《I Was Transported To A Desert Wasteland》


 Chapter 1: I Woke Up In A Desert

    "Hi! My name is Todd Tulcod and I''m coming live to you from the otherworldly desert!" I screamed the last few words loudly. My increasing volume reflected my ever mounting annoyance, frustration and anger at the situation.


    My hand had dropped from miming a mic near my face to righteous fists, pointed upward and clenched tighter than the one pickle jar you could never get opened, ready to deck whatever god thought this was a funny joke. My face had devolved from the standard good guy - reliable news anchor smiling face to the angry face a mother puts on when she finds her child scribbling on the "once in a lifetime, lucky garage sale find" type, mostly white painting, with a few dots haphazardly dropped and scattered against the white canvas... I don''t sound bitter do I? Well if I do, I am definitely not bitter about the painting. If I am bitter, it''s because I opened my eyes in a scorching hot desert! With nothing but lava like sand for as far as the eye can see!


    To the North? Sand. To The South? Sand. To the East? Sand. To the West? Sand, in the shape of a cactus in the distance. It''s sand everywhere.... Wait, why is the sand in the shape of a cactus? I formed binoculars with my hand and looked to the West. ( I don''t know if it''s actually West). Through my hand-binoculars I could definitely confirm that there was some shape that from this distance looked like a light brown cactus.


    "It looks really far away though." I muttered to myself, trying to do mental math to figure out how big something would have to be for me to see it at this distance and assume it was plant life.


    I looked around where I was standing. I had only been awake for a few moments, before I filmed my episode of the Morning Todd show. Thinking back, I''d jumped into my live broadcast very quickly. I didn''t really take a proper look at my surroundings. The optimal move when I got up would have been to look around and start finding my way out of this mess, but instead I decided to chew the scenery. That caliber of performance probably wouldn''t land me my own survival show.


    With my left hand on my chin, I pondered my situation as I walked towards what I thought was a cactus. I started to think back on my circumstances; I got a job half way across the world, I said goodbye to friends and family and everything I knew, I got on a plane, I watched a few superhero movies that were on the inflight selection, I saw that the plane was traveling over a desert region on the inflight flight tracker, we hit sudden turbulence, the plane was engulfed in an aurora, we started going down, oxygen masks dropped out of the compartments then- nothing.


    I stopped in my tracks and once more I looked around where I was standing. A 360 degrees spin, with an extra 720 degree rotation for good measure. I looked up to the sky. Yup. The sky was not a normal color. In fact it kind of looked like a kaleidoscope made up of various tints of blue. I''m pretty sure I spotted a color I''ve never seen before for a split second, but that one may have been the heat getting to me. I look ahead of me once again and stand in silence.


    "I''m dead."


    I fell to the ground like the words falling out of my mouth.


    "I''M DEAD!!!" I yelled the proclamation of my current lack of life so loudly I''m surprised I didn''t startle myself back to life.


    Rivers of tears and snot poured from the appropriate orifices, accompanied by my cries and panting gasps for hot air; it was not the prettiest sight I think. I was on the ground on all fours, watching my tears soak the sand beneath for a second or two at most before disappearing.


    "Much like my fleeting life."


    I said that while trying to compare my disappearing tears to my life but I don''t think the comparison was apt after thinking about it for a tad longer. I stood up on my knees, I was now kneeling on scorching hot sand looking at the kaleidoscope sky.


    "I don''t want to be dead, but it makes so much sense that I am," I started talking to my grief stricken self, "The plane was going down then all of a sudden I wake up? No wreckage in sight, under a weird sky?" I looked back at the spot I started trekking from a few seconds ago and continued, " Filming an episode of my imaginary show? Why would I even do that, there''s no one watching." At the moment I stopped my current grief train in its tracks. "No one''s watching me right?" I looked around as I questioned my surroundings then looked up at the weird sky.


    "If this is the afterlife there must be some kind of thing that facilitates it." That bit I said in a low voice. "This isn''t funny, whatever God rules this hell hole!" That bit I said loudly towards the sky and continued, "What kind of absolute sadistic jerk monster torturer kills a guy by driving his plane into a desert and then plops him into a deserted afterlife? Did I really screw life that hard that I have to spend the rest of my after years in the place that I died by hitting it at thousands of miles per hour?!" I was really screaming at the sky now, so much so I was panting trying to catch my breath. But the breath was hot and it forced a few more tears out as it scorched my lungs.


    " This is pretty brutal, guy. Making me feel pain as if I was alive." I shouted again as I wiped the sweat off my brow. It was really hot and this was a miserable revelation that was now inviting a headache.


    "Okay, gonna keep yelling, I just need to find shade. Gonna do that very quickly!" True to my word, I scampered off in the direction of the weird cactus like structure in more of a hurry than before, all the while, coming up with new insults that I could lob at the powers that be. A few dozen minutes later I reached the strange structure. As it turns out, sand cactus was a really good descriptor, it was quite literally sand bricks arranged in the shape of a cactus. Well, mostly. I''d say it was caked sand? It was like if someone tried to build an ice castle but instead they arranged blocks into a seven feet tall, roughly two feet radius at the base cactus.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "Well I''m not gonna pick a fight with a cactus."I said as started trying to dig into the base.


    My idea was, I was going to hollow it out and sit inside to hide from the sun, which now that I thought about, I could not see in the sky. I looked up once again just to make sure I hadn''t missed it behind some shifting blue.


    "Nope, no sun up there. You run a real strange afterlife up there, Lord of the Afterlife! Hope you know that." I continued trying to claw my way into the cactus after leaving my review. I was impressed that it could be so bright without a sun, but I wasn''t going to let the boss know that. A few moments later I broke through. It seems that the cactus was already hollow on the inside! This small victory motivated me and I quickly continued tearing down the wall that kept me from glorious shade. As it turned out, the wall was maybe only a foot thick. The sand was held together firmly enough that the whole structure didn''t collapse but it was still only sand clumps. Enough effort and anyone could dig through.


    Once I made a big enough hole, I scampered inside and let out a huge sigh. I noted that I had to be careful however. I didn''t want to rest my back on a wall only for it to give out under my weight. It was sand after all. So I did what anyone else would and lied in the fetal position. I was so quick to comfort myself and make myself feel safe that I forgot the purpose of why I came looking for shade. While still in fetal position, I squirmed to try to orient myself to get my head closest to the entrance; I was essentially trying to rotate my body so that my head would land where my feet currently were. It was not the most dignified maneuver, some could even call it lazy, but why should I care. I''m dead. Dignity isn''t something that concerns me anymore and laziness is just another word for efficient.


    I had now reached my desired spot and had a clear view of the sky which I was quickly growing fond of - there was just always some spectacle going on up there. I''m not sure if it was the sky, the victorious feeling from getting shade or because of my own self loathing of how quickly I threw away my dignity, but I felt like my tone was about to change.


    "So, big guy," I scratched my chin as I pondered my current status, secured safely in fetal position, "I think I learned my lesson. I mean, I don''t really know what it was. And I''m just saying that in the spirit of honesty, but I''d be pretty happy if we can just move past this. Maybe you can reincarnate me into my next life or something or you know, at the very least you could change the scenery. Maybe go to one of the more popular heavens?"


    I stared at the sky for a bit, looking for some change; which was hard in all honesty. It''s hard to pick out the meaningful change when the colors are swirling together all the time.


    " ..... I promise I''ll be good. I won''t yell at you. I''m sorry for before. It''s just you know, I died and then woke up on the wrong side of the sand. Can you really blame me?"


    Again I waited. And nothing came.


    "Okay you know what, you can really blame me, my fault. I''m the idiot that did a live broadcast before trying to find shelter, but I really think that''s because my brain was cooked a bit in the heat. Not an excuse, I know, but I feel we should be fair here and just understand why things are occurring the way they are."


    And again I waited and nothing came. Not even a breeze. Finally I asked the question that I held back out of fear of confirmation.


    "God, are you there?"


    Again I waited, and nothing came. That question broke the dam again and tears started rolling out, dampening the shadowed sand.


    "Of course he''s not there. It''s just me. Me and my lonesome." I could really feel my heart now or rather the pit that was widening in it.


    "My life was supposed to be good now, it was supposed to stabilize a bit. I finally got a start on my career, it was gonna pay well, I had to leave everyone I knew but I was gonna come back in a few years with all the money and was going to be a family hero," my crying didn''t distort my words too much but it did make it a bit harder to breathe, "That''s not why I''m going through this now right? I thought I was making the right choices. Did I really screw up? Did I choose wrong?"


    I asked the sky again and again nothing came, but in that ever changing yet never changing sky I found solace. It didn''t care about me, it just continued. Doing whatever you could call whatever it was doing. I found some comfort in that. I sniffed up my tears and snot and resolved myself.


    "Yeah, I''m dead. So what? Nothing I can do about it now. What I can do though is try to make my time in this hell easier. And you know what, at least now I know the afterlife is real. That''s worth something maybe." I said, with a smug smile on face while clutching my legs as is customary in the fetal position.


    "Well I''m tired, all that dying and walking really wiped me out. Might as well go to sleep for awhile. It''s not like I have anything else to do. Maybe there''s even a nighttime in the afterlife."I looked back outside to the sky and nodded.


    "Good night sky! See you in a bit." And with that final utterance I very quickly drifted to sleep.

 Chapter 2: First Night In A Desert

    I had a strange dream after I fell asleep in my lovely sand-brick-cactus. In the dream, I could see myself. It was like I was looking down on myself; as if my current self was floating above my dream self. I saw myself in a weird looking place; a place weirder than even the afterlife. I was in a field of golden, shimmering grass, facing and talking to another person, a kind of intense looking guy. It was hard to hear what I was saying to this person from my lofty perch, but it did look like I was getting agitated. My mother always said that whenever I got agitated, I''d stretch out my arms to try and look bigger. I always thought she was poking fun at me but wow, yeah, it seems I actually did do that.


