A storm was coming, the air was hot with static, but the ground was cold with the sand around my feet. Clouds in the air danced around the moon as the cooling breeze began to turn the desert. I was dying, and I knew it, my water had been given to the girl following behind me, my food was depleted, my body was torn from the frequent sand storms. This was no longer a masquerade; this was no longer a vacation; this was no longer a happy time; for this meant life and death. No longer was there a soft cooling breeze around me but the pain of millions of grains of sand digging into my skin. The burning of the friction against my body burned and embroidered unknown patterns upon my chest and arms. The girl who walked behind me dropped to her knees and began to weep. Her fear led to irrational thought; I dove upon her covering as much of her body as i was physicaly able to. My shirtless back began to feel the sand ripping my skin away, when it stopped. The pulsating wind was no more, the hot static was gone; the fearful girl was had vanished leaving my body caressing the sand below me. My heart had been troubled; my mind had been lingering on so many tiresome things. When I looked up the storm was still tearing through the sand, but I no longer felt the pain, I no longer was worried by the storm, there was time to think. The emptiness of the desert filled my heart.


"Awaken, awaken and find out who you really are. Awaken and face the desert." The faint noise echoed through my ears, and the quite of the desert returned to the storm, the desert took me in under it's wing, bleeding myself dry.