The funny thing about traversing the desert in a world of eternal night is that it’s the farthest thing from warm. Joy Park had at first come to believe that walking into the desert would lead to at least a slight reprieve from the bitter cold of the mountains that she and her companion had just crossed. She was wrong. The temperature was just as low here. Though the rudimentary fur clothes she had managed to fashion for them were doing their job well enough, the problem of thirst still remained. They had filled all of their available containers with water before leaving the mountains, but Joy was beginning to think that it might not be enough.

Joy looked over her shoulder to check on her companion. Wendy Son was trudging along several footsteps behind, her hooded face staring down at the ground in order to keep the wind out of her eyes. Joy bit her lip in worry and wondered if she should ask the older girl if she wanted to stop and rest for awhile. She knew that Wendy would refuse, waving off the younger girl’s qualms and stating that any time not spent on the move was a waste. Joy turned, found the small point of light in the distance that the two had been following for their duration in the desert, and kept walking.

Despite the harshness of the environment, Joy couldn’t help but notice that the view here was amazing. While the immediate area was mostly flat, with occasional uninteresting hills of sand, the ends of the desert were very clearly visible. Behind them was a wall of mountains that dominated most of the horizon. In front of them was what appeared to be a dense forest or grassy area. It was hard to tell, as they were so far away that it only appeared as a blur of green in the distance. Between them and the green area was a cluster of lights that seemed to be some kind of town. They’d seen that same cluster from the mountains and had decided to head in that direction; hopefully the inhabitants would be accommodating and allow them some refuge and water before they continued on their journey. Hopefully they were unlike the snow people in the mountains… Joy shuddered at the thought of the giant, fur-covered creatures that had tried to devour her and Wendy. Regardless of the level of hospitality of whoever they encountered by those lights, they had to get to the green area. They had come upon some scarce plant-life here and there, but that amount of foliage should have been impossible in a world where the sun never shined. Joy was determined to find out what it meant.

***

As Wendy followed Joy’s rapidly disappearing footsteps in the sand, she couldn’t help but feel that the journey they were on was fruitless. She’d woken up in this strange world two weeks ago with this tall, baby-faced girl by her side. She had thought it was just some kind of dream, and that she’d wake up soon and forget all of it. They had both thought that. But they were both wrong. The other girl, who went by the name of Joy, had insisted on leaving the base of the mountain and exploring this strange world they’d ended up in. Joy was amazing. She knew how to hunt and clean animals, where to find shelter from the neverending snowstorms, how to start a fire, and so much more. She’d even fashioned a bow and some arrows using fallen branches, some rocks, and the sinew of an unlucky rabbit. She’d chalked it all up to the many hiking and camping trips her father had taken her on as a child. Wendy, on the other hand, knew nothing about the wilderness. Without the other girl, she wouldn’t have lived more than a few hours. Especially when they encountered those monsters in the snow. Joy had managed to fight them off with a flaming stick while Wendy had curled up behind her in fear. Joy was the main reason that Wendy kept going. The younger girl had invested so much effort into helping her that it would be a waste of her kindness to just give up. Filled with determination not to let her friend down, Wendy marched on.

The duo continued like this for another hour. Wendy was about to look up and ask Joy if she wanted to halt their journey for a bit to eat and drink when she noticed that the girl had already stopped completely and was looking around. Wendy followed the taller girl’s gaze as she moved her head, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The cluster of lights did look marginally closer, but besides that, everything looked the same.

“What’s up?”

The taller girl spun around to look at Wendy. Joy pressed a finger to her own lips, shushing her companion. Her eyes were wide, confused, and frantic, which made Wendy uneasy. If Joy was worried about something, it had to be important. Wendy’s unease only increased when her companion pointed at the ground.

Wendy hadn’t noticed that the ground was shaking. She rationalized that it was because she was tired, the sand shifted a lot when they walked anyway, and the wind contributed to the sand’s movements. However, now that she was standing still, she could feel the unnatural vibration of the earth below them. It was a consistent rumbling that was growing stronger, and it seemed to be coming from a point directly to the left of them, behind a particularly large sand dune.

When Joy realized where the vibrations were coming from, she spun around, grabbed a very confused Wendy by the arm, and took off, abandoning all attempts to be quiet.

“Run. Now.”

Despite her exhaustion and thirst, Wendy had no choice but to follow. Joy let her go once she felt that Wendy was complying and quickly tore ahead. The taller girl’s strides were much longer than hers, and her sprinting form was impeccable. Wendy, on the other hand, stumbled through the shifting sand gracelessly. Joy cleared one of the dunes and Wendy lost sight of her. The petite girl also managed to fall over at the exact same moment. Her ankle twisted inwards and a shock of pain flashed up her thigh. As Wendy was clutching her injured limb, she managed to catch a quick glance behind her. What she saw made her immediately freeze in place.