    "What kind of wild animal was I trying to scare away?" Is what I thought when I saw myself that first time. The other person didn''t seem phased by me though. A very formidable wild animal, I''d say. I was able to get a good view of what the people were wearing. I was wearing the same outfit I was wearing in the afterlife, that is, my white button-up shirt and my comfy khaki pants. The other guy was a blonde wearing all black, his shirt wasn''t totally buttoned up so I could see a bit of the guy''s bare chest, even from as far away as I was. This guy was definitely one of those really confidant types that''d inspire a person to want to be more confident themselves. Thinking back on him now, I recall that I felt he was a kind of sinister seeming guy as I looked on him from above. I wonder what we were talking about. The scene seemed really nostalgic; it felt like it happened yesterday.... Actually, it felt like it happened right before I woke up in the afterlife. Was it my final dream? Maybe I didn''t die instantly, maybe I was slowly dying for a bit, and my brain was in overdrive trying to give me some kind of nice scene.


    I lay there in the same position I fell asleep in, totally distracted by my fleeting recollections. Thinking about the dream felt so alluring; it felt like there was something worth remembering in it. The dream felt so magical. In a way, I wanted to fall asleep again just to see if I''d get to watch the dream play out again. It was a strange feeling; it was a short exchange but I found myself hoping that maybe I could see it again and maybe I could get the chance to hear it. Maybe I could inch closer and closer with every successive attempt? In my mind, it felt possible.


    "You made a weird world, Lord." I said with a sigh.


    It was the first thing I spoke out loud since I woke up, and after pondering a bit I continued, "It''s messed up to have a dead man wishing he could go to sleep so he can revisit a dream."


    I aired out what I was feeling and looked towards the sky, at which point I finally noticed that the strange sky was almost obscured by a sandstorm. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn''t notice there was a rather extreme weather phenomena occurring outside, not to mention that it seemed like it was darker outside.


    The sand thankfully wasn''t pouring into my makeshift shelter, don''t ask me how that works, but I was still in awe at how I didn''t notice the howling wind that accompanied the storm. Said wind may even have been what woke me up from my strange dream in the first place.


    "I don''t like you!" I lobbied my complaint at the ongoing storm from the safety of my sand repellent cactus before realizing that I had to make a correction, "Oh not you Lord! I''m talking to the sandstorm." I yelled and paused for a bit, wondering how much information a god would need. "It ruined my dream!" I decided to play it safe and not assume that the Lord of the afterlife knew what I was thinking.


    "This is a pretty miserable existence," I said out loud again as I reflected on my current situation. "I''m in a scorching desert, but I find shade, and I get to sleep, and have a weird dream that I really enjoy for reasons I can''t fully fathom, but then get woken up from that by a noisy storm," I take a second to make sure I didn''t miss a notable factor. " It''s not overtly ruining my time, but it''s just kind of unpleasant. And also kind of sadistic. I mean, yeah I got shelter, but it''s so small that I have to be in this really awkward uncomfortable position if I want to be fully covered."


    I look outside and hear the howling wind and the sand scraping against the sand cactus.


    "Okay, I''m lying, it''s actually very comfortable. I fell asleep faster than a tuckered out kid who just devoured turkey dinner... Yeah I can''t really tell what kind of experience I''m supposed to be having here."


    I ruminated on the thought for a bit longer. I wasn''t suffering to an extraordinary degree yet, but I wasn''t exactly in the most life friendly place. I wondered what type of lesson I was supposed to take away from this. On the plus side, maybe this implied that I didn''t live that terrible of a life in light of how not terrible the experience was. Maybe I just lived a modestly unpleasant life. At that thought, I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling of my sand cactus. A small breath escaped my lungs. The thought that I wasn''t the worst during my life, gave me a moment of relief, and a tinge of happiness. The reprieve from guilt seemed to have freed up some mental resources because the thought immediately occurred to me,


    "What am I wearing?"


    I immediately looked down while still on my back. I was wearing the same outfit I was wearing during my dream, the same outfit I wore on the plane. The strangest thing about my outfit was how undamaged it was. Although I suppose it would be even more unreasonable to expect that clothing damage would carry over to the afterlife. That was rather comforting, however, that you wouldn''t just get dropped in the afterlife buck naked. That was a person friendly feature. I wondered, if I had been a worse person, would I have woken up here with only a fig leaf to cover my unmentionables?


    I shuddered at the thought. Still undamaged clothing, that looks and feels exactly like my original set was kind of unsettling to think about. I had a thought as I followed the thought down the trail.


    "Could I change my outfit with my imagination?" The idea didn''t seem that outlandish. Here I am with a white shirt that was dirtied only by the dirt I was sleeping on, nary a scar that implied it survived a plane crash. Was it outlandish to think that this wasn''t a normal outfit? I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated. An outfit that looked different. Maybe a white tee and shorts, with maybe a cape because, why not? I feel like a cape was right in that sweet spot of "It could be useful but not useful enough to improve my quality of life". I lay there for a few minutes thinking so hard I gave myself a headache. I finally opened my eyes and to my surprise, I saw the same white shirt, khaki pants, and no brand shoes I had when I came here.


    "I am figuring out the rules to this place." I said to myself, trying to draw something of value from this experience.


    Still, thinking about my clothing reminded me of a thought I had before I went to sleep, "Did my brain actually get fried in the desert heat?"


    I looked back on my behavior from before my sleep. The more time passed, the more it felt like I was riding a high initially. Hosting a show, yelling at the sky, not taking proper stock of my surroundings and my situation; these weren''t things I would do if I was alive. I wouldn''t say I was even that loud of a person. In some ways it didn''t feel like the "myself" that I became acquainted with over my twenty-two years of life. But the feeling of the discrepancy only reared its head when I consulted my memories. Right now, I felt that who I was, was natural. That said, I was still concerned over my lack of proper judgement and strategy.


    As I was thinking that, the basics necessities for survival rattled like a rusty hand-bell in my mind, "I don''t have food! Or water!"


    The realization made me heart race, my mind was going a hundred miles per second to match. How true to life is the afterlife? I sat up, facing the inner wall of my humble nest, my hand on my chin, obscuring my mouth, my eyes opened as wide as an owl''s.


    "This is dangerous, how long can I go without food? Some thirty odd days? And water? Maybe ten days," I muttered through my hand trying my best to think through my situation. "No, no, I''m in a desert; my hydration needs are going to be more severe. How much water have I already lost?"


    I touched my forehead to get a sense of how much water I may have already sweated out.


    "Wait, can a dead man even sweat? Does a dead man need to drink?"


    I realized I had gone in a full circle back to where I started; the question of how true to life the afterlife is. I needed to figure out an answer to that question first. I thought back to my time here; I remembered that I was definitely sweating more than a cold glass on a summer day when I was running to my cactus. I''m very sure of that despite my apparent dryness now. Why would there be a need for a dead man to sweat? Where did that water come from and what happens when it runs out? Furthermore, what is the point of having all this heat if there isn''t a consequence attached to it? Was it just here to make me miserable? But why, or how exactly does the heat cause me to be miserable? Well, when I was outside, I felt like I was getting dizzy, I felt hot and my skin stung the same way it would when you''re developing a sunburn. At the thought of the sunburn, I took a quick aside from my train of thought to check my skin.


    "Yup, I am definitely getting a tan."


    Rather pleased to see I was losing the near vampire like paleness I cultivated through years of playing video games and knitting indoors, I returned to my original thought. I''m suffering the expected consequences of being in a desert, so what would be the point of having those features of a desert experience be present and not have the consumption needs to be present? It would be silly to let a dead man get away with not eating or drinking when someone had already gone so far to make the person''s afterlife miserable. Then again, I remembered myths about a special hell where people were forced to repeat some task they could never accomplish. Like having to roll a boulder to the top of a hill, but the boulder always slips and rolls back down when you''re inches from your goal. If water and food are requirements for continued life, it would make sense that the architect of this prison would void the consequence of "loss of life" if they wanted the experience to be endless. A chill ran up my spine. What if this is a place where you are hungry, but can never sate, where you thirst but can never quench. Death would be the release from those two states but if death is impossible, you are forever doomed to thirst and hunger, while also having to nurse a diabolical sunburn. But.... it couldn''t be that sadistic could it? I wouldn''t know until I felt the first pangs of hunger or thirst. But how long has it been that I still feel fine?


    I looked back outside to see the storm still raging. The chill from earlier made me recall that deserts are notorious for being cold at nights. But the only chill I was feeling was that of my own fear. The ambient air seemed ambivalent to my thought of what was typical. It was cooler than earlier but not cold. Actually it was much more consistent with the temperature of an autumn night. Maybe the afterlife desert is more temperate instead of extreme like the deserts from the land of the living. At this point I could only hope and be optimistic; I just didn''t have enough empirical data to say otherwise; I only had one day here after all!


    Staring at the blowing sand, I formulated a plan in my mind. Once things settle, I''ll do a quick scout around to see if I can find anything edible or any water. It''s strange to think of needing water or food in this situation but what do I know of how the afterlife operates? Before this, I just thought I was headed for a black abyss of nothing. In some ways, I think I would''ve preferred that option, but now wasn''t the time to moan and groan. I needed to be proactive to make sure I was in the best condition possible to figure out the rules to this ordeal and mayhaps make it a bit more bearable for myself.


    "Is trying to make myself comfortable even allowed here? Haha, huh Lord, got any answer for that one?" I laughed my question out but all I heard back were the echoes of my dying laugh dancing off my cactus'' walls. I waited a few more minutes in silence holding out for the possibility that I would hear something aside from the howling wind, but alas nothing but the waning wind wandered into my ears. The silence was appreciated however, since I was able to notice that it sounded like the storm was dying down.


    I turned myself around so that I sat facing the desperate hole I dug, towards the waning storm. I then quickly turned around again. I was reminded of the saying that "A watched pot never boils" and was terrified that if I watched the storm it would go for an eternity. I know; not the most rational fear, but I didn''t want to risk it. It would be the most foul and depressing "rule" I could discover in this afterlife. Maybe I''ll only watch weather phenomena when it actually benefits me, like rain. If it rained and I had containers, with which I could collect the rain water, I would be in a much better position than I would be now.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "I need to make cups. Maybe clay cups." I spoke aloud my ideas, comforting myself with the thought that the gears in my head seemed to be turning again.


