I had that dream again; the dream where I was talking to that blond guy. It was more distorted this time around however. My outfit wasn’t clear, and my recollection of the dream wasn’t as vivid as the first time. Maybe eventually I won’t be able to remember the dream? I wonder what that will mean for me. Although, it’s funny to think about a dead man dreaming…. Can a dead man even dream? Am I actually in the afterlife? But then again, this desert and my arrival here would be weird if it wasn’t the afterlife. Or maybe…. I fell through a portal? To another world? My hands got wet at the thought, and this time it wasn’t the magic waters, but rather a nervous sweat.

I flung myself onto my back so that I was staring right at the cave ceiling. I’d fallen asleep last night after working on my humble cave abode for a few hours. There was that saying back home, “Nothing good happens after three AM,” I don’t know if it was actually three AM but I can guarantee that things got weird after a while.

I split the night between digging a hole, pulling out the rocks I had hoped to find, and playing around with the weird water coming out of my body. It turns out I can do a lot more than just pour out water from my palms. Alas, I reached a point where I just couldn’t continue anymore; I ran into what I assume was a weird side-effect from drinking my water.

Whenever I felt a hunger pang, I would drink my water. Whenever I felt tired, I would also drink my water. I had noticed that beyond quenching my thirst and being refreshing all around, the water also sated my hunger and gave me a lot of energy. So naturally, I kept drinking my water. Eventually I started feeling sleepy. The strange sleepiness was accompanied by a strange soreness throughout my body. At first, I thought the sleepiness and the soreness was a natural consequence of working hard through the night. Naturally, I drank my water when that set of feelings presented themselves, and then the feelings would dissipate. I kept that cycle going for another hour or so until I noticed what was really happening. Everytime the soreness and the sleepiness came back, they came back stronger until eventually it was hard to keep my eyes open and it was hard to move without grimacing. It was like the feelings were initially knocking on the door of my consciousness, but then they started breaking down the door after I shooed them away one too many times.

I eventually relented and just decided to let sleep take me. Even though in the end I was in throbbing pain, I fell asleep within moments of deciding to fall asleep. And now, as I was lying in the sand, I felt fine and without pain. I felt very refreshed even. I was ready to get up and start my day. I turned my head to each side to check on the contents of my cave. On one side was the hole I started digging; it was maybe six feet wide and three feet deep. On my other side was a pile of rocks that I had pulled out from the hole. I had stacked them in pyramid form such that the makeshift structure was three feet high. It was a fruitful and very productive night. I sat up to face the mouth of my cave, excited to get a good look at my surroundings, but what I saw, instead gave me a scare.

“Huh?”

I got up and walked to the mouth of my cave, my mouth still open. In front of me, outside of my cave there was nothing but sand dunes in the distance.

“Cactus?”

My voice came a bit weaker than it had previously. I rushed outside and circled my cave but there was no sight of my cactus. I fell onto my rump on the sand outside the mouth of my cave staring out into nothing.

“I can’t believe my cactus is gone. It abandoned me.” I swung my head back, to look at the roof of my cave,”I guess it wasn’t that this cave appeared, but rather that the cactus moved to where the cave was.”

It was, I felt, a rational thought. This cave wasn’t here first, the cactus was. What if the cactus moved after I fell asleep and brought me here, and then it continued moving?

“Did the cactus bring me to the cave on purpose? Did the cactus dump me?!”

As I blurted that out, I realized how lonely I was to have to be at the point where I felt betrayed by a sand sculpture of a cactus. I also realized how crazy it was to consider it possible, that a sand statue that resembled a cactus, could actually move and was moving to abandon me. But it’s the afterlife, who knows how things work here… Right?

“I was supposed to have to have finally taken the first step to the rest of my life but now look at me! I’m almost crying over a cactus dumping me at a cave.”

My frustrations were real but unfortunately I only had the wind to hear me out.

“Wasn’t even a real cactus. Barely looked like one.”

I knew I was being petty, but the betrayal pricked my heart. I swung my head back down and looked out in the distance. I couldn’t see well last night, but now that it seemed to be daytime, I could see well. As it turned out, I wasn’t in the flat desert area I started in. I was in a patch of relatively flat desert with sand dunes, some twelve to eighteen feet high surrounding me. The sight of the dunes led credence to the hypothesis that I had found a roaming cactus. Had my cactus been here, I would have been very surprised by the dunes and theorised they came in with the sandstorm, but I knew better, unfortunately. The cactus probably just ferried me to this area.

“I guess my only questions now are just wondering why it did what it did.”

