Monochrome Lives

Chapter Three

Castella rolls forwards on her hands and knees, trembling like a frail leaf in the gusting winds of a hurricane. She takes a shaky breath in as she gets to her feet, watching Arcus disappear over the horizon. 

"Well, at least I've got the jitters out of my system." She mumbles before starting down the next dune, her feet taking the brunt of the heat from the sand grains. She tries not to focus on how skin doesn't deflect natural assaults like dragons scales do, and trudges forward. Castella gazes to Arcus's vanishing tail and mutters, "You should leave. No one ever said you're useful."

The insult helps a little, but it does nothing to block out the blistering heat or the full pain of the recent events. She finds herself sweating more than ever thought possible, and grabs the bottom of her dress, flapping the bottom to give her a bit of air. She gives out a little sigh and continues the dreadful stroll, over and down sand dunes for what seems like hours. 

It's only been three since Arcus left, but who is Castella to know? She guesses five hours as the sun starts its descent, and finds it getting cooler and cooler. She stops waving her dress around like a minimal flag, and pulls it tight against her as the temperature drops. Once the first star is out, she collapses in the sand, letting out a low moan. Her stomach growls for food and her tongue for water, but she ignores the requests. Castella goes to work on building a small trench, scooping the sand in her hands and tossing it only a couple feet away. The small load becomes a minuscule pile, and the small pile becomes a baby mountain. 

She finds a hint of satisfaction in this, and buries herself in the sand. The warm minerals heat her body as she gives out a little shiver of pleasure, a nice comfort in the many pains of the trip. As she puts her face against the sand so she can rest, she wonders where Arcus has gone. 

He could be anywhere by now. He's been flying for hours, she shrugs before letting herself drift to sleep, the harsh day allowing her to finally relax. But to sleep in the desert is almost as hard as trying to juggle while riding a unicycle for the first time. She dreams of nothing in the small amount of time she sleeps, and is awoken by the blinding sun and the already-hot surroundings. She wiggles out of her makeshift bed, gets to her feet and dusts off, all the while contemplating how far she is in the desert. 

The time seems to lapse into her thoughts, and she soon finds herself in the struggling position of going in an endless mind loop. She realizes she's asking herself the same questions, thinking the same thoughts, and finds the same ideas floating in her mind. 

"When will this end?!" She shouts as her throat dries up, the heat parching her mind and mouth. She tries to swallow, but her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, and she coughs raggedly, the dry desert heat draining her energy. She halts her process to suck in the desert air, and then curses the dryness. 

"How could one place be so awful?" She gasps before stumbling on, down the next dune. She attempts to swallow after travelling over a couple more dunes, but to no avail. She starts her new ritual of waving her dress around to get some air flow, and finds her arms tiring. 

"My whole body is tired. My legs, my arms, my stupid baking brain." Castella grumbles as she stumbles on, wishing anything would happen. Nothing happens for the first couple minutes, but when the minutes turn to the first hour, a dark cloud is building on the horizon. She welcomes the rain as she reaches it, but when the rain doesn't stick to her, she stops. She catches a drop in her mouth, and when she swallows, the rock hard grain of sand grates the sides of her throat. She inhales the dusty earth material before the beginning of a sandstorm starts pelting her skin. 

"You've got to be joking." She shakes her head before starting to scoop sand into a pile, attempting to get back into a burrow. She's halfway through creating the pile when the sand beats harder against her skin, and starts to sweep her pile into her hole.