    With the sandstorm still going outside, I didn''t really want to risk contending with and losing to it, but just sitting around seemed like a waste of time, and I definitely didn''t feel like going back to sleep. It only seemed logical to try and get something constructive done. So, I started trying to dig at the floor of my cactus. My thought was, "There might be clay underneath here or something." I''m not all too familiar with deserts and what''s where beneath the sand but what else could I do at the moment.


    What I didn''t expect, however, was how painful it would be; it was more painful than digging into the cactus wall. In the few minutes I spent digging into the sandy floor, I realized, beneath the maybe four to six inches of sand, was a dirt much harder than the sand that made the cactus. I examined my fingers in the dark; thankfully my eyes had adjusted well enough that I could make out the they weren''t bleeding but I could feel that they were rubbed raw. I was curious what I could have run into so quickly, and then I questioned how strange it was that there was so much soft sand inside of the cactus, but because that was a benefit, I didn''t want to complain too much lest I lose it. Can never be too sure about how much comfort the afterlife is willing to ruin.


    "The ground under the sand is hard. Maybe too hard to just to try to tear throw with bare hands."


    I was quickly growing accustomed to listening to myself speak; I would speak, listen, then speak in response. It was like someone else was here, and that alleviated the solitude somewhat.


    "If I found a rock, I could maybe use the rock to bash and break up the tougher earth. But the question is, how do I find that rock?"


    I looked around, double checking that I didn''t miss a serendipitous, well placed rock anywhere. I scanned the interior about as well as I could in this darkness. I looked at the wall and wondered if I could just make due with the bricks that made up the wall.


    "But I dug through them so easily the first time."


    I cocked my head to the side as I looked to the wall wondering just how I was able to dig through the wall when the storm outside wasn''t able to knock it down.


    "Oh, whatever. It''s probably just some weird force allocation physics." I looked back to the sand floor. "I could spend some time clearing out the sand; this time the whole floor instead of just digging a hole in one focused spot."


    Hearing my words, I nodded on the spot. My next course of action was going to be simple, I was going to move the sand out of the cactus. In doing so, I would be able to see the floor better and if the Lord of the afterlife is kind to me, I''ll find a rock..... Or a pick-axe. I would be very grateful if there happened to be a pick-axe under all this sand.


    The premiseof a pick-axe lit a fire in me; I was shoveling sand out of the cactus to the best of my abilities. The sand wasn''t that deep and I hadn''t even dug ten handfuls of sand yet, but sweat was already dripping into my eyes. The sweat''s sting forced me to wipe the sweat aside, like a reflex, but because my fingers were dirty, I stopped myself to make sure I used the back of my hand. As I struggled to wipe the sweat out of my eye, I noticed a peculiarity.


    "Wait."


    I hastily placed my hand against my brow, and felt how wet it was. I was sweating much more than I should have been.


    "It''s hot, was it always this hot?"


    I wondered again if I had a lapse in judgement and missed my surroundings but this time I''m sure I hadn''t. It wasn''t this hot a few minutes ago. It wasn''t hot before I started digging. But now? It felt as if it was getting hotter by the second.


    "Is it in my head?" I wondered aloud while checking all over my body and confirming I was drenched in sweat everywhere.


    "Am I having a panic attack? Or am I going into shock?"


    My question was answered by the roar of an intensifying sandstorm. The sand that was previously, lightly tapping against the cactus like a drizzle was now pounding against the wall like it was being blasted out of a cannon. And the wind wasn''t about to be out done, its roar was still climbing. And as the wind climbed, somewhat paradoxically, it became hotter. I was on the floor, on all fours, panting like an old dog after a run. Except maybe louder, and maybe not succeeding at actually catching my breath.


    The air was hot now too and every gasp for air made me cough it right back out in response. Short, shallow breaths were all I could manage, while clutching my stomach, hunched over, with my covered knees the only thing making contact with the hot sand. Meanwhile, the heat was still increasing. I fell over onto the ground face first with a yell, even my ally, the previously cold sand had betrayed me and was burning my skin.


    "Ahhhhghh!!!"


    The pain made me yell out whatever sliver of air I was able to steal before I fell. The sudden searing pain forced my clarity into my mind. I grit my teeth and pushed all the strength I had in my body down my arms, into my palms and pushed my body off the sand and back onto my feet, staggering backwards because of the sudden force and uneven ground, my back was caught by the wall of the cactus.


    "Am I going to die again? Like this?"


    I admonished myself for talking aloud out of habit as soon as I heard myself. Even now when I was gasping for air, I was still fooling around. While I was caught in my thoughts, I kept gasping for air and slowly noticed that with every gasp I was slowly able to breathe deeper and deeper.


    "Either," I gasped between every word, now that I could afford to take meaningful breaths, and restarted my train of thought, "Either, hell''s letting up on the heat, or I''m so far gone I''m done haha."


    The thought of my demise made me chuckle a bit but the moment of levity let me focus on my surroundings with a little bit clarity. The temperature did seem to be cooling off, the wind wasn''t roaring as loudly and the sand wasn''t battering the cactus as aggressively. It was still hot enough that I was losing water faster than normal but if it was a sudden temperature spike, it stands to reason that it will return to the comfortable temperature.


    I rested my head against the wall along with my body. It was strange; the sand on the floor was infernally hot, but the sand cactus stayed cool.


    "How much of a hero can you be cactus?" I said hoping that maybe my friend the cactus would respond back but alas nothing came.


    With the world around me calming down now, my attention shifted back to my body. The left side of my face stung, as did my palms; the sand must have burned them more than I expected. Unfortunately for me I was still dripping in sweat, and that sweat was dripping onto my fresh burns making sure I wasn''t about to just wave them away.


    Gently rubbing my fingers together, I could feel that there was a lot of sand mixed into the freshly seared skin.


    "If there''s sand in my hands, there''s probably sand in my face... I''m going to need to find water."


    I quietly contemplated my next course of action, trying to distract myself from the burn. The temperature was dropping again but not very quickly, it still felt hotter than the daytime. I noticed that I couldn''t hear the sand tapping against the wall anymore and peered my head to the hole I made. Outside, I could see the sky, or at least what I thought was the sky. I carefully scampered outside, trying to avoid rubbing the burn against any of the coarse sand, taking only a few sharp breaths when I failed.


    Once outside, I fell to my knees and looked straight up. The weather was calmer now and the scene was surprisingly uplifting. Tears snuck out of my eyes as I was looking up through the still floating, sparkling, dust like sand and towards the sky. It was a bit of a strain on the eyes but I could still see the sky well enough to be able to tell that it was all around a darker shade of blue. Surprisingly, it was a bright night. There was a faint silvery light that gently illuminated everything, and even with the ambient dust, I could still see maybe thirty or forty feet ahead of me. And the best thing of all was that there was a gentle cool breeze coming from my right blowing everything away slowly but surely. The sand still radiated heat, yes, but that godsent breeze dried my sweat, my tears, gently soothed my burns and cooled me down. Yes, it still brought fine grains of sand with it, but I vastly preferred mischievous sand drifting into my mouth over blazing sand that threatened my bare skin.


    "Hey, what was that, Lord?", I asked and nothing came.


    My hands were resting on my knees, slowly losing the firm grip I had on my knees. I kept looking up at the obscured with weary eyes, my head unsteady.


    "For a second I thought this was going to be an okay afterlife. But then that happens." I took a weary breath and continued, "Is that gonna happen everyday? I don''t think I''ll make it," I asked and nothing came again.


    "Earlier, I thought I''d have a few days but I don''t.", my head bobbed more, each time it fell too low and my eyes closed, I''d see what I wanted the most, and I''d snap myself back to lucidity.


    It seemed the rapid dehydration got to me and made me crave it so much I could see it when I closed my eyes. I shook my head, and looked back to the sky, with palms facing up beseeching whatever cruel lord ruled this domain, "Come on, I need water! At least!" and again, nothing came, or so I thought.


    I jumped to conclusions a bit too soon because as I was staring at the sky, I felt something wet running across and off my palms. Still looking at the sky, the cold running sensation forced my eyes to react and me to blink, as I tried to regain my sense.


    This wasn''t some kind of cruel joke right? I wasn''t just hallucinating right? I clenched my teeth and tried to hold back the tears as well as I could and prepared myself to be dissapointed. I closed my eyes and looked down at my palms and opened them again. Right there in my palms, like magic, water was pouring out peacefully.


    "Waaaa- waaa- ooohh," I struggled to get the words out as I brought my palms closer to my face.


    I was thirsty but I was more confused by what was occurring. I oriented my palms in all directions, but the water kept flowing and pouring off my hands as dictated by gravity. That was the extent of my curiosity though. Was it safe, was it clean, was it actually water? That didn''t matter; I was already having it gush into my throat, aided along by gravity. I alternated between which palm was right above my gaping mouth just because I could. The water was cool and refreshing as if a goddess of comfort had been pouring it into my mouth herself. Every time I switched palms, the water fell over my body and while gulping it down, I made sure to savor every drop that blessed my skin. Only after knowing that absolute torturous tribulation of a heat spike could I appreciate this water so thoroughly. Every gulp, mysteriously seemed to refresh and reinvigorate me. It was like all the stress I accumulated, was being washed away by this magical water.


    I fell onto my back and onto the hot sand after a few minutes. The sand''s heat triggered the pain from the burn on my face as if in resonance.


    "Oh yeah, I forgot about that haha." I


    grimaced a bit at the pain that had returned in full force. Strangely enough my palms, which suffered worse, were not as painful. There was still an outpouring of water from my palms; maybe that was why I couldn''t feel the burns as much.


    "Well I''ve got the water, I might as well use it."


    I lifted my palm over the left side of my face, and let it pour over my fresh burns. The pain alleviated a tad but I wondered about the sand that stuck to that side of my face. I braced myself and with my left hand as the main pourer and with my right hand, ran my fingers through my damaged skin making sure to shuffle out any sand grains. I could feel the unevenness of my skin and I worried of how ugly I might look now. Would I even recognize myself if I looked in the mirror?


