PLACHBRGHHHTTTTHHHH-

 

That’s the sound I make as I slide across the dirt, as my face slams into the soft sands and my legs lift up behind me into the air, as I careen towards a sliding halt, my head and neck buried beneath the hot sands. That last crunch wasn’t from me biting her. It was from me biting it. Wiping out. By which I mean, something pulled me down and I crashed into the ground again. I come to a halt and my body plops down against the sand behind me. But I don’t pull my buried head out just yet. I just kind of lay there for a minute. It feels nice, actually. To be buried like this. Is that weird? I sigh. It’s nice and quiet down here. Though it is a little warm.

 

  But that’s fine. It’s kind of relaxing actually. To feel the heat like this, radiating through my body. I lay there. It’s quiet. All I feel is the sand coming back into place around my head to seal the gap of my impact and the burning rays of sunlight on my back. I wonder if this is what lizards feel like, when they’re sitting on a nice rock. Ah. I’m so jealous. I kind of just want to lay here. It’s nice. I can’t hear anything. I can’t hear the hum. I can’t hear the ‘bmm’.

 

Ugh. I don’t want to make that noise anymore, it’s starting to give me a headache.

 

  I push my hands further inward, pressing them down into the supple dirt and begin swinging my arms around, burrowing them down further beneath the hot sands as well. Down into the hot desert that happily swallows me. Thanks sand, thanks desert, at least you’ll accept me for who I am. The sand doesn’t respond, it just presses against me, hot like the warmth of another radiating body holding me close. It makes me feel nice. It makes me feel…

 

I feel sad.

 

Why? The sand is nice. It’s soft. It’s warm. I’m a lizard. I’m a lizard. As if for emphasis, I make a licking motion with my tongue, as if I were trying to lick my own eyes. I just get a bunch of sand in my mouth.

 

Ugh.

 

  I exhale, spitting out the sand and loosening the tension in my body as I lay there, pressed into the grains by whatever force it was that sent me crashing down into it. I wonder what that was? I should probably get up and check. Not that I’m about to be eaten from behind from some trash-mob taking advantage of my predicament. That wouldn’t be very nice. Good thing this isn’t the slime-girl floor, haha. There are things I don’t want you to have to see, guy.

 

Don’t have to see.

 

Don’t have to see…

 

See?

 

See. See. See. You need eyes to see, you know? You know?

 

  What is this feeling? I stay where I am, wiggling my fingers. It’s so warm. I open my eyes and look at the sands beneath me, at the fine grains of sediment pressing themselves against my face and my body as I make a sand angel, trying to sink deeper down below. I want the desert to swallow me whole. My head hurts. My… I don’t know, my chest feels tight, I guess. I don’t feel good. My eyes itch. I look at the desert. The desert looks back at me.

 

“Hey,” I say to the sands.

 

  “How’s it going?” asks the desert nonchalantly. I burrow deeper, feeling the sands begin to cover my back and my legs now, as I press myself down to hide from it all. I don’t want it to see me. I don’t want them to see me. Stop looking at me, guy, okay? I need a minute. Looking back to the desert beneath the surface, I shrug.

 

  “Not so great. I don’t feel so good. I’m…” I float, my body hanging there, suspended by the soft desert sands as if it were a gentle flow of viscous black-water that holds me adrift atop the empty void. What am I? What do I see? Piotr? Piotr? I don't see anything except the desert. There’s no-one here but me. There’s no-one here but me. “- I’m lonely.”

 

“You’re processing your emotions in a very unhealthy way,” says the desert matter of factly. I look up towards it.

 

“You think?”

 

  “I mean… yeah?” responds the desert, shifting around as I sink down so deeply, the sands slowly moving as if the tide of an ocean, now beginning to surge under the moon striking full at midnight. My body sways up and down beneath the surface, as if a current were bobbing me around. Playing with me like a toy-boat on the water. “Come on, you bit that rat’s head off like four times. Really? That’s fucked, guy.”

 

“He was being a jerk.”

 

“You were being a jerk,” quips the desert. “Is that what a hero would do?”

 

  I float, the sands all around me careening as I sink down deeper and deeper beneath the tide. Is that what a hero would do…? What the hell kind of a question is that? A hero wouldn’t have let any of this happen to begin with. A hero wouldn’t have to make these choices, because they never would have gotten here. To this place. To this point. A hero wouldn’t feel so… so… wait.

 

Was I really being a jerk?

 

  “You were,” says the desert, reading my mind. “Come on. You were totally going to choke that harpy-girl to death. She was crying. It was a really weird vibe, man. Like… what? Was this some kind of domination thing? Or why was there all this weird tension in the air? What are you doing? Everyone is watching you, guy.”