Would I ever really know? Probably not. I’m not that lucky.

As I was looking out in the distance, wallowing in my ill fortunes, I saw something coming up over the dunes to my two o’clock. I couldn’t tell well due to the heat haze but it looked like three human heads had poked up over the top of the dunes. I immediately stood up in disbelief. They weren’t heading my way, so they probably didn't see me, but I got lucky that they were barely visible from where I was. I looked back to my cave, nodded at it, and ran towards the moving party of what I assumed were people. I didn’t think I would get lost, but still tried to be careful to head in a straight line. I was betting on not having to go too far to catch up to the moving party and also being able to spot the cave if I stood on a high dune. Unless the cave also moves, I should be safe to be able to find my way back.

I ran for a few minutes until I got to the base of a dune that I’d last seen their heads peek out from. I frantically scrambled up the dune, struggling against it’s slipperiness and bearing with the sand that was filling my shoes. I had to lower myself to all fours to try and climb the dune without slipping. I also tried wetting the sand with my magic water so that it would clump a little more and not just slip under my weight. Although that strategy didn’t seem to work as well as I thought it would, I was almost to the top after a few minutes of effort. I hoped that the party hadn’t gotten too far way.

I prepared myself to be able to yell at them. I had taken too long getting to the dune; I couldn’t afford to let them get away any further. Hopefully I wouldn’t freak them out too much if I just started yelling!

Right as I got to the top, I yelled out to get their attention, “Hey! Wait, please! Hold on!”

It wasn’t the fanciest call for attention but it would do; I really just needed them to stop until I could get into their line of sight.

I finally stood over top of the dune and looked for the party in the direction they were headed in and to my luck, I was able to see them at the bottom of the dune I was standing on. From where I was standing, it looked like they were darked skinned and were wearing very white robes. Maybe they were some kind of nomads or travellers? I found it strange that they weren’t wearing anything to protect their heads from the sun, that I assumed was somewhere in the sky, but that strangeness did not deter me; I was already carefully jogging down the hill. Thankfully, the party had stopped and seemed to turn towards me. Now I could take me time and not risk falling and rolling myself into a giant sand ball like in a cartoon.

As I got closer to the party, more details were piercing through the heat haze. It didn’t seem that they had yet turned towards me; at least I couldn’t make out any facial features, so I was probably still looking at the backs of their heads. Also, I’d noticed that the three had bad posture and were slumping. Finally I noticed there was something dangling from their wrists that looked like some kind of rope. It was dragging on the ground. This party was becoming more and more unsettling the closer I got to them.

I had been stealing peeks at the ground as I was descending to make sure I wouldn’t trip on some random rock. Right as I was becoming noticeably unsettled, I spotted a strange pattern on the ground. It seemed I had spotted the group’s trail.

My jog came to a walk as I was puzzled by the trail. There were no footprints, but instead I saw a trail you would expect to see from someone dragging a heavy rug across the sand. That was probably the main body’s trail, formed from the white robes of the party dragging along the sand. On either side of the main trail were two thin lines, most likely formed from whatever was draped from each one’s wrist. Naturally, there were three sets of this trail, one for each of the party members. I was still walking towards them, but I was too distracted by the weirdness of their trails. I even looked back to see if I was leaving footprints; I was.

Looking back, I saw how far I travelled from the top of the dune, which reminded me to look forward. I must have been very close to them by now!

I quickly snapped my head back with my salutations ready, “Hey guys, thanks for wai“- what I saw caused me to stop dead in my tracks.

It wasn’t dark skin; now that I had gotten closer I could see that their heads looked like they were a few minutes away from being charcoal, with even smoke rising out of them. With the sight of the smoke waking up my senses, I noticed the accompanying smell; it smelled like burning meat. I wasn’t sure these two things in front of me weren’t on fire right now -

“Wait, two?” As I vocalized my sudden surprise at noticing one of the party members was missing, I felt a weight on my left shoulder and turned to look -

“GROOOOAOOOOH!”

Smoke blew into my face from the mouth of the creature that was groaning at me. Its face was a dark craggy mahogany, with smoke escaping from various cracks. Its eyes were non-existent, instead having pitch black holes where its eyes should be. Its nose? Didn’t have one but instead had two holes where you would expect the nostrils to be on a person. It also didn’t have ears. The only feature that looked remotely fleshy was its mouth wide open except it had, what looked like strands on skin connecting the upper and lower lips in places that skin had no business connecting them. Its mouth looked like a person with no mouth, had torn open a mouth out of sheer desperation. And now that thing was holding onto my shoulder, if it wasn’t for the searing pain coming from said shoulder, I would have been staring in shock for longer.

