Running and yelling were all Grace could remember. She was working at the New York, New York Casino. She was a front desk clerk. She had started her workday, an early shift starting in the morning until mid-afternoon. Dale, the Front Desk Manager, was walking behind her. Last night, he had given her a stern lecture about flirting with the tourists who flock to Las Vegas.

He had said, "Grace, be careful. I know you are young, in your mid-twenties. But for God’s sake don't pretend to be friends with these people. They don't care about you. They want to gamble and win big. You are here only to help them spend that money." He gestured to the many cameras pointed upwards. "We are also watching. I want you to understand we are also watching."

"Yes, sir. I was being nice," Grace said.

She had been a front desk clerk for over five years and had worked at many of the other casinos. Dale nodded to her as he passed. There were several people standing in line ready to check into the hotel. She saw the regulars, locals who lived around Las Vegas, roaming inside the front of the casino. She could tell they were locals. They looked sad and forlorn with a hungry look in their eyes.

Grace was passing out a new set of pass card keys to the tourist in front of her. The other front desk clerk to her right was checking in another guest.

The first sign that something was wrong was the sound. It was not a rumbling but more of a swooshing sound. People ran inside from the front sliding doors and somebody screamed. Grace stood poised with a card in her hand.

The man in front of her turned around. His credit card was in his meaty thick hand, ready to give to her. He made a huffing noise like the sound of a dog panting. Dale walked to the front entrance as people ran past him, glancing back. Grace, for some reason, remembered seeing a small girl with her dad holding her hand. He yelled something Grace could not understand until it was too late.

He yelled, "The sand, the sand."

Dale got to the front of the double glass doors. Grace was about to grab the man's credit card when all hell broke loose. Dale turned from the front entrance and said, "Run!"

The loud sound of wind whined in Grace's ears. It was so loud that she covered her ears. Then the doors exploded inward. Sand flew inside the interior of the casino with a windso powerful, it picked up the slot machines on the casino floor and pushed them like leaves in an autumn breeze. Grace fell backwards and hit a wall behind her. The front desk covered her for a brief second until the world turned tan and sand filled her nostrils and mouth. She tried to scream but sand filled her throat.

Darkness encroached her sight. Grace was dying. She tried to move and stand but her body felt like lead.

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Sand and dirt started to fill the small space she was in. She pushed upwards but the sand made her fall back. And all this happened in the space of maybe ten seconds.

She recalled the time long ago, when she was a little girl playing in a playground at her elementary school. She was digging a hole with a blue plastic shovel and placing it into her red bucket. It was recess time and she was sitting with her best friend, Melody. They were in the corner away from the other kids in her class, talking about the new boy who had come that day. His name was Matthew, and Melody thought he was cute with his sandy blond hair.

Grace said, "That’s gross. You shouldn’t like boys. They touch worms and pick up insects."

Melody said, "But this Matthew has a cute smile."

Grace looked over and saw Matthew standing by himself, looking shyly at the swings a few feet away from them. Grace thought Matthew was cute in a quiet sort of way, as though he would like books and such instead of running around playing ball with the other boys.

She must have kept staring at the new kid, because Matthew noticed her looking at him and he quickly turned away.

"Grace," Melody said, "stop that."

"What?"

She found herself placing the sand, not in her bucket, but at the side. She was essentially picking up sand and placing it to the side of the bucket, making a small pile.

"Why do you do like digging? It’s a small kids game."

"I like it," Grace said. But she didn't tell Melody why she liked digging. She liked the smell of the earth and dirt.

***

Grace awoke trapped in a pile of dirt, with sand and debris flowing on top of her. The heady smell of earth came to her and she breathed it in with relish. Part of her mind knew she was dying, but she felt elated. She felt something else, too. Her right index finger started to get warm and then she remembered the gift she’d found in front of her apartment. She thought it was a gift. She had found a package at her doorstep and inside the box filled with white popcorn packing was a small velvet box. Inside that was a silver ring with bits of black stone embedded around it.

She was surprised the ring fit so well and she decided to keep it. Now, her finger hurt with warm pain. The feeling started to spread through her body. The roaring sound of the sand storm filtered all around her, making her think and feel she was trapped inside a living earth tomb and that she was going to be the next Cleopatra. She actually smiled and sensed something had changed. She was inside an invisible barrier and saw herself being lifted away from her entrapment. Before she got get a good glimpse of the inside of the casino, she was thrust upwards in a violent jolt that erupted through the ceiling, breaking through the steel beams, girders and then the rooftop. It was so fast everything around her blurred as if she was on a roller coaster back in Magic Mountain, flying through the air. The air flowed around her and she saw the ring on her right finger glowing an intense brown and coal black.

All around her the sandstorm raged, banging against the invisible barrier surrounding her. She had never felt so deathly scared and exhilarated at once. The heat of her body was pulsating with the glowing of the ring and it made her gasp. She couldn't fathom what was happening to her. She thrust her hands out before her and saw that the sand storm around her reacted to her movement. Sand started to gather around her palms as if it was magnetized. She clenched her right hand. A plume of debris and sand developed out of her small shelter. She lifted both of her hands above her and a line of dirt flowed upwards into the heavens. She was laughing.