 

“She attacked me first,” I say as my body sways in the red ocean.

 

“You intruded on her territory,” says the desert.

 

“She tried to rip me apart!” I reply, defending myself.

 

“She surrendered,” says the desert dryly. Haha! Get it? Dry? Because it’s a desert?

 

“Sure, after I started winning. Why should I let her go then? I bet she would have eaten my guts if I let her be on top. That or she would have done some weird, kinky-harpy stuff.”

 

“Because that’s what a hero would have done.”

 

I float. Shit. I guess he got me there.

 

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Dumb-ass.”

 

“Shut up, desert.”

 

“Look around you, what do you see?”

 

“I don’t want to play this spiel again,” I groan, feeling rather burnt out and frazzled.

 

“It’s not a game,” says the desert. As it carries me over the sands that surge around my body, rubbing against my skin, as if I were being dragged along the dirt. “Close your eyes.”

 

“No,” I say, widening them further out of protest. They itch, but I can’t scratch them as my hands are somewhere at my sides, drifting beneath the heavy sands the press me down.

 

“They’re itching because you haven’t blinked once since you’ve been reborn. Close your eyes,” it says again in a soft voice as the dunes of sand that rise and fall together with me, cradle my body, as if I were held in the warm arms of a loving mother.

 

“No.”

 

“Come ooon,” it coaxes me.

 

“No.”

 

“Do it!”

 

“Fine!” I relent, giving in and slowly beginning to close my eyes for the first time since. Since…

 

  Everything turns dark. My fingers clench together, pressing the sand beneath them, into my grip as tightly as I can. But the harder I squeeze, the more of it simply leaves me. Simply presses itself out and away. Leaving me here, alone. Alone. I feel lonely. I feel sad. My eyes are closed. What do I see? I know what I see. My eyes immediately begin to open again.

 

“Stop,” says the desert, strongly.

 

“I don’t want to see,” I tell it, my voice sounds scratchy.

 

“You have to,” it tells me, laughing, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. As if I were a child protesting against a vegetable on its plate. “The longer you wait, the thicker the black-water is going to become.”

 

“Maybe I want it that way,”

 

  “No you don’t,” says the desert. “You want the right thing, but you’re a little mixed up. Nothing a good night’s sleep can’t fix,” it says mockingly. I clench my fists at the sentence that I hate so much, as I see now the image of her before me. Of the figure floating beneath the water, as if she were here with me beneath the deep sands. Asleep... Asleep! That fairy woman… My fingers strain from the pressure I apply to them. How can she just be asleep?! While I was out getting torn apart, suffering every day, day in and day out! How can she just float there beneath a fountain and sleep?! I see her, now that my eyes are closed and I feel angry. I fume. I was so excited to finally find someone, someone like me…

 

  “Haha! That was a real let down, huh?” laughs the desert in my face as it jostles me higher, as if throwing me into the air, only to catch me a second later. As if it were a father playing with a baby. “You can’t judge others by the standards you hold yourself to. The fairy of the fountain sleeps, because she doesn’t have the drive that you do. She doesn’t even know that she can break free and push forward, like you know. Forgive her, she doesn’t even know of all the things that she could do and be.” I crash down into the sands so hallow again and sink further beneath their weight, so far and so deep into the vaguely red darkness. The sound of the grains rushing past my ears as my eyes stay closed sounds like… like scratching, like the scratching of a pencil against paper.

 

  I grit my teeth, my jaw straining tightly as I hear the grinding in my bones. As I think about the dungeon-master who I adore, who I so desperately want to make proud, who I want to see me. To acknowledge me. They do see me though and they hate me. They hate me in my entirety. I’m just a useful tool, maybe a plaything at best, but not even a favored one. The sands swirl around my body, spinning me beneath the surface, as if a current were churning my form in all directions. Dragging me out to depths of the far reaches of the endless ocean. The desert speaks to me.

 

  “The dungeon-master is hurt,” it says plainly. “When we’re hurt, we hurt ourselves. But we also lash out at the other people around us,” it explains. “Even ones we care about.” That seems a little too convenient for the dungeon-master honestly, is that true? “It is. Weren’t you just doing the same thing?” it asks me, laughing. “When you were hurting the harpy-girl? When you were hurting the rat? They’re your brethren trash-mobs, no? Those faces you swore to protect?” I feel something grab my hand in the sands and it spins me around in a slow, playful pirouette. As if it were teaching me how to dance, I stumble around; unsure on my feet. “Forgive them. They hurt, so they hurt.” I lurch forward, my eyes feel wet.

