Chapter 26: Jones's Last Words

The bars of the sand-crystal cage radiated a ghostly blue light, resembling a row of frozen vipers.

Alicia moved along the shadows, the crunch of sand grains beneath her boots sounding unnervingly sharp in the deathly silence of the detention block. She clutched the stolen pass, its metal edge digging painfully into her palm—to see Jones, she had feigned a stomach ache to distract the guards, leaving her with only ten minutes.

"Hhh... hhh..."

A bestial wheezing emanated from the cage. Jones was curled in the corner; the canvas cloak he wore had long since been shredded into rags, and his exposed skin was covered in crystalline protrusions that looked like the back of a toad. His head was buried between his knees, his shoulders heaving violently. With every tremor, the cage bars pulsed with a ring of blue light, as if responding to the energy within him.

"Jones?" Alicia’s voice was a low, tentative whisper. She did not know why she had come—perhaps it was the "totem replacement" Williams mentioned that unsettled her, or perhaps the way Jones had shrieked about "19th-century raiders" during his delirium, which reminded her of a passage in her father’s journal.

Jones snapped his head up. His pupils were clouded, with only the occasional flicker of ghostly blue proving he still possessed consciousness. Seeing Alicia, he suddenly let out a jarring, shrill laugh. "Little girl... come to gawk at my misery?" He struggled to sit up, his limbs chained to the bars. With every movement, the chains emitted a mournful clatter. "Tell that useless uncle of yours that I am the King of the Desert! Once I get out—"

His words cut off abruptly. A strange, rattling "gurgle" emerged from his throat, as if he were choking on something. Then, his body began to convulse violently. The sand-crystal growths beneath his skin twitched frantically, as if countless insects were burrowing beneath the surface.

"Ugh... it hurts..." Jones’s voice shifted; it was no longer a haughty roar, but a whimper of agony. "Water... give me water..."

Alicia froze. This was the first time she had seen Jones show such vulnerability, like a child blinded by sand. She hesitated, pulled a waterskin from her pocket, and pushed it through the gap in the bars. "Are... are you alright?"

Jones snatched the waterskin and gulped down more than half of it. The water ran down his chin and neck, soaking the crystalline clusters. Bizarrely, where the water touched them, the sand crystals faded, revealing pale skin beneath.

His gaze suddenly cleared. Although still bloodshot, it held a trace of the sanity that belonged to the "Jones" she knew. He stared fixedly at Alicia and lunged toward the bars. The chains bit into his wrists, but he seemed not to notice as he grabbed her hand. His palm was searingly hot.

"Listen!" Jones’s voice was extremely low, laced with an unprecedented urgency. "Tell the tribe that the Sand Scorpion is lying to us! That thing is no divine oracle—it’s a man-eating trap!"

Alicia’s heart plummeted. The Sand Scorpion totem was the bedrock of the S Tribe’s faith; to question it was to question the very existence of the tribe. She tried to pull her hand back, but Jones gripped it tighter.

"I’m not crazy!" Jones’s eyes turned red—not the ghostly blue of the crystals, but the vibrant, desperate red of human emotion. "When I sleep, I can see... I see so many things. I dream that I’ve turned into sand, being pulled by countless hands, and those hands... those hands are all wearing the totem rings of the X Tribe!"

He began to tremble, his voice filled with terror. "They’re shouting 'come back together,' the sound like crashing waves... The people of the X Tribe, the people of the S Tribe, and those dressed in ancient garb... We are all in the sand, unable to tell who is who, all being slowly digested..."

A flash of the mummified corpse in the blue-lit sarcophagus darted through Alicia’s mind, followed by the memory of the bone core embedded in her mother’s chest. Would those affected by the energy of the bone core eventually become part of the sand?

"Does Williams know?" her voice trembled.

"He knows nothing!" Jones spat out an expletive, then lowered his voice again. "He thinks he’s controlling the bone core, but he’s the one being controlled! Look at me..." He raised his arm, and the sand-crystal growths began to glow again. "I am half Jones, half that 19th-century madman. If this continues, I will become nothing but mindless sand, just like..."

He stopped suddenly, his eyes glazing over for a moment, as if recalling a horrific scene.

Alicia seized the opportunity to press him. "Like what? Did you remember something?"

Jones’s focus returned, but this time it was filled with pleading. "Do me a favor... Find Old Knife. Tell him 'the seventh bone of the Sand-Bone Serpent hides the key.' He will understand. And..." his voice grew faint, "don't trust anything the bone core manifests. Wealth, power, revenge... they are all bait. Bait to hook our souls..."

"Speak clearly! What key? What do you mean by bait?" Alicia asked, frantic.

Jones opened his mouth, as if to say more, but his pupils suddenly contracted.

That ghostly blue flooded his eyes once more, deeper than any time before, like two pools of congealed venom. The pleading on his face vanished, replaced by a cold, inhuman fanaticism.

"Found you... host..."

Jones suddenly exerted force. His other hand, which had somehow slipped free from its chains, clamped onto Alicia’s throat like an iron vice!

The pressure was astonishing. Alicia felt as if her windpipe were about to shatter; the sensation of suffocation surged over her like a tide. Her toes left the floor, and she clawed wildly at Jones’s arm, but the jagged sand-crystal growths cut into her skin.

"The host must be sacrificed..." Jones’s lips did not move, but the voice seemed to crawl out from the sand itself, cold and mechanical. "The bone core requires pure blood... the bloodline of the Sand-Keepers..."

Alicia’s vision began to darken. Deep within Jones’s pupils, amidst the ghostly blue light, she could faintly see countless twisted faces emerging. One of them, unmistakably, was her mother, smiling down at her.

"No..." she shook her head with her final ounce of strength, her fingernails digging deep into Jones’s skin, only to dislodge a few blue-glowing grains of sand.

Those grains fell to the ground, instantly coalescing into a miniature scorpion, its stinger aimed directly at her heart.

Footsteps echoed outside the detention block, drawing closer. Alicia’s consciousness faded. The last thing she saw was the eerie smile on Jones’s face and the ever-expanding blue in his eyes—within that depths, something seemed to be awakening, greedily appraising her, the "perfect sacrifice."

Was she to die here?

In this cage constructed of sand crystals and lies, was she to become the second "host" chosen by the bone core after her mother?

A second before darkness swallowed her consciousness, Alicia felt as if she heard the sound of a bone flute—faint, intermittent, like a melody from a distant oasis.