The Desert

A Story by Mark

Story about an evil Desert

No one who ever went in has ever come out. The Desert is a breathing creature, hungry for lost souls. It is said that any man who ventures into the deepest dunes will be ripped apart by its raging sandstorms, but that is only if they are lucky, for there are tales of terrible things in the Desert, monstrosities like those of Myths and of Hell, restless in their prison of sand.

The village of Dam rests to the West, on the outskirts of the Desert. The people there know of the evil in the Desert. Warnings fall on the deaf ears of Wanderers and Cartographers passing through the village hoping to cross the Desert and their blood curdling screams from the sands torments the cursed village and then, as if the Desert itself is boasting it will blow great gusts of wind into the village streets, carrying the blood and body parts of its victims with them.

“I am going to cross the Desert”, proclaimed a man of the village.

“Clay’s finally gone mad!” laughed a man from across the bar, spraying a mouthful of ale on the table. “I think you better slow down on the beer lad or you’re apt to get yourself killed!”

“Shut up old fool, my mind is clear and I am crossing the sands, any who wish to join me, speak now or stay here and rot.”

Clay, known as the village “stranger” did not receive any words of companionship just as he had expected. Some of the people in the village were afraid of him and some of the people made laughing stock of what they took for stupidity, like most of the men in this bar were doing now as he sought their help. He would cross the Desert, and he would do it alone with contempt at his back and Death at his front.

Without rations or supplies of any sort, Clay plunged himself into the great plain of sand. For hours he walked onward toward the seemingly endless horizon. The air was calm and the great red sun was slowly lowering itself in front of him. Not once before dusk was there a sign or sound of any creature that may want to eat him. Knowing it would be impossible to travel at night; Clay set up camp and fire and swam in his own thoughts until he fell asleep, or so he thought...

When Clay opened his eyes, he might as well have kept them closed; the darkness he could see was all consuming. Panicked, he attempted to sit upright only to have his head crash against a hard surface. He felt around himself and could feel that he was inside of a long splinter infested wooden box. The top was immovable as if there was something massive on top of it. Fear took full control of him now and he began to scream at the top of his lungs. He frantically ran his hands all over the inside looking for something, anything to grasp. He wiggled his fingers into a small crack in the top and pulled a large piece of wood off of it and at that, Clay’s box began to fill with sand. For a few seconds he could do nothing but lay in silent shock at what was happening, he had been buried alive.

His instinct to survive kicked in and he began to rip more pieces of the coffin lid off, allowing more and more sand to flood in on him. He was barely able to take in one last breath before the sand covered his head completely. There was only one word going through his mind now, dig, dig like you’ve never dug before. Reaching up, Clay slowly pulled himself up, holding his breath as he did. In the crushing blackness he couldn’t tell exactly how fast he was digging or if he was even digging in the right direction but he did know that he could only hold his breath for 2 minutes, 3 if he was lucky. Just when he could start seeing stars and feel his lungs about to burst, Clay’s hand plunged up into clear sand-less air. He pulled himself up and out and collapsed on his back on the cool desert sand and passed out, getting a glimpse of the pale blue moon directly above him as his eyes closed.

It was the stinging in Clay’s eyes from the sun that woke him up again. He had completely forgotten he was in the Desert until he sat up and looked out at the dreadful dunes ahead of him, and the pit beside him that almost became his grave. He found himself wondering if there were any more people buried under the sand, perhaps still screaming for help that will never come. The thought sent a chill down Clay’s spine and he stood up so that he could get moving again. Just being in this place makes everything feel wrong, the air has an undesirable taste like rotting meat and the clouds above seem to form menacing faces that stare down on you with a blood thirsty glare.

In the direction Clay travelled there were the dunes, great unnatural dunes that seem to reach for the sky like towers of sand and beyond these, there were sandstorms. He could see them whipping sand up off the ground and swirling it around into deadly tornados.

When Clay reached the dunes at around mid-day, he had a split second thought about changing his mind and turning back. After the event in the night he thought that if he couldn’t cross to the other side on this day, then he might not be so lucky on this eve. He dismissed the thought. He was sure he could make it, in fact he knew he could make it, it was this element of sureness that caused the decision to cross in the first place. Clay started his ascension of the dunes.

The climb was tiring and tried Clay’s muscles and willpower. When he got to the top of the first dune, he guessed he was about 60 feet higher than where he started from. The view from here was really a sight to behold, ahead there were miles and miles of these mountainous hills seemingly with no end and behind there was the long flat land he had crossed and the tiny village of Dam in the far distance. The sight of no end ahead was disheartening but he knew he must finish what he started.

Swiftly, Clay descended the hill of sand. It was a somewhat easy task as the sand slid under his feet and carried him downward. Clay hit the bottom without injury and was quite pleased with himself but he was already subconsciously dreading the next climb. After a few steps toward the next Dune the wind picked up dramatically. It came from nowhere and everywhere, pushing Clay around like a small animal in a storm. The sand beneath his feet began to fly up around him, biting his eyes and scratching at his skin. It grew fiercer with every second that went by and it was almost impossible for Clay to keep his eyes open. He began to run and as he did, the sand began to blow around him ever faster and he could feel it ripping small cuts in his flesh. This is it, he thought, this is where I’m ripped apart like they said I would be.

But he wasn’t ripped apart. He made it to the next dune and scurried up its wall as fast as he could. The sand was still scratching him but it seemed to be thinning as he got higher. When he got high enough to be safe from the sandstorm he turned around to see a horrifying thing. The storm looked as if it was reaching for him; it billowed into the side of the dune and then rose out again with a sort of furious rage that only a living thing could display. The sand swelled together into a ball and crashed into Clay’s castle of sand. Stunned by what he was seeing, Clay did not even realise he was sinking into the sand. When he did realise, it was far too late, the sand held him and pulled him deeper. It felt to him like there were hands around his legs, pulling eagerly. Clay’s head was sucked under and it was as if he was never there at all.

The inside of the dune was not how Clay had expected. There was light of the brightest variant, so bright he was blinded instantly, the retinas burned painfully from Clay’s eyes, Clay screaming as they did. Even blinded, the light of the Dune could still be seen or perhaps felt. Clay took in a deep breath and instead of breathing in sand he breathed in that white light, it filled his entire body and then he could see again, but it wasn’t sand he saw, or the Desert, it was images in his head. He saw his village, torn apart and desolate, he saw the meaning of life, and the meaning of death, all cast before him like some grand unveiling. All at once everything made sense in the most horrible way imaginable. He felt small, insignificant and alone and he heard himself screaming, screaming his throat raw.

The light began to pulse. It pulsed at first with Clay’s heartbeat and then took on a rhythm of its own, getting faster and faster rapidly. Horrifying images of death flashed in Clay’s mind as he screamed and begged the light to stop and this only seemed to cause it to torture him more severely like a maniac fueled by pain. Clay curled into a ball and started crying, sobbing as heavily as a man who has lost his whole family, and then he was out.

Out of the Dune, out of the light, and out of his mind Clay wandered blind on the Desert for days after. He eventually crossed the Desert and came to a river running from left to right in front of his unseeing eyes. Driven mad by the Desert, Clay dropped to his knees, picked up the largest stone he could lay his hands on, and brought it against his temple, using it to end his own life.