Brought back to reality by the pain, I rose right palm towards the thing’s head and shot a blast of water right at it, from my palm. The blast came out hard enough that its recoiled back hissing, and the creature let go of me, also recoiling and contorting. The moment it let go I hopped back a few steps and look forward towards the other two again. Except they weren’t there.

My senses sharpened again; fear proving itself to be an excellent whet stone. I heard what I could only describe as the sound smoldering coal makes, the light cracking sound, coming from either side of me. In the moment, I knew I didn’t have time to waste checking around me. I closed my eyes for a second and imagined a pulse of water originating from me at the center, coming out from a line that I mentally drew around my torso. I imagined it from a top down perspective and imagined how far it would travel, four to six feet.

Like how it worked last night, directed by my visualization, I could feel the water blast out from me, displacing my shirt, and a second later could hear the sound of water being poured on fire, and a moment later, the inhuman blood curdling groans. Knowing I hit my mark, I jumped back a few more times so that I could see all three members of this nightmarish party.

“Good thing I played around with this water last night.” I said as I metaphorically pat myself on the back for encouraging my natural curiosity last night.

Last night, in between digging and pulling rocks out, I spent time testing this water that I had. What sparked my curiosity was when I found that I could change the temperature of my water. I wondered if I could do that much, what other properties could I influence. As it turned out, a lot. I could change the rate of the flow and the pressure, effectively changing how hard it could hit something. I also wasn’t just limited to my palms. It seems I could eject water from anywhere on my body. And when I say anywhere, I mean anywhere. If there’s skin, I can probably pour water out of it. The extent to which the properties were modified seemed so far limited only by mental image. As long as I could imagine the behavior I wanted to achieve, I could produce a similar phenomena. There were some things that I couldn’t do on the first attempt though, so there may be other limits I had yet to discover. But what did that matter now? For this problem, I had attack water as a defense tool and that was probably all I needed.

I put my right hand onto my hurt shoulder and poured out some frigid cold water over what I now came to recognize was a pretty serious burn. I didn’t take my eyes off the three who were now regaining their composure, but from feeling around I could tell that my shoulder had been burned raw and that my clothes had also burned away.

“Was that guy’s hand on fire?!”

I observed the three’s hands’ and noted that I couldn’t see anything that looked like fire on them. But it was true that the one monster was able to burn me badly so maybe it was just that the monsters had really hot hands.

By now, the three ahead had regained their composure and they seemed ready to keep hurting me. As I was keeping my eyes ahead in order to prevent losing track of them again and receiving an awful fright, I noticed that the one on the right was gradually swinging his arm back and forth, which reminded me of a small detail; they had something attached to their arms!

Now that I was close I could tell that the accessory was a white, about half an inch thick chain. And the way that thing was swinging only meant one thing; it’s going to try to hit me with it!

I quickly, again, hopped backward to get out of range while also keeping eyes on the three. I had expected that the monster was going to rush towards me swinging those chains around but no, it stood its ground and swung its arm horizontally after a quick wind-up. The chin followed the motion of the arm but shockingly, it seemed the chain had extended! The chain that was maybe, at best, three feet long had extended to cover way more than ten feet!

I was able to notice it in time, but I still fell on my butt, my eyes following the chain that flew above me; passing through the air my neck had just moments ago occupied.

Again, I felt a sudden fright as I realized I looked away from the monsters. I couldn’t hear them yet but in panic, I imagined a powerful stream of water coming out of my palms, and flailed my hands around me. It was chaotic but I was sure that I covered all directions; at the very least it would push them away.

I rushed myself back onto my feet after a few seconds of flailing and again hopped back, hopping onto the incline of a dune. It turned out I was right to flail, as two had again approached me quickly and were once again contorting. In that momentary reprieve, I noticed from the marks on the sand that the two were pushed away a couple of feet.

“Wait.”

My eyes squinted a bit as I noticed, the two trails that marked the two monsters being pushed away came out of nowhere. It looked like they just appeared next to me.

“Oh no.”

My eyes were wide open, not looking at any particular monster but instead looking in a space that was at the center of the shape the three formed, this time intently. I could not allow a single one of them to escape my field of vision!

It clicked when I saw the strange trail. I had thought that these things were just super eager to rush up to me and give me the spook, but I was wrong. These things were like creatures I once saw in a foreign sci-fi show. If I take my eyes off them, they’ll teleport all over the place. It may have been to soon to call the hypothesis a theory, but even if I was wrong, I was being careful. The worst that would come from taking this extra precaution was eyestrain.

