<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0080FF">Jake Patel</span></div><br/><br/>Jake coughed up grains of wet sand while scrabbling away blindly from what must have been some sort of explosion. The ground had erupted from under them, throwing him into the air along with a cloud of dirt. He managed to get back to his feet and reorient himself just in time to see the back end of a large creature burrow itself into the ground and disappear in a funnel of sand.<br/><br/>“What the hell…?” he only just managed to breathe those words when the sand around his shoes began to ripple and shift. Out of pure instinct, Jake leapt to the side: an action that narrowly saved his life as the humongous worm-like creature burst from where he had been standing, clamping its mouth together atop the space he once occupied. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he may have recalled the short man saying something about a ‘Sand Worm’ earlier, but such a thought quickly gave way to his current state of panic.<br/><br/>“Whoa!” Jake took a few leaping steps backwards, distancing himself from the monstrous creature. Alerted by his movements, the worm turned its ‘head’ towards him, snapping its beak together menacingly. “Crap…” Judging by how big the thing was, there was no way he could fight it, and he was pretty sure he couldn’t outrun it either. If it went after him, he was screwed…<br/><br/>But instead of charging him like Jake had anticipated, the worm made a sharp 90 degree turn, and slithered its way towards one of the others instead.<br/><br/>“Look out!” he managed to call.