EARTH, ATACAMA DESERT, 2020.

Most people when they think about a desert, the first thing that comes to mind is the Sahara desert, but in reality, the Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, in other words, the most lethal.

A dry land, devoid of life, and red sands that spanned for an entire continent. That is the Atacama desert.

The most lethal desert on Earth.

In this inhuman place, a man could be seen crossing the red sands on a motorcycle and behind him, dozens of police cars pursued him. If someone looked even further, they would be able to see a helicopter far in the sight.

“Sargeant, are you sure this is the man? If so, why is he so dumb to run into the desert? It’s not like he can escape. It’s a desert!”

“Of course it’s him.. We get the red alert from Interpol itself. But it’s indeed strange for him to come here. It’s much easier if he just stayed low in a small city.”

For the cops in Chile, this was the first time pursuing someone in the desert. After all, who would be crazy to escape to the desert where there is no place to hide.

On Earth, only this man would do something like that.

The man in question, running on his motorcycle, looked at his gas tank to check the fuel level.

‘Already in the red’ thought the man.

He looked behind him and saw the number of cars in the pursuit was already a few less than before, it’s not like they expected to pursue this man for miles and miles through the desert, and some of the police cars already ran out of fuel.

While still driving, the man took a bottle out of his backpack, opened the gas tank from the motorcycle, and turned the content in the gas tank, and just like that, he refueled while still driving. A thing that cars could never do.

The most important thing in a pursuit like that is the size of the fuel tank. If you can’t change that, you need to be able to refuel.

And just like the man expected, less than 30 minutes later, he could not see a car in the sight anymore.

Seeing no car behind him, he stopped the motorcycle, put some earphones, and touched the play in an old K7 player.

Then he took out a rifle from his backpack and attached a scope to it, and using the motorcycle as the support he fired.

BANG

BANG

BANG

Far in the sight he could see a helicopter smoking from the engine and spin in the sky.

The man turned his back and lit up a cigarette.

BOOOOM

The helicopter exploded when hitting the ground

The sound wave produced by the explosion was so loud that the long hairs of the man almost covered his face, moving like he was in the water.

“Ok, this must buy me some time before they show up again. Let’s see what father buried here.”

Said the man aloud while looking at a monumental sculpture of a hand that raised itself from the red sands of the Atacama desert, as if the hand wanted to rebel against the odds of such a cruel place.

Dragging smoke from his cigarette, the man took a shovel from the motorcycle bag and started digging right there as if he was in his own garden.

“And here I’m digging dirt in the Atacama desert. If you were alive, I swear by the gods I would punch you in the face old man.”

Said the man, digging while sweating a river in his black jacket.

After a few minutes of digging …

TUC

“It’s indeed here.” says the man, while removing the sand with his bare hands.

After removing some of the sand in the hole, the man could now feel something made from metal.

He pulled the thing out of the hole, and as expected, it was a metal box.

“No lock?”.

Said the man, with a puzzled expression, but already opening the box, and to his surprise, he found a book.

A book with a cover made from some kind of wood, and the cover, albeit damaged from time, depicted a snake eating his own tail.

“A book? With an Ouroboros?” said the man.

Even being infuriated about his father’s poor taste for gifts, his curiosity still gained over his rage and he opened the book to see what was so important about this book.

Turning the first page, he saw a note, and recognizing his father’s calligraphy, he almost burst into tears.

Almost.

Trying to keep his emotions in check, the man took a deep sigh, and proceeded to read the letter aloud, he was sure that if he didn’t read it aloud, he would probably hear his old man’s voice in his head while reading and would start crying like a child.

“Dear Mack, If you are reading this, it’s because I’m too old or I’m already dead. I don’t hope for the last one, but I’m a realistic person.”

“As an egoist father such as me, I ask you my last wish now. Please read and memorize the entire book and after that hide it again somewhere until you have children to pass on this book. Remember, this book is our family legacy.”

“Love you son”

With the memory of his father returning vividly in his mind like he was in front of him telling him bad jokes, Mack felt heartbroken again, but alas, time was short.

Mack looked at the book one more time and put it in his backpack. When doing so, he looked at the horizon on his back and could see dust rising.

More police cars were coming.

“They finally used their brains, well it was time for me to leave this cursed place”.

Said Mack, with a devilish smile turning his head in the other direction.

His ride had arrived, but was something that no one would ever suspect.

In front of Mack now raised a fog, the Atacama fog.

The Atacama desert was not the biggest desert in the world but had the biggest Fog Desert in the world. A dense fog that could cover the entire England, if compared in size, was coming from the sea and covering the red sands.

If someone were standing at the top of the monumental hand sculpture in the desert of Atacama right now, this person would for sure see one of the craziest scenes in life.

With the night coming, at west a dense fog came advancing from the direction of the sea and from east a small sandstorm made by the police cars, and right at the middle, a man in a motorcycle hearing some rock-and-roll music with a K7 player.

And this man… was smiling.