We were now at a relative standstill, the two had stopped contorting and the other had stopped swinging his arm. Maybe I was out of his range, but that wasn’t the case for the other two…. How smart were they? If they tried to strike at me, it’d be trouble. I’d have to do the same actions, fall to the ground, blast water everywhere and then get up and repeat. Eventually I’d make a mistake, but these things weren’t moving.

I wasn’t sure why I waited so long, but it was clear this wasn’t a fruitful nor constructive meeting so I decided to seize the initiative. I stuck both my palms out, aimed roughly towards the two that tried to ambush me, and released two fierce streams of water. For this one, I had just imagined how the stream would travel and how it looked when it hit the monster and it worked! The streams hit their marks; the monsters’ head jerked back and I could hear their screams of anguish. I tried to track their movements, adjusting the positions of my hand as they wiggled around or were pushed back; it was hard but it was working. For the last one that was charging towards me, I imagined a stream of water coming out of my brow and aimed right at him by moving my neck a bit, at the same intensity as the others. He - or was it she? Okay you know what, doesn’t matter - it was being pushed back, screaming the same painful scream the other two were.

The tables had quickly turned and I had the advantage. I knew that these things would contort for a bit after blasting them so I decided to seize my opportunity here! I stopped the violent streams and ran straight towards the middle one, the one that charged towards me. As I approached it’s contorting body with its hands clutching its head, I opened my palm, aligned it towards it’s head and imagined a torrent that could shatter rock. I stopped my hand and by extension my body just short of the monster and let the blast come out from the entire surface of my palm. The water hit the head so hard that the head popped and flew off, slightly carried off by the stream of water. It didn’t exactly shatter, but that may have been due to me not having a vivid enough image. Still a win was a win in spite of how it came about.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Next I turned to deal with the one that was to my right, and to my surprise, caught it right as it was swinging it’s chain towards me. It was still in pain and clutching its head but it seems seeing its friend die jogged its survival instinct.

The chain flew out and extended much like the first time, but this time I didn’t duck; I was feeling brave. I lined up my palm and fired a stream of water that hit the chain and deflected it away from me. I lowered my palm and fired another shot square in the chest of the attacking monster, which pushed him back a bit. With that chain momentarily under control, I quickly turned to the one I had turned my back on; if the other had recovered enough to attack me it meant this one was probably ready to attack again as well. Sure enough, I caught him just as it was releasing its head. Seeing the head unprotected I knew I had to finish it. Was there a stream of water that could make a hole in its head? That could just pierce through it? In that moment I remembered a Saturday morning hero show I would watch. In that show there was once a villain that broke into an iron vault or something using highly pressurized, and thin streams of water.

I could see the image vividly and put it to practice. From my four finger tips, that were aimed at the monster, I released those thin, and what I imagined being, iron piercing streams. And this time, they worked! Like a body that just had it’s taken from it, the head kicked back violently from the streams hitting hit, and the body fell to the sands; nothing was left in the way of my needle like water water streams.

The rush of victory swung me back around to the remaining enemy and I rushed toward it. It was still clutching itself and unfortunately by the time it noticed, I was already too close, a foot away from its face, and with my fingertips aimed towards it from underneath either side of its face. It was over for this burning man, and with a wide smile I released my water needles so that they could launch into the sky, this creature’s head being the only obstacle in their path.

With multiple sounds of cracks, the creature’s head shattered and the body fell to the ground, the cloth falling as if there was never a body inside it.

“Whew, that was something.”

I let out my breath of relief, trying to calm myself down. I didn’t think I’d end up fighting smouldering nomads today. Incidentally, I decided to call these monsters I ran into, Smouldering Nomads on account of their head smouldering and them looking like they were travelling somewhere.

With my heartbeat returning to a healthy pace, I took stock of my situation. First, the remains, I crouched down and ran my hand into the cloth. It was strange, parts of the cloth had deteriorated and were still deteriorating as if they were fading away. I was literally seeing part of the cloth turning into little bits of light and fading away. Similarly some of the Smouldering Nomad’s head was also disappearing at a slightly faster rate.

“Is this how stuff in the afterlife decomposes?”

I was truly at a loss on how to characterize this phenomena. I kept watching the disappearing materials as parts of them faded, noticing that as time went by, the rate at which they were fading was reducing until it stopped. There was maybe a third of what was originally there left but it had definitely stopped fading. Or at the very least nothing noticeable had faded for the last few minutes.