They were being pursued by a scorpion. Now, Wendy was not a fan of normal scorpions - that is, the ones that could be measured in inches - but this one was on a completely different level. Its light green body was more than twenty feet long, sporting a stinger that was likely about half that length. It was propelling itself along the sand using its two front claws, as two of its right back legs appeared to be missing. Despite this severe handicap, the insect was quickly approaching her.

Wendy was still trying to find her footing when the behemoth crested the final dune separating them and began to slide menacingly down towards her location. The vibrations caused by its proximity loosened the sand further, and Wendy knew that this was the end for her. She turned away and clamped her eyes shut, silently praying that it would be over quickly.

“WENDY! COME THE ON!” a familiar voice broke her out of her quiet prayer.

Wendy looked up at the source and saw Joy, bow in hand, barraging the approaching insect with arrow after arrow after arrow. The projectiles themselves did very little damage to the scorpion’s thick exoskeleton; however, each time Joy managed to land a hit on one of the scorpion’s slender legs, she was able to slow it down more and more. Wendy abandoned trying to stand again and instead crawled her way up the dune until she reached Joy’s feet. The taller girl then abandoned her attack on the the scorpion, dropped the bow in the sand, and scooped Wendy up onto her back.Instinctively, the smaller girl latched on as hard as she could. Joy began running again, this time much slower than before.

“Joy you can’t. You have to leave me behind. You’re going to die too if you don’t.”

“Shut the up.” Joy growled, her words coming labored.

But Wendy was right. As wonderful of an athlete as Joy was, she was nearing her limit. She was dehydrated, exhausted, and carrying close to one-hundred pounds on her back. She began to falter, losing her footing in the sand until she fell into a kneeling position. Wendy released her and fell onto the sand beside her. The scorpion was bearing down on them now, its stinger recoiling into position to strike both of the helpless girls down.

Wendy gritted her teeth, crouched low to the ground, and threw herself at Joy with all her might. Joy had helped her survive this long, the least she could do was try to return the favor. Joy tumbled to safety, just out of the scorpions reach. She turned to grab Wendy, but it was too late.

Wendy saw the blur of green as the stinger came down upon her and smiled. At least she had saved her friend. There was a wave of indescribable pain through her right arm, several metallic popping noises, and a scream. And then, darkness.

***

Joy was brought back to consciousness by the feeling of soft bumps beneath her and the sound of a revving engine. Her senses were still hazy, but she understood that she was in some kind of vehicle. Most likely a humvee. She was strapped into the backseat area of the truck, supported on both sides by burlap sacks. She could hear the two occupants of the front seats talking to one another, but the roar of the engine made it impossible to discern their words. She unbuckled her seatbelt.

As she did so, the violet-haired girl in the passenger seat turned to her. Judging by the girls soft facial characteristics, she had to have been sixteen at the oldest.

“I’d stay buckled in if I were you. There’s a rough patch coming up.”

Joy opened to respond but was cut off when the vehicle started jostling left and right, throwing her down onto the floor. She heard the girl in the driver’s seat giggle lightly.

When Joy had fought her way back into her seat and buckled herself in, the girl spoke again, an innocent smile playing on her features.

“My name’s Rosé. But you can call me Rosie. Nice to meet you.”

“Where’s Wendy? What happened to Wendy?” Joy demanded. She was close to tears when she saw the smile on Rosé’s face disappear.

“We put her in the faster humvee with our friends Lisa and Jisoo. Lisa’s good with medical stuff, so she can take care of your friend. Jisoo’s a better driver than Jennie anyway, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were back already.”

At these words, the black-haired driver gave Rosé a hard pinch on the arm.

“Ow! Jennie, stop it!”

Rosé responded with a pinch of her own, which caused the driver (who Joy assumed was named Jennie) to lose control of the vehicle and nearly flip the entire humvee over.

“Cut it out!” Joy said indignantly, “This is serious. Stop messing around.”

“You’re not really in a position to be telling us what to do, gorgeous.” Jennie said offhandedly. Joy was about to retort when Rosé smiled apologetically and put her hands up.

“Please excuse Jennie, she’s not in a good mood today,” Rosé leaned back as far as her seatbelt would allow her, holding her hand over the side of to prevent Jennie from hearing, “Probably on her period.”

Joy, who still wasn’t amused, continued on.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Well, we were all out on a hunting trip in the desert looking for scorpions. We saw you and your friend from a distance entering scorpion territory and we started heading your way to warn you. We found you just in time. I was actually the one who shot the scorpion before it could sting your friend again.” Rosé said with an air of pride.

“WENDY GOT STUNG?!” Joy screeched.