    "Typical. Got water and I''m immediately back to thinking about stupid things," I returned to berating myself for silly thoughts.


    "I should have at least have said thanks first, huh Lord?"


    I was feeling appreciative at the moment, all my asking and I finally got something; I actually got something. The Lord might have been playing a cruel game of getting my hopes up and then plunging me into tribulations but I was back to believing that the Lord wanted me to have a fighting chance here.


    "Well, what should I do now?" I asked again to see if a sign would come, but it seemed we had returned to the norm.


    It was nighttime, or at least, it looked like it was nighttime, I had water pouring out of my palms and I felt strangely relaxed. I rested my hands back down onto the sand. I was laying down on the sand, my face feeling a little bit better, with my arms totally extended and now resting on the sand, with my palms facing up, and looking straight at the sky that was slowly coming back into full view, and nary a thought came to mind.


    "Hmm. It would be a waste to just go back to sleep."


    I brought my hand up to my chin again as I was pondering my next move. I couldn''t finish the motion however because I realized my palms were still pouring water.


    "Okay, this is going to have to stop."


    My annoyance spiked because of the sudden chill from the water hitting my chest and as if sensitive to that, the water stopped pouring out of my palms. My eyes shot open again, looking right at my palms; I didn''t mean to ruin a good thing!


    "Hey wait wait, don''t just dry up me, I didn''t mean to offend you! I need water! Please." I yelled, thinking back to the glorious sight of the water from before, and as if responding to me, the water poured out again, as if it never stopped.


    My eyes were even wider now, staring at the water I didn''t think would return.


    "This is too weird," I took a pause to look away from my palms and to the sky and make an amendment to my thought, "I mean well, maybe not the weirdest thing that has happened today, but still worth noting."


    I had to make sure I wasn''t lying about circumstances. At this point I had become like the superstitious grandma who thought every little thing would incur the Gods'' wrath, but after what I had experienced, it was fair to think that my fears were significantly more well founded.


    I sat back up, utterly confused, with my palms in front of me. I imagined the image of my palms without water coming out of them, and just like that, they stopped. I imagined the image of my palms with water pouring out of them and again, they started.


    "This. Is. Amazing.... I really am dead. Because how else is this possible?"


    Trying to think about how such a thing could happen, or how it worked filled me with curiosity, excitement and most importantly, hope. I wasn''t as helpless as I thought, but this sudden boon may yet have a dark passenger accompanying it. A thought that occurred to me earlier once again, flowed into mind; I needed water to live. Why was I being given water? Wouldn''t that imply that there was indeed a death condition? I shook my head, and stood up, clenching the feelings that bubbled up in my heart earlier and with those feelings, I powered the next words I uttered.


    "It doesn''t matter, if I can die still or not, it''s not like I''m going to just let myself die to see if it''s possible! I got something so I''m going to use it. The weird sky as my witness, I''m going to live!"


    My fist launched up against the sky in tandem with the last word in my speech, and for extra measure, I made sure to have water pour out of my clenched fist again just to make sure it was still working.


    This was my declaration, and my promise to myself that I was going to survive and not just let myself die. This was something I felt I needed to say out loud lest I go down the rabbit hole of trying to discern what death means for me now. I''m going to live; I was going to make that my motto.

 Chapter 3: Staying Up Late On The First Night

    This was a fresh start; this was a new me, after all. I now had refreshing water coming out of my hands. There was nothing I couldn¡¯t do. Now was the time for action.


    ¡°Rock, I need rocks¡­.. So that I can excavate well. But why do I need to excavate?¡±


    I had to make sure that what I was doing was intelligent or at the very least sensible so I had decided to return to talking to myself aloud, ¡°If I excavate, maybe I could find more things.¡±


    As it turned out, the shock of almost dying seemed to have made me forget why exactly I was digging; I could practically feel the grinding gears in my head causing me to overheat.


    ¡°Dang, I¡¯m thinking too hard! But it¡¯s okay!¡±


    Heat was no longer going to be a problem for me, after all, what threat is heat when one has the means to cool down. Triumphantly and proudly, I let cold water pour out of my palm, from above my head.


    ¡°Ahah! I remember! I wanted cups! To hold water in!¡± The sudden cold water pouring over my head seemed to have jogged my memory, ¡°But, do I really need cups anymore when I have water coming out of my hands?¡±


    I stared at the ground as I pondered the necessity of cups until I just decided to go for the next logical step beyond cups.


    ¡°Furniture, I¡¯ll just make furniture, out of clay and rocks or something. That¡¯s worthwhile, and it gives me something to do.¡±


    The way that I was approaching my situation right now was that, because it was nighttime and it wasn¡¯t freezing, and there was nothing for miles; I could afford to work on small projects. While furniture wasn¡¯t essential, it would at least make me comfortable, and who knows, maybe I would be able to find something else while working on my project.


    Ready to return to my humble cactus, I turned around and was immediately shocked. Turns out, I lied when I said there was nothing for my miles because now, right behind my cactus, there was the mouth of a cave.


    ¡°I-I guess I didn¡¯t really turn around when I crawled out here.¡±


    I quickly reviewed my memories of when I almost died that I was mostly looking at the sky when I came out; I never once looked back at my cactus. But why would I?!


    ¡°In what world does a cave suddenly appear after you nap?!¡±


    I fell silent and the wind blew audibly for a moment reminding me of my situation.


    ¡°I guess, in the afterlife, anything is possible.¡±


    Weird things happen is what I told myself, and I put myself back in order. Cave suddenly appears? I wasn¡¯t going to question it. Who knows, maybe it was revealed because of the raging winds or maybe the Lord of the afterlife just has a weird sense of humor. Whatever the reason, a cave just means more resources for me to dig up, and a shelter for me to live in.


    Thanking my cactus silently, I walked around it and went up to the mouth of the cave. It was a bit of a strange formation on closer inspection; I wasn¡¯t really sure if I could even call it a cave. It seemed more like a random outcropping of rock. I walked around  the perimeter as I estimated the dimensions of this strange cave. Imagine a boulder some nine feet wide, about twelve feet long and, I would estimate eight feet high at its highest point. Now imagine that someone bore into that boulder to make some space in the interior, and that would be a good enough image of what was in front of me. Speaking of the interior, I walked into the cave to get an idea of how much space was inside. The highest point was the entrance, and from there it sloped downwards. I could walk about ten feet in without having to crouch or contort my body in any way with the last two feet or so being where the slope suddenly became sharper and hurried to the floor. Width wise, the slope from the highest point was gentle, effectively having the curvature you would expect from a hemisphere. It was a strange cave, especially considering its sudden appearance but the dimensions made it comfortable enough to walk around in and the walls seemed sturdy and hard enough to believe in.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    ¡°I guess¡­. This cave might have been buried under sand and just got exposed during the sandstorm. Does that make sense?¡± I tried to recall facts and trivia about the deserts in my world but I wasn¡¯t drawing any significant detail.


    My well of ideas seemingly ran as dry as the desert. I eventually relented and just accepted my previous proposition that these things just happen in the afterlife.


    While inspecting the cave I happened to find some rocks sticking out of the sand near the back wall. Thankfully they were separate from the cave wall and were easy to pull out of the sand after a little bit of digging.


    ¡°Okay, so this was a lucky break! I¡¯ve got the rock I need to keep digging in the cactus but... do I actually want to devote resources to the cactus?¡±


    I had my eyes trained on the cactus, so much so it would blush if it could notice me evaluating its cramped interior. There was no doubt about it; it was going to be more comfortable to dig around in here and stock supplies. I thought back to what I need the most right now.


    ¡°I need a way to stay warm, and stay comfortable¡­¡­ and a bathroom!¡±


    The sudden realization of the necessity of plumbing struck me like a waterfall and rather sadistically,  the thought seemed to remind my body of basic human necessities. A familiar urge was gradually overtaking my body.


    I looked around the cave quickly for a good spot before reprimanding myself, ¡°Wait! I can¡¯t use the cave! There¡¯s a whole desert out there!¡±


    What was a desert if not a giant litter box? Animals probably use the desert as their litter without even having a second thought, why would I try to go against the natural order? It was much too late to change course now, even if I changed my mind. While I was equating a desert to a toilet in my head, I had already ran out a bit beyond the cactus, rock in tow of course, and was returning to a nice urgeless state.


    ¡°I guess the bathroom problem is already solved given all this sand everywhere. Heh, well that¡¯s one necessity taken care of.¡±


    The triumph of answering and properly handling one of nature¡¯s most common calls was visible in the way I pulled my pants back together.


    ¡°I¡¯ll need to make sure, I just bury whatever I leave behind so I don¡¯t have a gross accident later. I should also leave some sort of mark for extra surety.¡±


    Dropping the rock I brought with me near my spot, I nodded and turned around, towards the cave.  I could still only see about forty feet in front of me, but I wasn¡¯t so far from the cave and sand cactus that I couldn¡¯t make them out under the faint silvery light.


    My return to the cave was slower than my exit, as I was watching the sky above me, trying to peer through the ambient sand. I was sure I could see twinkles of light every so often, when the sand seemed to leave an area for a moment.


    Before I knew it, I was back at my cave; if I hadn¡¯t looked down to verify my direction I may have even walked right into the wall. Safely inside, I returned to my line of thought. Tonight was a warm-enough night; I wasn¡¯t shivering or anything of the sort, but there was no guarantee that blessing would visit me tomorrow. The obvious answer to stave off the cold would be to have a fire. Unfortunately for me, I had yet to come across anything I could use for fuel, much less anything I could use to get a spark or even some generate some heat. It was all sand after all.


    Thinking back to the rock that I¡¯d carried outside during my excursion and left, I wondered if it had some component that sparked easily. I went next to a cave wall, with another rock in hand and struck the two pieces of earth together but nothing happened. For a moment I feared I might have made a crack in my new cave but the fear quickly subsided as I continued wondering. With a nice view of my cactus, I sat down in the center of the cave and returned to my pondering.