“Oh. It’s kind of like a video game.”

In certain genres of video games after you killed a monster it would disappear leaving behind just a reward, or a drop. What you could do with the drops depended on the video game but the very presence of them was a common and expected system. Some video games implemented this system by having the player “loot” the dead body of what they downed before the game removed the dead enemy from the scene. They did this just to make it feel more immersive. In this case, this was less like the loot the body situation and more like the classic unrealistic drop system.

“Wow, who would have thought that video games would end up modeling a phenomena in the afterlife?” I looked around as if expecting that someone would answer.

“I sure didn’t.”

I gave up on the possibility of any wayward traveller somehow coming across me. With a sigh and a slouch over reminiscent of the smouldering nomads, I moped for a little bit before picking myself up again.

“I’ve got to continue my day!” I reinvigorated myself with my shout!

My next move was going to be to pick up the drops my enemies left behind. In video games, the drops were usually useful; maybe it was the same here! I’d say even in the real world, it was worthwhile to pick up the body of the prey you fell. Not saying I would eat the nomads, but it would be a waste to not see what uses the drops would have. Besides I don’t think I’d enjoy biting into what looked to be charcoal.

I began by picking up the drops of the last monster I destroyed. There were two main components, the white cloth that I thought covered the body and the hard craggy material the head was made of. Both materials had a strange feel to them; both were hot, but not hot enough that I couldn’t handle them. The head had left behind eight head shards, each of which could fit in my palm nicely. The cloth, while it did deteriorate to a smaller scrap, scrap was still intact with no big holes. I placed the shards on top of the center on the cloth and wrapped the cloth up into a small cloth bag.

“Well that worked nicely!”

I tested the cloth out to make sure the shards wouldn’t fall through somehow, and moved onto the second nomad I had felled. While walking over the few steps with the cloth in hand, I wondered about whether or not those things even had bodies under the cloth. The way the last one just fell rose some serious doubts in me. In the case that there weren’t any bodies under the robes, it meant that these things were like a bed sheet ghost with a hard head on top. Oh and chains, I almost forgot about the chains.

“Oh but what about the hands?”

I thought back to the sight of the one that had grabbed my shoulder. Now that I’m calm I recall that the hand was wrapped in the cloth except the cloth seemed more bandage like.

“What a weird thing to run into.” As I said that I heard an audible crack.

Looking down, I realized I got distracted and walked over the remains of the second enemy.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll pick you up properly now.”

I’m not sure why I apologised given that I was the one that killed this thing, but I put away the thought as I began picking up the drops. No one has ever gotten in trouble for being polite, I told myself.

For this monster we got another cloth roughly the same size, and five shards from the head. One shard was much bigger than the rest but the other four were roughly the same size as the first batch.

“This thing is pretty obviously different, at least as far as size is concerned.” I eyed the bigger shard intensely as I voiced my thoughts, “In a game, this thing would be classified as a different item from the other shards….. But maybe it would just classified as large shard instead of a small shard.”

I thought back to the few games I played and recalled that there were some drops where the only difference between them was how big the item was supposed to be. The size difference just meant you could maybe sell the larger variation for more in game currency or maybe it had a slight different use if you were crafting something. Regardless, I opened up my cloth bag and threw the shards into the middle.

“Oh what’s that?” As I was getting up after tying up my bag, I noticed something whiter than the sand and picked it up.

“Oh wow.”

What I had in my hand inspired a momentary excitement, it was the chain that the monster had on the wrist! It wasn’t as long as it was initially but here it was, the chain that could extend. The excitable child in me woke up again. This chain could extend so far when the monsters used it; I wondered if I could make it do the same.

“Hi-yaaa.” I whipped the chain in concert with my battle cry but - nothing. Nothing happened.

“Maybe I have to wind up?” I tried copying the Nomad’s motion and tried again but nothing.

“I guess it’s just a chain now.” I let go a sigh, and sulked a bit again, “I guess it unreasonable to think that I could do what a monster could.”

While the chain did lead to a disappointing conclusion, it was still a cool drop. Before going to the final nomad, I walked back to my first drop and spent a few minutes searching the sand. I wanted to ensure I wouldn’t miss another chain. The first one blended in so well with the sand that I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing out on precious materials. After a few minutes I relented and came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t dropped.