“Just a scratch on her arm. The scorpion venom may hurt a lot, but it’s relatively harmless once your body metabolizes it… Her foot, on the other hand, is worse,” Rosé frowned now, her forehead wrinkling with worry, “Just before the scorpion stung her, she pushed off her foot pretty hard. Her ankle may be broken. Fractured at the least.”

“Dammit, Wendy. She’s always getting herself into some kind of mess…”

“She did it to save you. Rosie’s too nice to say it, but if it weren’t for Wendy, you would’ve been impaled.” Jennie said matter-of-factly, earning another pinch from Rosé.

Joy went quiet, trying to compose herself. Wendy had been ready to sacrifice her life for Joy. She was spared the trouble of having to meet Rosé’s gaze when the humvee came to a stop.

“We’re here.” Jennie said, her dark eyes meeting Joy’s in the rear view mirror.

Joy stepped out of the back of the vehicle. Rosé was busying herself fixing something in the front and Jennie was stretching next to the the driver’s side. They were crookedly parked next to a second, larger humvee. Before them was what Joy assumed to be a desert oasis. There was a large lake of murky water surrounded by five crudely built huts. One of the huts was much larger than the others, and was located on the other side of the lake. The entire area was lit by multiple standing torches. Those must have been the cluster of lights they'd seen from afar.

“Where’s Wendy?” Joy asked, running up to Jennie, who was casually lighting a cigarette and leaning against the humvee. The cigarette looked very out of place in her scowling mouth; the leather-jacket wearing girl seemed a little too young to be smoking.

“Should be in that tent over there.” Jennie said, pointing to the closest tent, “Make sure she’s grateful for us carrying her back here, we had to abandon an entire scorpion carcass for her useless .”

Joy’s temper flared and she stepped forward.

“What did you just say?” she asked, her voice dangerously low.

“You heard me.”

Although the other girl was both younger and shorter than her, Joy couldn’t help but feel that she was dangerous. It didn’t matter either way to her, though. She couldn’t just let this kid sit there and insult her friend. Her friend who had just saved her life.

“God, why do you have to be such a ?” Joy growled.

Joy couldn’t begin to comprehend what happened next. All she knew was that one second she was standing inches from the shorter girl’s face, and the next she was pinned on the ground on her stomach, her arm pulled painfully behind her back.

“Oh, so you two come along and interrupt our hunt, make us use our precious resources, and you have the audacity to call me a ?” Jennie hissed into her ear, pulling her arm farther back, “You know she charged right at that scorpion with a shotgun just to save you s? The thing almost cut her in half. But of course you wouldn’t care about that. If my - if Rosie had gotten hurt back there because of you, I would have slit both of your throats right then and there.”

“Jennie! What are you doing!? Get off of her!”

Joy turned and saw Rosé running towards them, her too-long sleeves flapping in the wind as she sprinted over. To Joy’s surprise, Jennie immediately relinquished her hold and walked away. Joy stood shakily, holding her now sore shoulder.

“What happened?” Rosé asked, grabbing Joy and beginning to dust the sand off of her clothes.

“Joy was just too pretty. Couldn’t help myself.” Jennie said, recovering her still burning cigarette from the sand, “I’m going to get that scorpion.”

With that, Jennie hopped into the driver’s seat of the humvee and sped off in the same direction they’d come from. Rosé’s concern-filled eyes followed as the truck disappeared into the distance.

“Wh-”

“It was nothing. I got a mad over something she said and we got into a disagreement. It was my fault.” Joy was unable to meet Rosé’s eyes.

“Don’t take anything Jennie says to heart, okay? She’s just naturally hostile towards new people. Come on, let’s go see Wendy.”

Rosé took Joy by her shoulders and began leading her to the tent that Jennie had pointed out earlier.

“I never got your name by the way. I know it’s kind of an awkward time to ask, but you know...”

“I’m Joy.” the taller girl said shortly.

Rosé seemed to get the hint. The two continued their walk to the tent in silence.

------------------------------------

Aaaaaaand that's Chapter 3. Hope you like the new characters I introduced (: I know it seems like narrative-wise, the story is all over the place right now, but it'll come together soon, I promise. Idk how I feel about this chapter. It's quite a bit shorter than 2, and I plan on making up for that with Chapters 4 and 5 (there's a lot that still needs to happen). I feel like my writing here wasn't as great. The whole "Kids With Guns" theme isn't really well-done here in my opinion, but this is the best way I could fit it in without it seeming too forced. As always, your feedback is appreciated! I have 3 exams and a presentation to do next week, so I won't be able to publish Chapter 4 for awhile. Or maybe I'll do what I did for this one and just sleep 3 hours a night again. Anyway... thanks for reading!