    ¡°So far, I just have my clothes, sand and rocks. What can I do with that?¡±


    A thought came to mind after I aired my question. I didn¡¯t have just have those items. I had the water that poured forth from my palms!


    ¡°I wonder if I can pour out hot water?¡±


    I quickly stuck out my hand and thought of what I wanted, trying my best to imagine the sting on the skin of water of water that you would quickly pull your hand out of when testing the shower. I wasn¡¯t sure if hot water would actually improve anything in the long run but it was worth knowing as much about the magic water as I could. Responding to the thought water began flowing from my palm.


    ¡°Whoa, no way.¡±


    The water that I tested with my free hand surprised me. It wasn¡¯t hot enough to make one pull their hand away out of reflex but it was noticeably warmer than the water I drank earlier. Thinking of the hot sensation did in fact change the water that was produced! That was an incredible discovery! It didn¡¯t help my current situation, but it was exciting all the same. So many possibilities were now crossing my mind, so many things I wanted to try out, it was like I was a kid at christmas again; I was so giddy.


    But I had to keep my eye on the prize and compose myself. There would be time to experiment passively while remaining focused on the problem at hand. I needed to solve the issue of warmth and by extension fire. The only thought I had at the moment was that I could work on digging inside the cave. If I dug enough, maybe I could find more rocks and maybe, if I was lucky, I could dig up some old wood.


    ¡°Maybe I could even find some kind of afterlife exclusive heat stone? Or maybe I could just dig my way to lava.¡± I snickered at the little joke I made to myself but a sliver of my mind thought it could be possible.


    After all, I hadn¡¯t been conscious for many hours, but I had already encountered many strange things such as the sudden temperature spike, the cactus, the sudden cave, and of course my water pouring palms. Heat stones or lava would not seem strange at this stage.


    Renewed with curiosity, and a trusty rock in hand, I started digging near the inner right wall of the cave. Even if I couldn¡¯t find any wood, if I found more rocks, I could use them to close up the mouth of the cave a tad to give myself more protection. Maybe there were rocks that could be used to make some sparks further down as well.


    So my current plan was set, dig around now, go to sleep when I get sleepy, and explore the area tomorrow. As I dug for the unknown , I couldn¡¯t help but wear a genuine and ecstatic smile.

 Chapter 4 My Second Day In The Wasteland

    I had that dream again; the dream where I was talking to that blond guy. It was more distorted this time around however. My outfit wasn¡¯t clear, and my recollection of the dream wasn¡¯t as vivid as the first time. Maybe eventually I won¡¯t be able to remember the dream? I wonder what that will mean for me. Although, it¡¯s funny to think about a dead man dreaming¡­. Can a dead man even dream? Am I actually in the afterlife? But then again, this desert and my arrival here would be weird if it wasn¡¯t the afterlife. Or maybe¡­. I fell through a portal? To another world? My hands got wet at the thought, and this time it wasn¡¯t the magic waters, but rather a nervous sweat.


    I flung myself onto my back so that I was staring right at the cave ceiling. I¡¯d fallen asleep last night after working on my humble cave abode for a few hours. There was that saying back home, ¡°Nothing good happens after three AM,¡± I don¡¯t know if it was actually three AM but I can guarantee that things got weird after a while.


    I split the night between digging a hole, pulling out the rocks I had hoped to find, and playing around with the weird water coming out of my body. It turns out I can do a lot more than just pour out water from my palms. Alas, I reached a point where I just couldn¡¯t continue anymore; I ran into what I assume was a weird side-effect from drinking my water.


    Whenever I felt a hunger pang, I would drink my water. Whenever I felt tired, I would also drink my water. I had noticed that beyond quenching my thirst and being refreshing all around, the water also sated my hunger and gave me a lot of energy. So naturally, I kept drinking my water. Eventually I started feeling sleepy. The strange sleepiness was accompanied by a strange soreness throughout my body. At first, I thought the sleepiness and the soreness was a natural consequence of working hard through the night. Naturally, I drank my water when that set of feelings presented themselves, and then the feelings would dissipate. I kept that cycle going for another hour or so until I noticed what was really happening. Everytime the soreness and the sleepiness came back, they came back stronger until eventually it was hard to keep my eyes open and it was hard to move without grimacing. It was like the feelings were initially knocking on the door of my consciousness, but then they started breaking down the door after I shooed them away one too many times.


    I eventually relented and just decided to let sleep take me. Even though in the end I was in throbbing pain, I fell asleep within moments of deciding to fall asleep. And now, as I was lying in the sand, I felt fine and without pain. I felt very refreshed even. I was ready to get up and start my day. I turned my head to each side to check on the contents of my cave. On one side was the hole I started digging; it was maybe six feet wide and three feet deep. On my other side was a pile of rocks that I had pulled out from the hole. I had stacked them in pyramid form such that the makeshift structure was three feet high. It was a fruitful and very productive night. I sat up to face the mouth of my cave, excited to get a good look at my surroundings, but what I saw, instead gave me a scare.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    I got up and walked to the mouth of my cave, my mouth still open. In front of me, outside of my cave there was nothing but sand dunes in the distance.


    ¡°Cactus?¡±


    My voice came a bit weaker than it had previously. I rushed outside and circled my cave but there was no sight of my cactus. I fell onto my rump on the sand outside the mouth of my cave staring out into nothing.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe my cactus is gone. It abandoned me.¡± I swung my head back, to look at the roof of my cave,¡±I guess it wasn¡¯t that this cave appeared, but rather that the cactus moved to where the cave was.¡±


    It was, I felt, a rational thought. This cave wasn¡¯t here first, the cactus was. What if the cactus moved after I fell asleep and brought me here, and then it continued moving?


    ¡°Did the cactus bring me to the cave on purpose? Did the cactus dump me?!¡±


    As I blurted that out, I realized how lonely I was to have to be at the point where I felt betrayed by a sand sculpture of a cactus. I also realized how crazy it was to consider it possible, that a sand statue that resembled a cactus, could actually move and was moving to abandon me. But it¡¯s the afterlife, who knows how things work here¡­ Right?


    ¡°I was supposed to have to have finally taken the first step to the rest of my life but now look at me! I¡¯m almost crying over a cactus dumping me at a cave.¡±


    My frustrations were real but unfortunately I only had the wind to hear me out.


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t even a real cactus. Barely looked like one.¡±


    I knew I was being petty, but the betrayal pricked my heart. I swung my head back down and looked out in the distance. I couldn¡¯t see well last night, but now that it seemed to be daytime, I could see well. As it turned out, I wasn¡¯t in the flat desert area I started in. I was in a patch of relatively flat desert with sand dunes, some twelve to eighteen feet high surrounding me. The sight of the dunes led credence to the hypothesis that I had found a roaming cactus. Had my cactus been here, I would have been very surprised by the dunes and theorised they came in with the sandstorm, but I knew better, unfortunately. The cactus probably just ferried me to this area.


    ¡°I guess my only questions now are just wondering why it did what it did.¡±


    Would I ever really know? Probably not. I¡¯m not that lucky.


    As I was looking out in the distance, wallowing in my ill fortunes, I saw something coming up over the dunes to my two o¡¯clock. I couldn¡¯t tell well due to the heat haze but it looked like three human heads had poked up over the top of the dunes. I immediately stood up in disbelief. They weren¡¯t heading my way, so they probably didn''t see me, but I got lucky that they were barely visible from where I was. I looked back to my cave, nodded at it, and ran towards the moving party of what I assumed were people. I didn¡¯t think I would get lost, but still tried to be careful to head in a straight line. I was betting on not having to go too far to catch up to the moving party and also being able to spot the cave if I stood on a high dune. Unless the cave also moves, I should be safe to be able to find my way back.


    I ran for a few minutes until I got to the base of a dune that I¡¯d last seen their heads peek out from. I frantically scrambled up the dune, struggling against it¡¯s slipperiness and bearing with the sand that was filling my shoes. I had to lower myself to all fours to try and climb the dune without slipping. I also tried wetting the sand with my magic water so that it would clump a little more and not just slip under my weight. Although that strategy didn¡¯t seem to work as well as I thought it would, I was almost to the top after a few minutes of effort. I hoped that the party hadn¡¯t gotten too far way.


    I prepared myself to be able to yell at them. I had taken too long getting to the dune; I couldn¡¯t afford to let them get away any further. Hopefully I wouldn¡¯t freak them out too much if I just started yelling!


    Right as I got to the top, I yelled out to get their attention, ¡°Hey! Wait, please! Hold on!¡±


    It wasn¡¯t the fanciest call for attention but it would do; I really just needed them to stop until I could get into their line of sight.


    I finally stood over top of the dune and looked for the party in the direction they were headed in and to my luck, I was able to see them at the bottom of the dune I was standing on. From where I was standing, it looked like they were darked skinned and were wearing very white robes. Maybe they were some kind of nomads or travellers? I found it strange that they weren¡¯t wearing anything to protect their heads from the sun, that I assumed was somewhere in the sky, but that strangeness did not deter me; I was already carefully jogging down the hill. Thankfully, the party had stopped and seemed to turn towards me. Now I could take me time and not risk falling and rolling myself into a giant sand ball like in a cartoon.


    As I got closer to the party, more details were piercing through the heat haze. It didn¡¯t seem that they had yet turned towards me; at least I couldn¡¯t make out any facial features, so I was probably still looking at the backs of their heads. Also, I¡¯d noticed that the three had bad posture and were slumping. Finally I noticed there was something dangling from their wrists that looked like some kind of rope. It was dragging on the ground. This party was becoming more and more unsettling the closer I got to them.


    I had been stealing peeks at the ground as I was descending to make sure I wouldn¡¯t trip on some random rock. Right as I was becoming noticeably unsettled, I spotted a strange pattern on the ground. It seemed I had spotted the group¡¯s trail.


