The sun was brighter than ever, but that was never a good thing; the desert scorched my skin, but who was warming my heart? Instinctively, I turned west toward the coast; I would need water, and that's hard to come by when you're walking through the desert. We always avoid walking along the coast—it's safest to stay close to a water source and to the others.
"It was around here that I came across that deer. It's so strange—I thought they'd gone extinct. No one had seen one in generations," I muttered to myself, hoping not to go mad. Speaking aloud is dangerous, especially if you're traveling unarmed, though what else could I do? It was either that or go mad. My father always said, "Lone men don't last long; they usually die at the hands of other men, or by their own hands." I wonder if I'll end up just like them. "Around here, I suppose. I saw it heading south." If it survived, it's because there's something there it can eat and drink—that's what I should have thought back then. Before heading south, I went down to the coast, gathering anything that could be used to start a fire; I would need plenty of water for my journey.
I picked up a skull from the sand—you'd occasionally come across one or two in the sand, though it was rare—turned it over, and used it as a pot to boil water before storing it in my canteens. "This will have to do," I thought without giving it much thought. In the desert, there's never enough water. I walked for hours under the sun, sand, and more sand, with no company but my own thoughts.
"I never thought I'd miss my sister's annoying questions," I gradually realized that there is no worse enemy than loneliness and silence. Every moment you ask yourself, "When will this end? How much time has passed?" It never matters—why would it? I remembered my uncle's words.
"In some time before this, people dug deep holes in the ground and drank water." It sounded so unbelievable—in the middle of seas of sand, finding water beneath it? My cousin and I used to laugh at things like that. It was a shame he died in such a stupid way. "Be careful—not all sand is the same; some swallows men," he stammered, mocking his father's sayings before being swallowed by the desert. In the end, my uncle was right, though it was a bit ironic that his son didn't believe his words, and that's what killed him.
"Where am I going?" I asked myself aloud. I was right.
"The sand never ends, until it ends"—that's what my father used to say. How the phrase went on… well, it never mattered. The dead have peace and rest, but I must walk under the sun and suffer hunger, thirst, and pain… affliction at the whim of the gods.
"How is this even possible?" was what I said the first time I saw it. Between three hills lay a vast sea of sand, even whiter than before. I thought it was that strange kind of sand that swallows you up, so I crouched down and picked up a stone, threw it at the sand, and… it didn't sink. I picked up a bigger one and threw it a little farther. Nothing happened either. Just in case, I circled the white sands and walked through the hills; it was getting dark, so I looked for a high rock where I could sleep, but at night a sandstorm forced me into a crevice where I spent the night taking shelter, sleeping only as much as necessary. The next morning I saw something surprising and terrifying.
Among the hills, the storm had unearthed a remnant of the past, perhaps—a sea of bones. There were so many that I couldn't tell if there were more or fewer than the stars in the sky. Now that I think about it, there were as many stones as there were bones in that place; I was unable to understand what had happened, but I made use of the remains. From the longest bone I found, I made myself a club—the bone was probably longer than my leg—and I attached a heavy stone to it, which I sharpened by striking it against another stone. Now I had something to defend myself against other men.
A rock fell near where I was working.
"Over here! A prey!" A man stood atop the hill from which it had come; apparently, he wasn't alone. I ran toward the crevices I'd used to take shelter from the storm. I dodged one, two, three rocks flying in the distance, ducked into the crevice, and slipped up to the top of the sand dune to gain the upper hand. I couldn't tell if they'd caught up to me or if I'd lost them, until I heard.
"Where the hell did he go?"
"Look for him over there. I'll go up, and you go back to the others to let them know we found a young one." I crouched as low as I could to avoid being seen. I gripped my newly acquired weapon tightly and had no qualms about using it.