I felt the hot, dry and sandy wind on my face, attempting to sand me down like a knot in an otherwise smooth wooden plank. But like a knot, I intended to hold fast. Nothing would stop me from reaching my objective. Not other people, not the comfort of society, not the safety of an underground bunker. All of those things would weather away or die sooner or later. My objective, my objective would never waver against this sandstorm. And so, neither would I.

I could feel my body tiring. I would never quit, but I couldn’t biologically go without food or water. I would have to find shelter, for now. I stopped, looking around. To the right of me, a vast, empty desert. Except I knew full well it wasn’t empty. To the left, the face of a rocky wall. Possibly a form of shelter there, if nothing else. I looked behind me a bit, and was mildly alarmed. They were catching up, I needed to not only find a shelter, but make sure it was secure as well. To the left it was. I hurried to the rock face, ducking below as many dunes as would shield me from their view. As I reached the rock face, I heard one of them scream in agony.

“IT BURNS! IT BURNS!!” A woman started to scream in a distorted voice, the voice sounding more like screams than a sentence. Was the sandstorm clearing up that soon? I looked back towards the group, terrified to see the wall of the sandstorm dissipating into open air. I crouched down and flattened myself against the wall, pulling my shawl over bits of my body and attempted to do what I could to protect myself against the sun.

“FOUND IT!!” One of the things screeched, the others looking towards it and letting out small cries of their own. Most were cut off with a frenzied cry of pain as the protection of the sandstorm dissipated. For these things to have survived so long, I would’ve thought they’d at least know the damaging properties of the sun. I felt the sand stop buffeting me, and with the cries of the creatures burning in the sunlight, I hoped with all my heart that the wall was high enough to provide some shade. After ten seconds or so of screaming, yet no unbearable pain to me, I finally opened my eyes. As suspected, I saw a few burnt corpses and some still on fire. One of them was even still moving, it’s voice reduced to nothing but a horrid screech. It spotted me and crawled in a horrifyingly quick manner towards the safety of the shade and the promise of a meal, me. I closed my eyes and waited for death to come, hoping and praying that I would be safe. The screeching stopped and was replaced with what sounded like a goop boiling. I opened my eyes and let a small gasp out. One, burnt and outstretched hand had almost scraped my face, while its completely cauterized body shown occasional spots of bone, as well as the odd fire, burning through its flesh as the sun lit the world on fire. It’s mouth was opened wide in an attempt to bite me, while its eyes were gone, one of the first things to boil from its body.

The shade I had now would do me good for a while, but the problem wasn’t the fact that I couldn’t prepare food or rest or anything like that, I could manage in the foot of shade the wall provided. The problem was that the sun sets in the west, so I would be without shade and without shelter later in the day. I guess I’m just gonna scoot along this wall until I find something better, like a cave. Hopefully one that is unoccupied. And even better, a cave that turns to the side to shield me from the sun.