With that confirmation, I walked over to the third nomad. This one was going to be tough because this was the one whose head flew off to who knows where. At least, that was what I thought. All it took was looking a little bit away from the spot where the cloth had dropped. A little bit in the distance, maybe a half minute walk away there was a dark object sticking out of the sand. What was surprising in this case, as I discovered by the time I had reached it, was that the head was mostly intact; it was just missing a portion of the upper left head, along with the eye socket. So on observation I would say roughly a quarter of the original head was missing.

“Well this is cool and all, but I don’t think I’d be inviting any good omen if I carried this back with me as is.”

Speaking frankly, this thing was ghastly. It looked like its face froze and got stuck in its scream of anguish. If I woke up in the middle of the night and this thing was the first thing I saw I would die of a fright-induced heart attack.

“Yeah - nope.”I voiced my utter reluctance towards this thing.

Now, I wasn’t going to just leave this here. That would be a waste, and I wasn’t about to waste resources that I had yet to study. Instead I used five water needles from my fingertips to break through the head and shatter it. And shatter it did! I was quickly coming to love the high pressure, thin variation of water I could eject. Interestingly, after shattering, I only spotted a few points of light fading away. It seemed that the materials were still prone to fading if you were rough with them. I looked back to all my materials and made a mental note that these all might have a limited lifespan and might just disappear on me eventually. I had to make this note in order to ensure that I wouldn’t become attached to these materials much like I had done with the traitorous sand sculpture that barely resembled a cactus.

After a few moments of searching in the sand, I was done here. I picked up all the drops I could find; the final monster dropping another cloth of roughly the same size, and after my shattering, nine head shards of roughly the same size as the ones in the first batch. No chains on this one either though. So all in all, here was my loot from this battle:

* 21 head shards

* 1 large head shard

* 3 scraps of the hot white cloth, now to be known as Nomad Cloth

* 1 section of white chain roughly one and a half feet long

Looking at my spoils of war, I could see that the chain was probably an uncommon drop and the head shards and the cloth were probably the guaranteed drop, with there being some size variance when it came to the head shards.

With a bag full of drops and a lonely heart, I started to make my way back, heading towards the dune I came from, my fresh footprints pointing the way to my humble abode.

As I was hiking up the loose incline and bearing with the hot sand filling my shoes, the adrenaline rush I was feeling was dying down. The more it came down, the more my rational faculties returned. I started wondering about what had happened and started reflecting.

I had acted in response to hostility, my fear and survival instinct guiding me, but that was pretty crazy; I killed something! Multiple times! And now I had their remains in a bag made from more of their remains! I had trivialized it as something that happens in games in the heat of the moment, but thinking about it, it was pretty messed up! Right? I stop my climb momentarily to look back at the sight of the battlefield. The sands looked undisturbed, as if nothing had taken place there. If it wasn’t for the heavy bag clutched in my palm, I would have thought I just had a heat induced hallucination or something like that.

I continued walking up the dune; thoughts still drifting through my consciousness like leaves floating along a gentle stream. The weight of my actions now being felt, I sunk a little deeper into contemplation and unearthed a scary thought.

“Am I going to turn into them?”

The thought just occurred to me; what if they were initially people like me that just became that after being out in the sun too long? If this was a horror movie, that would be the kind of plot twist you could expect right at the end. If that was the case though, it meant I just finished off humans who had the misfortune of losing to the desert; being warped into groaning monsters as penalty.

I shook my head loose of the thought as I approached the top of the dune. While that was most likely the scariest possibility it was also possible that those things were just the natural inhabitants of the afterlife - or whatever life this world is. In that case the smouldering nomads were essentially just like ugly fish in an ocean. Was it really that bad to down them if they threatened me? That was just self defence.

“It would have been nice if they didn’t look so human though.”

I could now see my cave, from atop of the dune; it wasn’t that far at all. I remember thinking how I was scared that I’d lose my way and wouldn’t be able to find it again. In retrospect, it was a silly worry. Of course I hadn’t found someone; this place wasn’t going to be that easy.

As I stood atop of the dune, getting the full view of my temporary home, I dragged my hand onto my hurt, left shoulder. The skin there, while it wasn’t burning or hurting didn’t feel smooth anymore. It was definitely damaged. I tried to see if I could see it from the corner of my eye but the best I could make out was that it was discolored to a slightly darker, slightly redder skin tone. Spurred on by the sight, I ran my fingers up my neck to the left side of my face and felt the skin that had been burned by the sand the other night. It wasn’t the same feel as my shoulder, but it was definitely damaged. It seemed that while the water had strong regenerative properties, strong enough to stop the pain of a burn, it wasn’t good at restoring things to what they once were. I could only wonder how I looked now, after my magic-water-assisted makeover. I wondered if I would scare anyone I knew if they saw me again.