    My jog came to a walk as I was puzzled by the trail. There were no footprints, but instead I saw a trail you would expect to see from someone dragging a heavy rug across the sand. That was probably the main body¡¯s trail, formed from the white robes of the party dragging along the sand. On either side of the main trail were two thin lines, most likely formed from whatever was draped from each one¡¯s wrist. Naturally, there were three sets of this trail, one for each of the party members. I was still walking towards them, but I was too distracted by the weirdness of their trails. I even looked back to see if I was leaving footprints; I was.


    Looking back, I saw how far I travelled from the top of the dune, which reminded me to look forward. I must have been very close to them by now!


    I quickly snapped my head back with my salutations ready, ¡°Hey guys, thanks for wai¡°- what I saw caused me to stop dead in my tracks.


    It wasn¡¯t dark skin; now that I had gotten closer I could see that their heads looked like they were a few minutes away from being charcoal, with even smoke rising out of them. With the sight of the smoke waking up my senses, I noticed the accompanying smell; it smelled like burning meat. I wasn¡¯t sure these two things in front of me weren¡¯t on fire right now -


    ¡°Wait, two?¡± As I vocalized my sudden surprise at noticing one of the party members was missing, I felt a weight on my left shoulder and turned to look -


    ¡°GROOOOAOOOOH!¡±


    Smoke blew into my face from the mouth of the creature that was groaning at me. Its face was a dark craggy mahogany, with smoke escaping from various cracks. Its eyes were non-existent, instead having pitch black holes where its eyes should be. Its nose? Didn¡¯t have one but instead had two holes where you would expect the nostrils to be on a person. It also didn¡¯t have ears. The only feature that looked remotely fleshy was its mouth wide open except it had, what looked like strands on skin connecting the upper and lower lips in places that skin had no business connecting them. Its mouth looked like a person with no mouth, had torn open a mouth out of sheer desperation. And now that thing was holding onto my shoulder, if it wasn¡¯t for the searing pain coming from said shoulder, I would have been staring in shock for longer.


    Brought back to reality by the pain, I rose right palm towards the thing¡¯s head and shot a blast of water right at it, from my palm. The blast came out hard enough that its recoiled back hissing, and the creature let go of me, also recoiling and contorting. The moment it let go I hopped back a few steps and look forward towards the other two again. Except they weren¡¯t there.


    My senses sharpened again; fear proving itself to be an excellent whet stone. I heard what I could only describe as the sound smoldering coal makes, the light cracking sound, coming from either side of me. In the moment, I knew I didn¡¯t have time to waste checking around me. I closed my eyes for a second and imagined a pulse of water originating from me at the center, coming out from a line that I mentally drew around my torso. I imagined it from a top down perspective and imagined how far it would travel, four to six feet.


    Like how it worked last night, directed by my visualization, I could feel the water blast out from me, displacing my shirt, and a second later could hear the sound of water being poured on fire, and a moment later, the inhuman blood curdling groans. Knowing I hit my mark, I jumped back a few more times so that I could see all three members of this nightmarish party.


    ¡°Good thing I played around with this water last night.¡± I said as I metaphorically pat myself on the back for encouraging my natural curiosity last night.


    Last night, in between digging and pulling rocks out, I spent time testing this water that I had. What sparked my curiosity was when I found that I could change the temperature of my water. I wondered if I could do that much, what other properties could I influence. As it turned out, a lot. I could change the rate of the flow and the pressure, effectively changing how hard it could hit something. I also wasn¡¯t just limited to my palms. It seems I could eject water from anywhere on my body. And when I say anywhere, I mean anywhere. If there¡¯s skin, I can probably pour water out of it. The extent to which the properties were modified seemed so far limited only by mental image. As long as I could imagine the behavior I wanted to achieve, I could produce a similar phenomena. There were some things that I couldn¡¯t do on the first attempt though, so there may be other limits I had yet to discover. But what did that matter now? For this problem, I had attack water as a defense tool and that was probably all I needed.


    I put my right hand onto my hurt shoulder and poured out some frigid cold water over what I now came to recognize was a pretty serious burn. I didn¡¯t take my eyes off the three who were now regaining their composure, but from feeling around I could tell that my shoulder had been burned raw and that my clothes had also burned away.


    ¡°Was that guy¡¯s hand on fire?!¡±


    I observed the three¡¯s hands¡¯ and noted that I couldn¡¯t see anything that looked like fire on them. But it was true that the one monster was able to burn me badly so maybe it was just that the monsters had really hot hands.


    By now, the three ahead had regained their composure and they seemed ready to keep hurting me. As I was keeping my eyes ahead in order to prevent losing track of them again and receiving an awful fright, I noticed that the one on the right was gradually swinging his arm back and forth, which reminded me of a small detail; they had something attached to their arms!


    Now that I was close I could tell that the accessory was a white, about half an inch thick chain. And the way that thing was swinging only meant one thing; it¡¯s going to try to hit me with it!


    I quickly, again, hopped backward to get out of range while also keeping eyes on the three. I had expected that the monster was going to rush towards me swinging those chains around but no, it stood its ground and swung its arm horizontally after a quick wind-up. The chin followed the motion of the arm but shockingly, it seemed the chain had extended! The chain that was maybe, at best, three feet long had extended to cover way more than ten feet!


    I was able to notice it in time, but I still fell on my butt, my eyes following the chain that flew above me; passing through the air my neck had just moments ago occupied.


    Again, I felt a sudden fright as I realized I looked away from the monsters. I couldn¡¯t hear them yet but in panic, I imagined a powerful stream of water coming out of my palms, and flailed my hands around me. It was chaotic but I was sure that I covered all directions; at the very least it would push them away.


    I rushed myself back onto my feet after a few seconds of flailing and again hopped back, hopping onto the incline of a dune. It turned out I was right to flail, as two had again approached me quickly and were once again contorting. In that momentary reprieve, I noticed from the marks on the sand that the two were pushed away a couple of feet.


    ¡°Wait.¡±


    My eyes squinted a bit as I noticed, the two trails that marked the two monsters being pushed away came out of nowhere. It looked like they just appeared next to me.


    ¡°Oh no.¡±


    My eyes were wide open, not looking at any particular monster but instead looking in a space that was at the center of the shape the three formed, this time intently. I could not allow a single one of them to escape my field of vision!


    It clicked when I saw the strange trail. I had thought that these things were just super eager to rush up to me and give me the spook, but I was wrong. These things were like creatures I once saw in a foreign sci-fi show. If I take my eyes off them, they¡¯ll teleport all over the place. It may have been to soon to call the hypothesis a theory, but even if I was wrong, I was being careful. The worst that would come from taking this extra precaution was eyestrain.


    We were now at a relative standstill, the two had stopped contorting and the other had stopped swinging his arm. Maybe I was out of his range, but that wasn¡¯t the case for the other two¡­. How smart were they? If they tried to strike at me, it¡¯d be trouble. I¡¯d have to do the same actions, fall to the ground, blast water everywhere and then get up and repeat. Eventually I¡¯d make a mistake, but these things weren¡¯t moving.


    I wasn¡¯t sure why I waited so long, but it was clear this wasn¡¯t a fruitful nor constructive meeting so I decided to seize the initiative. I stuck both my palms out, aimed roughly towards the two that tried to ambush me, and released two fierce streams of water. For this one, I had just imagined how the stream would travel and how it looked when it hit the monster and it worked! The streams hit their marks; the monsters¡¯ head jerked back and I could hear their screams of anguish. I tried to track their movements, adjusting the positions of my hand as they wiggled around or were pushed back; it was hard but it was working. For the last one that was charging towards me, I imagined a stream of water coming out of my brow and aimed right at him by moving my neck a bit, at the same intensity as the others. He - or was it she? Okay you know what, doesn¡¯t matter - it was being pushed back, screaming the same painful scream the other two were.


    The tables had quickly turned and I had the advantage. I knew that these things would contort for a bit after blasting them so I decided to seize my opportunity here! I stopped the violent streams and ran straight towards the middle one, the one that charged towards me. As I approached it¡¯s contorting body with its hands clutching its head, I opened my palm, aligned it towards it¡¯s head and imagined a torrent that could shatter rock. I stopped my hand and by extension my body just short of the monster and let the blast come out from the entire surface of my palm. The water hit the head so hard that the head popped and flew off, slightly carried off by the stream of water. It didn¡¯t exactly shatter, but that may have been due to me not having a vivid enough image. Still a win was a win in spite of how it came about.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Next I turned to deal with the one that was to my right, and to my surprise, caught it right as it was swinging it¡¯s chain towards me. It was still in pain and clutching its head but it seems seeing its friend die jogged its survival instinct.


    The chain flew out and extended much like the first time, but this time I didn¡¯t duck; I was feeling brave. I lined up my palm and fired a stream of water that hit the chain and deflected it away from me. I lowered my palm and fired another shot square in the chest of the attacking monster, which pushed him back a bit. With that chain momentarily under control, I quickly turned to the one I had turned my back on; if the other had recovered enough to attack me it meant this one was probably ready to attack again as well. Sure enough, I caught him just as it was releasing its head. Seeing the head unprotected I knew I had to finish it. Was there a stream of water that could make a hole in its head? That could just pierce through it? In that moment I remembered a Saturday morning hero show I would watch. In that show there was once a villain that broke into an iron vault or something using highly pressurized, and thin streams of water.


    I could see the image vividly and put it to practice. From my four finger tips, that were aimed at the monster, I released those thin, and what I imagined being, iron piercing streams. And this time, they worked! Like a body that just had it¡¯s taken from it, the head kicked back violently from the streams hitting hit, and the body fell to the sands; nothing was left in the way of my needle like water water streams.


    The rush of victory swung me back around to the remaining enemy and I rushed toward it. It was still clutching itself and unfortunately by the time it noticed, I was already too close, a foot away from its face, and with my fingertips aimed towards it from underneath either side of its face. It was over for this burning man, and with a wide smile I released my water needles so that they could launch into the sky, this creature¡¯s head being the only obstacle in their path.


    With multiple sounds of cracks, the creature¡¯s head shattered and the body fell to the ground, the cloth falling as if there was never a body inside it.


