstar’. “You… STOLE that!?” Gabriel asked, baffled. “You took the worshiper’s relic!? Why!?” The Sarge laughed. “You are quite simple Gabriel. You don’t even know what it is exactly, do you?” Gabriel had recalled all his common knowledge about the Hexstar and recited it back. “It fell in a meteor that struck the desert. The Nomads found it. No one knows quite what it is but it seems to be and endless source of energy.” “It is an unknown element.” The Sarge explained. “And it is quite sought after by western scientists.” Gabriel lowered his eyes. “You are going to sell it.” “Precisely.” “Tell me, Sarge. How much is the lives of all our comrades worth to you, that you would risk it all?” “Comrades?” The Sarge laughed. “All I see are lose ends. I guess you never did learn the ultimate lesson after all Gabe. Trust no one.” Gabriel’s eyes widened in revelation. His hands balled into fists. “You crashed the aircraft.” The Sarge nodded. “I crashed the aircraft.” Then Gabriel pounced at the Sarge, just like Fox had. He went immediately for the gun, knocking it out of Sarge’s hands with surprising force. It landed a few feet away. Punches were thrown back and forth and the Sarge scrambled to the ground, reaching for the gun. Gabriel held him back by his ankles, pulling him back away from the gun. The Sarge rolled over, his back on the ground now, trying to out muscle Gabriel. With a right hook to the cheek, Gabriel managed to stun the Sarge, knocking him backwards, dazed for a moment. He seized this opportunity to retrieve the gun. He raised it on the Sarge as he got up. “Don’t move!” The Sarge smiled again, his face now pretty battered. “Only one of us is walking out of here alive, Soldier.” Gabriel picked up the Hexstar, which had been laying nearby since the start of the scuffle. He admired it closely. “You would kill all of us… for this!?” “For the future, Gabe. For the future. Just imagine what can be done with that awesome power!? There would be no need for war.” “Once one side has all the control.” Gabriel said. Then without warning, Gabriel pulled the trigger, dropping the Sarge dead. Now the scene was eerily quiet. All the noise they had just been making had vanished completely, and only the cool still air remained. Sighing in pity and remorse, Gabriel holstered the gun and wrapped a cloth around the Hexstar. He put it in his pocket and began walking. . . West.