I took one look around at the vast expanse. Made sure to do a full rotation around since this dune was pretty high up. In the distance, it looked like there were walls of sand, most likely sandstorms, so I couldn’t see all the way to the horizon proper. But aside from that, there were just more dunes of various heights. One thing I could be certain of was that this landscape was not as flat as the first desert landscape I jogged across. And of course, the sky was still the weird swirling blues of various shades, one thing I could note though was that the boundaries of the different shades didn’t seem as sharp as they did initially. Instead they seemed like they blended together a bit better.

Having taken stock of my environment, I walked down the dune in silence. My walk from dune to cave had but one interruption. That being, that I bumped my toe against a random rock. Well, it wasn’t actually a random rock, it was actually the rock that I dropped the night before. At the time, I dropped it because I wanted to mark where I used the bathroom because of course, who wants to step on their own mess inadvertently? What was supposed to be a convenient little signpost to avoid an accident was now the thing that blew a hole in the dam holding back my tears. I had fallen to the ground, and all my stress and worries poured out into the hot, uncaring, sand. I wept, and wept and wept. The shock of downing things that were human-like, the fear of what would become of me, the realization that I was somewhere that didn’t make sense, and that the cactus did in fact abandon me here.

“Why did you leave me?! Was I that terrible?!”

It’s always the little things that get you when you least expect it. For some, it’s missing out on the discount day at the market, for me, it was the reality that I was dumped in a cave by a sand sculpture of a cactus. Maybe my mind had conveniently forgotten that I made a mark in the otherwise nondescript desert to protect me from this realization.

It took me a while to collect myself, but I eventually did, and returned to my abode. I dropped my stuff in a corner of the cave and fell to my soft sand pile.

“Maybe I should make a pool.” My face was turned towards the hole I’d started working on the night before, the sight of which sparked the thought. It was originally just a hole I was going to pull rocks out of, but now that I was all hot and sweaty and generally uncomfortable, I saw the appeal of a nice cool pool.

“Then again, if I want to cool down, I could probably just throw water over myself with my power. Oh. My power...”

It was the first time I’d referred to the water coming out of me as a power; my power. Maybe it just came to me because I had videogames on the mind. Strangely though, it felt right to refer to it as such. Almost nostalgic.

“Still, what should I do?”

I was once again at an impasse of indecision. My plan was to make furniture out of clay or anything sound that I could find, but truth be told, I didn’t know how well that would pan out. I’ve never even worked with clay. Was it like putty you could deform and make into various shapes? I wasn’t too sure.

The night before I had been so fired up, and now I was so down; the gradual devolution was not lost on me. But maybe because I was aware of the fall I could pick myself up.

“I can’t let down the me from yesterday.”

I remembered how excited I was, as if I was another person that I couldn’t see how to emulate.

“I was going to give this a go. Properly. And face challenges head on.”

I felt that I was slowly gaining back energy as I echoed my sentiments from the night before. Putting my feelings into words, lifted me up enough that I was sitting back up looking around my cave.

“I didn’t think I was so easy to break, but I guess dying and struggling brings out the weak points.”

I had gotten so used to admonishing myself that I just had to make that observation out loud. I could only imagine how much of a pain I would be to a survival partner if I had one.

With a little levity in my heart, I started moving again. It was time to be productive! I picked up the spoils I’d tossed into a corner and brought them over to my rock pile. A pool would be nice, but I had a feeling it would be a longer project that I could probably afford to delay in favor of more important tasks.

I sat down in front of my pile and tried to think soundly and rationally, “Okay, what is the most effective thing I could do right now?”

I felt that asking myself questions had been a good way for me to organize my thoughts, and right now was a time where I wanted to make sure I acted appropriately.

“I have water, and that water also deals with the hunger problem, so I can cross of those two neccessities.”

True enough, even if I was missing the feeling of food, the magical palm water had so far been enough to quell hunger pangs without any serious compromises to my performance. Why I would even say I was able to be more physically active than usual!

“So, if I have that under control, what else do I need to do?”I looked at the rocks in front of me searching for an answer.

“I could go back to the furniture plan, and amend it to also include fashioning rocks into tools AND furniture. Not sure what furniture I could make though.”

I turned to look outside to the wide desert and then it hit me like a piece of sand wondering into my sensitive eye, “I need a wall.”

