There was nothing around him but coarse, abrasive grains of hot torture. What the young man yearned for was rain. He glared at the bright blue sky as if to will it into being.

"Red!" The boisterous voice landed across the sand to the young man staring at incalculable blue. That was his name now, and if he didn't respond, there would be no supper tonight.

The sentiment in Red's face was replaced with vacant eyes and an emotionless expression. He had long learned to hide his desires from his captors.

A figure trotted up to Red; it was the enormous kiss ass of the captive workers. While most men maintained their pride and dignity in times of adversity, this fellow was the first to cave and bend over for his masters. Red had no ill will toward Shulga, but he didn't like to be around the other man any more than he could help it.

Shulga was the mouthpiece of their supposed betters and a top-notch squealer. The man always kept his fingers in everybody's business. As such, little happened around their camp that Shulga didn't know. If the information was juicy enough for rewards, Shulga never hesitated to feed it directly into the mouths of their slavers.

Even now, Shulga looked like a shifty-eyed rat, ready to squeal and earn crumbs for his labor. The drab, flimsy clothing Shulga wore was better than the rest of the enslaved captives. The glaring man even had a warped copper pin to showcase his pet-like status.

Shulga's light brown eyes looked down on Red and the work the man had accomplished thus far. Red said nothing as he looked away. He didn't maintain eye contact and kept his gaze low and to the ground. Shugla was notorious for becoming dispiteous when he suspected any disrespect from his fellow slaves.

Shulga opened his mouth and attempted to pass on Red's new instructions. The thick accent of the man was almost indecipherable as broken Habrinon. In any other situation, it may have brought a smile to Red. It produced a twisted delight within the man. There was nothing he hated more than the Habrin empire. The butchering of their elegant tongue sounded like a perfect melody in his ears.

The man hadn't found much to smile about since he was sold to the Tyrin nomads. Red never thought much of the nomads before that fateful day. All he knew was that they were blueleeches who never stopped sucking up to the dwindling Habrin Empire.

The group of nomads even changed their name from Tyr to Tyrin. The cucks needed to understand that anything the Habrins vowed would be ultimately broken. They would have conquered the world in their thirst for supremacy if they hadn't been cursed. There were times Red suspected that the Tryin nomads were eating away at the carcass of Habrin in hopes of taking it over. Habrin wouldn't go down that easily, though; not even the curse from a God fully crippled them.

"Do you understand?" Sulga said, all but stomping his foot in the hot sand with impatience.

In times like this, it was best to nod and trot off. Red did so off to his new workstation.

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The sand went from scorching copper to a tawny landscape dotted like pottery.

Red fought the spark of ire that wanted to rise within his gut. He could hear Shulga's laughter from behind him as he attempted to dodge the blue spots on the sand.

He was sent into the blueleech infested area. Blueleeches weren't actual leeches but eggs that attached themselves to anything warm-blooded. Blueleeches were nearly impossible to detach after they touched your skin. These eggs were used to soak up the heat of the desert and could incubate for years until they found blood to suckle.

Red hid his grim smile at the situation he was faced with. He knew that the reaction Shulga and anyone who might stop to look over at him expected.

If you contract blueleeches, it's a death sentence. They were one of many creatures crafted from the curse that broke the Habrin Empire. There was no painless cure for monsters such as this.

Red had no reason to fear them but didn't let that on as he hopped and jumped through the infested area to get to his new workplace.

He could hear the tsking Shulga at the lack of reaction and Red's inevitable escape from death.

Red looked at the sand, and he was now expected to excavate. There was only one thing anyone would dig for in the middle of the Ela Desert: God's Dust. That was, after all, what could bring back magic in the blood of the Habrin people. They snorted it like a drug for a few hits of power that should have never been theirs to begin with.

Red wasn't surprised he was sent into this area where no one else had succeeded. He was the most hated among the slaves because he never brought a single speck of God's Dust back from his digs.

The Tyrin Nomads first suspected him of cheating them, but no matter how often he was observed and hovered over, it never appeared for him. Someone could jump into his hole and dig for a handful of heartbeats and be able to find God's Dust.

He was thus deemed undesirable by the slavers. His new job was to go ahead into the most dangerous areas to clear them of danger. Others then used the work he put into clearing areas to go in and find God's Dust.

He was a hero to his fellow slaves for making things safer and being the target of their captors. One of his enslaved brethren always managed to sneak some extra food during mealtime in thanks. Red knew the hard truth; they only did so, hoping he would keep up his vitality and continue to take the most challenging work on by himself.

Red didn't care about any of that. He loved the simplicity of being granted moments of peace and introspection alone in the sand. The deeper he went by himself, the more freedom Red had to relax.

That freedom, for once, brought a happenchance that Red would later come to know as a miracle.

It took the man only a short time to clear the blueleech traps but he stretched out his time so that no one else would know. He was far away enough from the camp that no one could directly spot this indiscretion.

Red would have left long ago if he hadn't been bound to one of the slavers. He took his chance to take another crack at the spellwork.

Red held his arm to the sky, studying the magic seal engraved on his flesh. He would free himself one day. When he did, Red would ruin the Tyrin nomads and continue his work to finish the Habrin Empire.

A flash of silver cut through the sun's heat, and Red had to shut his eyes to protect them. A thump as something landed ahead of him drew Red to that spot.

A woman appeared. She was lithe and pale as the moon. She lay cloaked in sand as if her thin skin couldn't feel the firey grains. Her silvery hair nearly blinded Red as he stared down at her. Her chest moved slowly but steadily so she wasn't dead.

Red narrowed his eyes as he picked up his shovel. The best thing to do in this situation was to cut off her head. The Tyrin Nomads would capture this humanoid creature. She would then fall into a more bottomless pit of the abyss as all pleasure turned to ash.

A clean death was the best gift he could grant her before she became tainted and warped.

The sharpened metal of his shovel barely graced the woman's throat when her eyes opened.