    ¡°Whew, that was something.¡±


    I let out my breath of relief, trying to calm myself down. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d end up fighting smouldering nomads today. Incidentally, I decided to call these monsters I ran into, Smouldering Nomads on account of their head smouldering and them looking like they were travelling somewhere.


    With my heartbeat returning to a healthy pace, I took stock of my situation. First, the remains, I crouched down and ran my hand into the cloth. It was strange, parts of the cloth had deteriorated and were still deteriorating as if they were fading away. I was literally seeing part of the cloth turning into little bits of light and fading away. Similarly some of the Smouldering Nomad¡¯s head was also disappearing at a slightly faster rate.


    ¡°Is this how stuff in the afterlife decomposes?¡±


    I was truly at a loss on how to characterize this phenomena. I kept watching the disappearing materials as parts of them faded, noticing that as time went by, the rate at which they were fading was reducing until it stopped. There was maybe a third of what was originally there left but it had definitely stopped fading. Or at the very least nothing noticeable had faded for the last few minutes.


    ¡°Oh. It¡¯s kind of like a video game.¡±


    In certain genres of video games after you killed a monster it would disappear leaving behind just a reward, or a drop. What you could do with the drops depended on the video game but the very presence of them was a common and expected system. Some video games implemented this system by having the player ¡°loot¡± the dead body of what they downed before the game removed the dead enemy from the scene. They did this just to make it feel more immersive. In this case, this was less like the loot the body situation and more like the classic unrealistic drop system.


    ¡°Wow, who would have thought that video games would end up modeling a phenomena in the afterlife?¡± I looked around as if expecting that someone would answer.


    ¡°I sure didn¡¯t.¡±


    I gave up on the possibility of any wayward traveller somehow coming across me. With a sigh and a slouch over reminiscent of the smouldering nomads, I moped for a little bit before picking myself up again.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got to continue my day!¡± I reinvigorated myself with my shout!


    My next move was going to be to pick up the drops my enemies left behind. In video games, the drops were usually useful; maybe it was the same here! I¡¯d say even in the real world, it was worthwhile to pick up the body of the prey you fell. Not saying I would eat the nomads, but it would be a waste to not see what uses the drops would have. Besides I don¡¯t think I¡¯d enjoy biting into what looked to be charcoal.


    I began by picking up the drops of the last monster I destroyed. There were two main components, the white cloth that I thought covered the body and the hard craggy material the head was made of. Both materials had a strange feel to them; both were hot, but not hot enough that I couldn¡¯t handle them. The head had left behind eight head shards, each of which could fit in my palm nicely. The cloth, while it did deteriorate to a smaller scrap, scrap was still intact with no big holes. I placed the shards on top of the center on the cloth and wrapped the cloth up into a small cloth bag.


    ¡°Well that worked nicely!¡±


    I tested the cloth out to make sure the shards wouldn¡¯t fall through somehow, and moved onto the second nomad I had felled. While walking over the few steps with the cloth in hand, I wondered about whether or not those things even had bodies under the cloth. The way the last one just fell rose some serious doubts in me. In the case that there weren¡¯t any bodies under the robes, it meant that these things were like a bed sheet ghost with a hard head on top. Oh and chains, I almost forgot about the chains.


    ¡°Oh but what about the hands?¡±


    I thought back to the sight of the one that had grabbed my shoulder. Now that I¡¯m calm I recall that the hand was wrapped in the cloth except the cloth seemed more bandage like.


    ¡°What a weird thing to run into.¡± As I said that I heard an audible crack.


    Looking down, I realized I got distracted and walked over the remains of the second enemy.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, I¡¯ll pick you up properly now.¡±


    I¡¯m not sure why I apologised given that I was the one that killed this thing, but I put away the thought as I began picking up the drops. No one has ever gotten in trouble for being polite, I told myself.


    For this monster we got another cloth roughly the same size, and five shards from the head. One shard was much bigger than the rest but the other four were roughly the same size as the first batch.


    ¡°This thing is pretty obviously different, at least as far as size is concerned.¡± I eyed the bigger shard intensely as I voiced my thoughts, ¡°In a game, this thing would be classified as a different item from the other shards¡­.. But maybe it would just classified as large shard instead of a small shard.¡±


    I thought back to the few games I played and recalled that there were some drops where the only difference between them was how big the item was supposed to be. The size difference just meant you could maybe sell the larger variation for more in game currency or maybe it had a slight different use if you were crafting something. Regardless, I opened up my cloth bag and threw the shards into the middle.


    ¡°Oh what¡¯s that?¡± As I was getting up after tying up my bag, I noticed something whiter than the sand and picked it up.


    ¡°Oh wow.¡±


    What I had in my hand inspired a momentary excitement, it was the chain that the monster had on the wrist! It wasn¡¯t as long as it was initially but here it was, the chain that could extend. The excitable child in me woke up again. This chain could extend so far when the monsters used it; I wondered if I could make it do the same.


    ¡°Hi-yaaa.¡± I whipped the chain in concert with my battle cry but - nothing. Nothing happened.


    ¡°Maybe I have to wind up?¡± I tried copying the Nomad¡¯s motion and tried again but nothing.


    ¡°I guess it¡¯s just a chain now.¡± I let go a sigh, and sulked a bit again, ¡°I guess it unreasonable to think that I could do what a monster could.¡±


    While the chain did lead to a disappointing conclusion, it was still a cool drop. Before going to the final nomad, I walked back to my first drop and spent a few minutes searching the sand. I wanted to ensure I wouldn¡¯t miss another chain. The first one blended in so well with the sand that I wanted to make sure I wasn¡¯t missing out on precious materials. After a few minutes I relented and came to the conclusion that it probably wasn¡¯t dropped.


    With that confirmation, I walked over to the third nomad. This one was going to be tough because this was the one whose head flew off to who knows where. At least, that was what I thought. All it took was looking a little bit away from the spot where the cloth had dropped. A little bit in the distance, maybe a half minute walk away there was a dark object sticking out of the sand. What was surprising in this case, as I discovered by the time I had reached it, was that the head was mostly intact; it was just missing a portion of the upper left head, along with the eye socket. So on observation I would say roughly a quarter of the original head was missing.


    ¡°Well this is cool and all, but I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be inviting any good omen if I carried this back with me as is.¡±


    Speaking frankly, this thing was ghastly. It looked like its face froze and got stuck in its scream of anguish. If I woke up in the middle of the night and this thing was the first thing I saw I would die of a fright-induced heart attack.


    ¡°Yeah - nope.¡±I voiced my utter reluctance towards this thing.


    Now, I wasn¡¯t going to just leave this here. That would be a waste, and I wasn¡¯t about to waste resources that I had yet to study. Instead I used five water needles from my fingertips to break through the head and shatter it. And shatter it did! I was quickly coming to love the high pressure, thin variation of water I could eject. Interestingly, after shattering, I only spotted a few points of light fading away. It seemed that the materials were still prone to fading if you were rough with them. I looked back to all my materials and made a mental note that these all might have a limited lifespan and might just disappear on me eventually. I had to make this note in order to ensure that I wouldn¡¯t become attached to these materials much like I had done with the traitorous sand sculpture that barely resembled a cactus.


    After a few moments of searching in the sand, I was done here. I picked up all the drops I could find; the final monster dropping another cloth of roughly the same size, and after my shattering, nine head shards of roughly the same size as the ones in the first batch. No chains on this one either though. So all in all, here was my loot from this battle:


    <ul>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">21 head shards</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">1 large head shard</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">3 scraps of the hot white cloth, now to be known as Nomad Cloth</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">1 section of white chain roughly one and a half feet long</li>


    </ul>


    Looking at my spoils of war, I could see that the chain was probably an uncommon drop and the head shards and the cloth were probably the guaranteed drop, with there being some size variance when it came to the head shards.


    With a bag full of drops and a lonely heart, I started to make my way back, heading towards the dune I came from, my fresh footprints pointing the way to my humble abode.


    As I was hiking up the loose incline and bearing with the hot sand filling my shoes, the adrenaline rush I was feeling was dying down. The more it came down, the more my rational faculties returned. I started wondering about what had happened and started reflecting.


    I had acted in response to hostility, my fear and survival instinct guiding me, but that was pretty crazy; I killed something! Multiple times! And now I had their remains in a bag made from more of their remains! I had trivialized it as something that happens in games in the heat of the moment, but thinking about it, it was pretty messed up! Right? I stop my climb momentarily to look back at the sight of the battlefield. The sands looked undisturbed, as if nothing had taken place there. If it wasn¡¯t for the heavy bag clutched in my palm, I would have thought I just had a heat induced hallucination or something like that.


    I continued walking up the dune; thoughts still drifting through my consciousness like leaves floating along a gentle stream. The weight of my actions now being felt, I sunk a little deeper into contemplation and unearthed a scary thought.


    ¡°Am I going to turn into them?¡±


    The thought just occurred to me; what if they were initially people like me that just became that after being out in the sun too long? If this was a horror movie, that would be the kind of plot twist you could expect right at the end. If that was the case though, it meant I just finished off humans who had the misfortune of losing to the desert; being warped into groaning monsters as penalty.


    I shook my head loose of the thought as I approached the top of the dune. While that was most likely the scariest possibility it was also possible that those things were just the natural inhabitants of the afterlife - or whatever life this world is. In that case the smouldering nomads were essentially just like ugly fish in an ocean. Was it really that bad to down them if they threatened me? That was just self defence.


    ¡°It would have been nice if they didn¡¯t look so human though.¡±


    I could now see my cave, from atop of the dune; it wasn¡¯t that far at all. I remember thinking how I was scared that I¡¯d lose my way and wouldn¡¯t be able to find it again. In retrospect, it was a silly worry. Of course I hadn¡¯t found someone; this place wasn¡¯t going to be that easy.