Walls are not always the best solution, but I need to keep out those nomads. The worst thing that could happen is that more of those guys come across me in the dead of night and cook up a Todd-barbeque. If I was lucky, the three I destroyed would be the only ones of their kind, but monsters in video games are in infinite supply. If this place is similar to a video game, I should be prepared for the worst features video games offer.

“Do I even have enough rocks to block up the entrance? Should I block up the entire entrance even?”

I looked back between my rock pile and the mouth of my cave multiple times. After a bit of thinking, I came to a solution. Blocking the entirety of the mouth might be dangerous. I really just need to block enough such that I can hide behind the wall and not be totally exposed, could someone get in? Yeah but at least no one would see me and just come in. I was essentially just reducing the odds. Leaving an opening was also beneficial in case I made a fire. I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a cave with a fire and no circulation.

“This is a really wide mouth though.”

I was looking at the entrance, reminding myself of just how wide it was.

“I don’t have anywhere near enough rock to even block out half of this.”

I was coming face to face with mathematical reality. I thought a bit and considered modifying my plans after looking at my sand pile.

“I could use the sand instead.”

If my problem was that I didn’t want someone from outside to see me while I was sleeping, then what I could do was that I could work on making a maybe two feet high sand barrier. I could go to sleep behind the barrier and things wouldn’t be able to see me from a distance.

“Oh but what if I need a fire?”

If my problem was that I didn’t want someone from outside to see me while I was sleeping, then I was in trouble the moment I had a fire going to stop the cold from getting me.

“Dang it! There’s pros and cons to every choice it seems. Then again…. I don’t really have anything to make a fire with.”

I realized I could just ignore the problem for now given that I didn’t have the means to create the cause of the eventual problem.

“Great! Sounds like a plan! Now to create my little hide-away sand barrier!”

My idea was simple, I would get some of the rocks, stick them into the sand, a few feet away from the back of the cave, and then using the sand I already dug up, pile sand around them. This way I had a nice sand mound that I could tuck myself behind. If anyone was passing by, they’d only see a cave with sand inside.

My little project didn’t take too long, and by roughly an hour I was standing over it, evaluating it, “Was this a waste of time?”

Now that it was done I started questioning how much of a difference this thing was going to make. My cave already stands out a lot, wouldn’t that by itself attract something to it? Out of sheer curiosity? Then again, nobody was at the cave when I got here. Maybe caves aren’t that valuable. Or maybe, there just aren’t that many other beings walking the desert. Maybe I got really unlucky running into those nomads?

“Hmm, if the monsters attack humans on sight, then hiding behind a boundary is a good idea.” I realized I was getting distracted by all the questions, and so convinced myself that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Regardless of whether it was beneficial or not, I now had a long sand mound some two feet high that I could sleep behind.

“Progress! Do-dee-do” I sang a small jingle one could expect after accomplishing something in a video game. Even if it was useless, it did feel nice having something done. Besides, if someone were to see this from far, they would think it was just a regular sand pile, so it wasn’t like I was giving myself away.

I thought that, cocked my head to the side, and then quickly ran out of the cave and looked back towards it.

“Yeah that definitely just looks like a random cave. With totally normal looking sand.”

I had to make sure that I was correct in my assumption; it would be a tragedy if I made something that stood out.

“So what now?”

I was back inside my cave deciding what to do; a familiar state for me now. Taking stock, I still had the hole I was digging, the excess sand from said hole, and some of the rocks I pulled from the hole. I probably only used maybe one sixth of the amount I had. I also had my drops that I hadn’t yet experimented with.

Having to think about my next move was some taxing work, so much so that it was making me thirsty. Naturally I fired a small stream of water into my mouth from my finger, like any Todd would. That tiny squirt of water though, despite its size, inspired in me a grand idea! Oh it also quenched my thirst but that could go without mentioning.

“I should go play with my water.”

I made my bold declaration while making the pose of someone who clearly though he had an ‘aha moment’.

“Yes, hear me out cave. It would only be responsible for me, to pla- I mean experiment with my water power,” I spoke out to the cave, much like I would a skeptical parent, “If I hadn’t been taking breaks to test my water power last night, I would not know all the tricks that ultimately saved me in my hair raising fight with the smoldering nomads.”

I pled my case to the cave that sheltered me, the only thing that could judge my actions for miles. As least as far as my socialization deprived mind was concerned. But I did feel I had a point. Last night I took breaks to play and now I had just finished a task. It only made sense to take a break now to play with my water. That way I could also maintain the pattern that I had established the night before.

“Work then pla- I mean, rigorous scientific experimentation makes Todd a well adjusted boy!”

I heard myself there, and for a moment wondered if I was losing my grip again.