The Everlasting Sand

Maybe beneath this everlasting sand there was once a city. Perhaps in these houses humans once lived. In these grave-yards, they may still lay dead as merely bones. I know it has not always been this way. Ever since 2011 they were plotting, assuming, deciding. It was not a popular thing, nothing that the media inadvertently inflated. Only few knew about it, and this way it stayed. The twelve owners- nine male and three female, organized the build of the facility and the entity itself.

No one human alone knew what this entity was and no on human knew how to stop it. Each of the members was bestowed upon with a small amount of knowledge about the entity and what it was in relative physical reality. Slight details leaked and I managed to locate the people who knew these details. However, in my searches I was only able to gather that the entity was colorless, was not living nor AI and that it was in military high security production and confinement.

Before ‘it’ happened, I was not a person that was considered wholesome. I was an Anarchist and a writer. My best work was always punk/anarchy based literature, never being published but containing a strong message. Perhaps it was anti-government propaganda, exposing the media or anything along those lines. This did change after the ‘it’, most life being covered by everlasting sand, but I continue to write. There is time now.

‘It’ happened very quickly and unpredictably, casualties were not a factor. All life on earth was assumed dead, covered by the everlasting sand. The organisms that did survive were weak and soon also shared the fate of the others. However, very few humans manages to survive the initial disaster and the radiation that hung above the earth-it’s new found everlasting sand and began to do what they saw in movies- gathering groups, trying to build shelter and weaponry and preparing for what they would later call zombies.

However I remain simple throughout this era of the new world. I have located a small amount of land that was surrounded by elevated ground. This meant that this area was not completely covered by the everlasting sand, leaving clear some few houses and a railroad track. The track became a philosophical oasis for me and by this time I had completely forgotten about my lust for anarchy and punk-likeness.

It is cold now, everyday becoming colder. I carry nothing but an axe, a bag with certain supplies such as food and water. I wear a black hoodie with a leather, green-ish jacket on top, jeans, combat boots and a white, USSR gas mask over my face as I continue to venture through this everlasting sand.

I follow the tracks in hopes of finding others. In my search I was able to locate a grand total of two humans, one was missing his bottom limbs and was lying, bleeding on the everlasting sand, causing it to become clumpy and enter the wound painfully. I kneel down beside him and gaze upon his already pale skin and sad, yet accepting face through my scratched lenses. I slowly placed my hand, wrapped in a fingerless leather glove, under his head and raised him off the ground slightly. He coughed out some blood and later focused his eyes on me. I noticed he was not carrying supplies with him, already a dead man. I took an ominous, deep breath, ultimately inhaling the fumes only slightly filtered through my gas mask, making a rather disturbing noise as the unclear air entered my system. I left him there.

In the everlasting sand.

The other human I found was around 6’2 tall, black male, fit, muscular body build wearing a bandana and a ‘gangsta’ hat atop his head. I noticed him near a burning barrel and approached him with a slow, melodic pace. His pants were half way down to his knees, exposing his boxers which had the word ‘Gang$ta Boy’ written on them. His outstretched hoodie, a pale blue color, covered part of his boxers. It was an Adidas hoodie. He stood, feet surrounded by the everlasting sand and I noticed that he reached for a switch blade that he activated defensively as he saw me nearing. I assumed this as a threat, though at first I was only interested in a short, pleasant conversation. My prior rhythmic footsteps began to gain speed echoing as I ran across the ground towards the threat, which in turn did the same. I raised my axe to shoulder level, preparing to do a side swing and decapitate the threat.

I remember a crunching sound as my axe entered the side of his neck, severing his wind pipe, breaking the spine due to the high force impact and slicing through his flesh, causing a copious amount of blood to be spilt upon this everlasting sand. I roughly extracted the axe from deep within my victim’s neck and let his body collapse. Upon scavenging the sight of the barrel, I was able to locate a small amount of money, now useless green paper, two bullet casings, a corpse of what appeared to be a dog/human hybrid and a gun- in poor condition, unloaded and in a state beyond repair.

I took the metal scraps on the gun and used my duck tape to strap them onto my right arm’s wrist area, acting as protection from a minor blow. I placed the tape back into the bag, it was a gym-bag, and continued my search.

Through the everlasting sand.