    As I stood atop of the dune, getting the full view of my temporary home, I dragged my hand onto my hurt, left shoulder. The skin there, while it wasn¡¯t burning or hurting didn¡¯t feel smooth anymore. It was definitely damaged. I tried to see if I could see it from the corner of my eye but the best I could make out was that it was discolored to a slightly darker, slightly redder skin tone. Spurred on by the sight, I ran my fingers up my neck to the left side of my face and felt the skin that had been burned by the sand the other night. It wasn¡¯t the same feel as my shoulder, but it was definitely damaged. It seemed that while the water had strong regenerative properties, strong enough to stop the pain of a burn, it wasn¡¯t good at restoring things to what they once were. I could only wonder how I looked now, after my magic-water-assisted makeover. I wondered if I would scare anyone I knew if they saw me again.


    I took one look around at the vast expanse. Made sure to do a full rotation around since this dune was pretty high up. In the distance, it looked like there were walls of sand, most likely sandstorms, so I couldn¡¯t see all the way to the horizon proper. But aside from that, there were just more dunes of various heights. One thing I could be certain of was that this landscape was not as flat as the first desert landscape I jogged across. And of course, the sky was still the weird swirling blues of various shades, one thing I could note though was that the boundaries of the different shades didn¡¯t seem as sharp as they did initially. Instead they seemed like they blended together a bit better.


    Having taken stock of my environment, I walked down the dune in silence. My walk from dune to cave had but one interruption. That being, that I bumped my toe against a random rock. Well, it wasn¡¯t actually a random rock, it was actually the rock that I dropped the night before. At the time, I dropped it because I wanted to mark where I used the bathroom because of course, who wants to step on their own mess inadvertently? What was supposed to be a convenient little signpost to avoid an accident was now the thing that blew a hole in the dam holding back my tears. I had fallen to the ground, and all my stress and worries poured out into the hot, uncaring, sand. I wept, and wept and wept. The shock of downing things that were human-like, the fear of what would become of me, the realization that I was somewhere that didn¡¯t make sense, and that the cactus did in fact abandon me here.


    ¡°Why did you leave me?! Was I that terrible?!¡±


    It¡¯s always the little things that get you when you least expect it. For some, it¡¯s missing out on the discount day at the market, for me, it was the reality that I was dumped in a cave by a sand sculpture of a cactus. Maybe my mind had conveniently forgotten that I made a mark in the otherwise nondescript desert to protect me from this realization.


    It took me a while to collect myself, but I eventually did, and returned to my abode. I dropped my stuff in a corner of the cave and fell to my soft sand pile.


    ¡°Maybe I should make a pool.¡± My face was turned towards the hole I¡¯d started working on the night before, the sight of which sparked the thought. It was originally just a hole I was going to pull rocks out of, but now that I was all hot and sweaty and generally uncomfortable, I saw the appeal of a nice cool pool.


    ¡°Then again, if I want to cool down, I could probably just throw water over myself with my power. Oh. My power...¡±


    It was the first time I¡¯d referred to the water coming out of me as a power; my power. Maybe it just came to me because I had videogames on the mind. Strangely though, it felt right to refer to it as such. Almost nostalgic.


    ¡°Still, what should I do?¡±


    I was once again at an impasse of indecision. My plan was to make furniture out of clay or anything sound that I could find, but truth be told, I didn¡¯t know how well that would pan out. I¡¯ve never even worked with clay. Was it like putty you could deform and make into various shapes? I wasn¡¯t too sure.


    The night before I had been so fired up, and now I was so down; the gradual devolution was not lost on me. But maybe because I was aware of the fall I could pick myself up.


    ¡°I can¡¯t let down the me from yesterday.¡±


    I remembered how excited I was, as if I was another person that I couldn¡¯t see how to emulate.


    ¡°I was going to give this a go. Properly. And face challenges head on.¡±


    I felt that I was slowly gaining back energy as I echoed my sentiments from the night before. Putting my feelings into words, lifted me up enough that I was sitting back up looking around my cave.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think I was so easy to break, but I guess dying and struggling brings out the weak points.¡±


    I had gotten so used to admonishing myself that I just had to make that observation out loud. I could only imagine how much of a pain I would be to a survival partner if I had one.


    With a little levity in my heart, I started moving again. It was time to be productive! I picked up the spoils I¡¯d tossed into a corner and brought them over to my rock pile. A pool would be nice, but I had a feeling it would be a longer project that I could probably afford to delay in favor of more important tasks.


    I sat down in front of my pile and tried to think soundly and rationally, ¡°Okay, what is the most effective thing I could do right now?¡±


    I felt that asking myself questions had been a good way for me to organize my thoughts, and right now was a time where I wanted to make sure I acted appropriately.


    ¡°I have water, and that water also deals with the hunger problem, so I can cross of those two neccessities.¡±


    True enough, even if I was missing the feeling of food, the magical palm water had so far been enough to quell hunger pangs without any serious compromises to my performance. Why I would even say I was able to be more physically active than usual!


    ¡°So, if I have that under control, what else do I need to do?¡±I looked at the rocks in front of me searching for an answer.


    ¡°I could go back to the furniture plan, and amend it to also include fashioning rocks into tools AND furniture. Not sure what furniture I could make though.¡±


    I turned to look outside to the wide desert and then it hit me like a piece of sand wondering into my sensitive eye, ¡°I need a wall.¡±


    Walls are not always the best solution, but I need to keep out those nomads. The worst thing that could happen is that more of those guys come across me in the dead of night and cook up a Todd-barbeque. If I was lucky, the three I destroyed would be the only ones of their kind, but monsters in video games are in infinite supply. If this place is similar to a video game, I should be prepared for the worst features video games offer.


    ¡°Do I even have enough rocks to block up the entrance? Should I block up the entire entrance even?¡±


    I looked back between my rock pile and the mouth of my cave multiple times. After a bit of thinking, I came to a solution. Blocking the entirety of the mouth might be dangerous. I really just need to block enough such that I can hide behind the wall and not be totally exposed, could someone get in? Yeah but at least no one would see me and just come in. I was essentially just reducing the odds. Leaving an opening was also beneficial in case I made a fire. I wouldn¡¯t want to be trapped in a cave with a fire and no circulation.


    ¡°This is a really wide mouth though.¡±


    I was looking at the entrance, reminding myself of just how wide it was.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have anywhere near enough rock to even block out half of this.¡±


    I was coming face to face with mathematical reality. I thought a bit and considered modifying my plans after looking at my sand pile.


    ¡°I could use the sand instead.¡±


    If my problem was that I didn¡¯t want someone from outside to see me while I was sleeping, then what I could do was that I could work on making a maybe two feet high sand barrier. I could go to sleep behind the barrier and things wouldn¡¯t be able to see me from a distance.


    ¡°Oh but what if I need a fire?¡±


    If my problem was that I didn¡¯t want someone from outside to see me while I was sleeping, then I was in trouble the moment I had a fire going to stop the cold from getting me.


    ¡°Dang it! There¡¯s pros and cons to every choice it seems. Then again¡­. I don¡¯t really have anything to make a fire with.¡±


    I realized I could just ignore the problem for now given that I didn¡¯t have the means to create the cause of the eventual problem.


    ¡°Great! Sounds like a plan! Now to create my little hide-away sand barrier!¡±


    My idea was simple, I would get some of the rocks, stick them into the sand, a few feet away from the back of the cave, and then using the sand I already dug up, pile sand around them. This way I had a nice sand mound that I could tuck myself behind. If anyone was passing by, they¡¯d only see a cave with sand inside.


    My little project didn¡¯t take too long, and by roughly an hour I was standing over it, evaluating it, ¡°Was this a waste of time?¡±


    Now that it was done I started questioning how much of a difference this thing was going to make. My cave already stands out a lot, wouldn¡¯t that by itself attract something to it? Out of sheer curiosity? Then again, nobody was at the cave when I got here. Maybe caves aren¡¯t that valuable. Or maybe, there just aren¡¯t that many other beings walking the desert. Maybe I got really unlucky running into those nomads?


    ¡°Hmm, if the monsters attack humans on sight, then hiding behind a boundary is a good idea.¡± I realized I was getting distracted by all the questions, and so convinced myself that it was better to be safe than sorry.


    Regardless of whether it was beneficial or not, I now had a long sand mound some two feet high that I could sleep behind.


    ¡°Progress! Do-dee-do¡± I sang a small jingle one could expect after accomplishing something in a video game. Even if it was useless, it did feel nice having something done. Besides, if someone were to see this from far, they would think it was just a regular sand pile, so it wasn¡¯t like I was giving myself away.


    I thought that, cocked my head to the side, and then quickly ran out of the cave and looked back towards it.


    ¡°Yeah that definitely just looks like a random cave. With totally normal looking sand.¡±


    I had to make sure that I was correct in my assumption; it would be a tragedy if I made something that stood out.


    ¡°So what now?¡±


    I was back inside my cave deciding what to do; a familiar state for me now. Taking stock, I still had the hole I was digging, the excess sand from said hole, and some of the rocks I pulled from the hole. I probably only used maybe one sixth of the amount I had. I also had my drops that I hadn¡¯t yet experimented with.


    Having to think about my next move was some taxing work, so much so that it was making me thirsty. Naturally I fired a small stream of water into my mouth from my finger, like any Todd would. That tiny squirt of water though, despite its size, inspired in me a grand idea! Oh it also quenched my thirst but that could go without mentioning.


    ¡°I should go play with my water.¡±


    I made my bold declaration while making the pose of someone who clearly though he had an ¡®aha moment¡¯.


    ¡°Yes, hear me out cave. It would only be responsible for me, to pla- I mean experiment with my water power,¡± I spoke out to the cave, much like I would a skeptical parent, ¡°If I hadn¡¯t been taking breaks to test my water power last night, I would not know all the tricks that ultimately saved me in my hair raising fight with the smoldering nomads.¡±


    I pled my case to the cave that sheltered me, the only thing that could judge my actions for miles. As least as far as my socialization deprived mind was concerned. But I did feel I had a point. Last night I took breaks to play and now I had just finished a task. It only made sense to take a break now to play with my water. That way I could also maintain the pattern that I had established the night before.


    ¡°Work then pla- I mean, rigorous scientific experimentation makes Todd a well adjusted boy!¡±


    I heard myself there, and for a moment wondered if I was losing my grip again.