Gift of Gobi
Macau Anglican College, Nuno Myung Carvalho, Fiction: Group 3
A
lbert Dune sat on the sand of the Gobi Desert, straining his eyes, trying to find if the
telltale red cylindrical shape indicating the Mongolian Death Worm was nearby. It had
been almost a year after his embark into adventure. Albert remembered that day after
he and his parents moved to Dalanzadgad, Mongolia.
That day, Albert awoke to find everything in the living room in a mess. Sand covered the
floor and furniture, everything was misplaced and a strange word was carved on a piece of wood.
For some reason, what was written chilled him to the bone, even though he didn’t understand it.
The words engraved were, “olgoi-khorkhoi”. He called out for his parents, but no answer came.
They were gone. Albert then ran crazily into the desert screaming for help and looking for his
parents. Soon, he believed they were killed. He felt a searing hot pain and everything went black.
Albert awoke to find a little old man glaring at him and said, “You appear to be a target of
some kind, something powerful.”
“Wait. Actually, I saw an engraving on a piece of wood of the words ‘olgoi-khorkhoi...
Something. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.”Albert said.
“Olgoi-khorkhoi. It translates to large red intestine. You can call this creature the Mongolian
death worm,” explained the old man. He was Wang, the Chinese man who helped Albert get back
on his feet to avenge his parents. Wang gave him a staff and a cloak, and they embarked on a
journey to find the death worm together.
It had been a nightmare going through the desert. Sandstorms constantly plagued them and
the temperature changed quickly and without warning. They lived on the little food rations they
kept in a backpack that they dragged for miles. They managed to get some rest by riding the local
Bactrian camels. Very small amounts of rain blessed the place because it was a rain shadowed
desert with the Himalaya range blocking rain clouds from entering.
Suddenly, Albert saw it. A red, serpent-like shape passed by him. Only a few meters away, no
less. He ran towards it, hoping to catch it before it disappeared. In the blink of an eye, the shape
smashed into the ground. A sandstorm burst out and Albert could see a gaping hole where the
shape had been. Disappointed, he let himself fall and lay on the sand. As soon as his ear touched
the ground, he heard a sound like digging. He looked into the hole and found the Mongolian death
worm shooting upward, straight towards his face.
“Graaaaaaaaaaah!” Albert yelled as he rolled to the right. The worm flew into the air, showing
its full, 5 feet long disgusting red body. As the worm started falling, electricity surrounded it
and it started spitting acid. Albert gripped his staff and jumped to meet it in mid-air. As soon as
he went through the electric field, he started to feel a hot burning sensation, as if he just jumped
into an oven cooking turkey for Thanksgiving. When the first drop of acid touched his cloak, he
nearly fainted from the pain. A yellow coloring spread on his cloak and the cloak slowly burned
away. Knowing he couldn’t risk getting closer, he threw the staff at the worm and tried to pull
back. As soon as the staff hit the worm, it let out an unearthly, demonic scream and exploded in a
burst of red.
The staff fell into Albert’s hand and he smiled. Walking toward the place where the worm had
died, he smiled, relieved to be finished.