 

  The sands now shift in slow rhythm, the heavy current coming to a quiet churn, as I am spun around one last time. The sand pokes around at me from all sides, gently, as it creates subtle forms that are always just on the edge of my vision. Scampering secrets that it keeps from me. My eyes that are held so tightly closed, press down tighter now. I see the rat-queen before my darkened gaze. The woman, who after one single-mix-up, has hounded me throughout the dungeon. She remembers me too, between respawns, but she also hates me. Why? I thought she was cool. I like her dress.

 

  “Did you ever try to understand her actions and thoughts?” asks the desert, placing a firm hand on my shoulder. Did I? “Or were you so bothered by a single, initial rejection that you ran and ran and ran and never looked back once?” Did I? “Do you think that maybe the rat-queen is suspicious of you, because you are acting suspicious?” Am I? “I mean, yeah. You think the rats aren’t going to tell her about this whole head-biting incident?”

 

“I guess they will,” I tell the desert, conceding, reaching back to place my own fingers on top of the firm, fatherly hand that holds my shoulder from behind.

 

It nods. “I guess they will. Forgive her, she was hurt, so she is untrusting and volatile to defend her own heart and soul. Maybe consider proving her wrong in her suspicions? Give her reason to believe in the good in you,” says the desert.

 

“You’re really wise, desert. Thank you,” I tell it. Ready to get going again.

 

“You know that we’re not done yet,” it replies. My eyes twitch.

 

“Don’t make me see,” I tell it.

 

  “I’m not. You’re doing this all on your own,” laughs the voice. The shifting sands pick up again, as the hand releases from my shoulder, sending me into a free-fall, as I sink deeper and deeper and deeper down. Hurtling into a darkness beyond. The sands part ways beneath me, as if I were flying through a long vertical tunnel. It reminds me of the hallow faces of the great serpent of the bad-water. I fall and fall and fall, the howl of the winds around my ears sounds so real, so close to me. They shear against my skin and they go BMMMMMMH-

 

  Desperately I claw and kick and squirm, trying to grab on to anything. But every piece of sand that I clutch simply falls off and falls down with me into the darkness. But there is no darkness, there is simply sand. Simply desert. My body lurches, as I reach a sudden stop and I float. Alone. Just the desert and me. My eyes are closed and I see. I see… I see.

 

  I see my only friend. The only person who ever tried to be my friend. Who really tried despite… me. Despite me being me. The first me. I see her. Angrily, I swipe the visage away, but my hands only touch sand and a moment later it rebuilds itself, just a little further back than a moment before. With closed eyes, I stare at the mirage, borne of the darkness of my lack of physical sight. The silhouette standing in my mind’s eye with a smile wider and brighter than anything I have ever seen before in any existence.

 

“I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it,” I tell the desert.

 

“You couldn’t do what?” it asks me with a jovial tone, suggesting that it already knew the answer. I float. It hurts. I feel alone.

 

“I tried.” I argue.

 

“I know,” it says, indifferently.

 

“She really liked me and I couldn’t protect her.”

 

“Did she?”

 

I float. Don’t take that from me, desert. Don’t.

 

  “I thought she liked the lance-hero, who she thought you were,” replies the desert as the sands run across my head, as if softly stroking my hair. I flinch, feeling a new ache too deep for me to explain, as I float there quietly. The sands continue to stroke my head gently, showing no signs of judgement. “She was only there, because of your lies from the start,” says the desert, not changing its tone of voice. Don’t say it. It’s all I have.

 

“I’m gonna say it,” it says and I pull together. “If you had just told her the truth from the very start, if you had just let her hurt once, then she would have never been there.”

 

Stop.

 

“It’s true you weren’t strong enough to keep her safe. But the only reason she was in danger, is because you weren’t strong enough to begin with. It’s your fault. Entirely. You should feel bad. It should hurt.”

 

The sands shift all around me, pressing against my lower body, as if I were seated on top of a single hand that was pushing me back upwards. Lifting me and me alone towards the sky so far above.

 

“Forgive yourself and do better next time.”

 

My head pushes itself out of the sands and I gasp for air, perhaps more out of instinct than anything else, as the light of the wastes returns to my eyes, which I have now reopened for the first time, since burrowing down into the dirt. Hollow eye sockets shine back at me from the bony figure knelt down before me, who is staring at me curiously as I pull myself out of the sand.

 

I fall forward, grabbing the skeleton’s ankles and howl.