"How is that possible!"
Luna stared in disbelief at the headless corpse beside her.
When the others turned their eyes toward the headless corpse, their faces first showed shock and doubt, then pain, one after another. Several even clutched their heads and crouched on the ground in agony.
Clearly, some power was preventing them from thinking and understanding along those lines.
In fact, this "lie" was not clever. It relied purely on external force to distort things; otherwise, they should long since have realized who the missing person was.
Pain appeared on Luna's face as well, but as Kallen had observed earlier, her tolerance was considerably greater than the others', or rather, she seemed to have received some special treatment.
The simplest conjecture was that she was Torisa's wife, and Torisa treated his wife better than the other squad members. That was easy enough to understand;
Taking a more conspiratorial view, could Luna have known all along? Had she actually been cooperating with her husband, deceiving these squad members?
But what troubled Kallen now was Torisa's purpose in doing this.
Why had he disappeared, and why had he created the illusion of his own "presence" while disappearing?
Many of the conjectures made when they first entered the hole now had to be overturned;
There was no third party, no such thing as an "Evil Spirit of Sand," or perhaps there was, but the "Evil Spirit of Sand" was not the real reason this squad had ultimately perished. It might have appeared, but it should already have been dealt with.
"He isn't my husband? I always thought he was. I talked to him and poured my heart out..."
Luna murmured to herself, then unconsciously pressed a hand to her forehead.
Kallen watched her calmly. Was she acting?
*But at this point,