Lefty drifted all the way back to his little desert house before he realized something was wrong. He was sitting on the edge of his hammock, casually brushing sand from the bottom of his pant-leg when it suddenly struck him..
The realization had taken longer than last time. His real world desire to rest had followed him here, to the empty town he used to call home. He had almost forgotten about his goals. He had almost spent the entire night relaxing, simply enjoying the life he had built for himself… but that was not to be.
It was the coarse feeling of sand on his hands that reminded him. It used to be so familiar. Back in Ash-Tab not a day went by when he didn’t have to brush it from his clothing or hair. But now he had spent so much time away from the desert that the sensation of sand felt strange and surreal to him. These days it was something he only felt… when he was dreaming.
He stood up at once… and as soon as he did the ground quaked beneath his feet. There was a rumble, his home creaking and groaning as if it was about to fall apart. Calm. He had to remain calm or the dream would collapse. Perhaps it was a good thing he went to bed so utterly exhausted; that jolt might have awakened him otherwise.
Instead he took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts, convincing himself that he really was back in Ash-Tab… while also keeping his real goal in the forefront of his mind. It was a tricky bit of mental gymnastics, but Lefty was becoming quite the gymnast. Once the world had calmed and his dream was in-focus he left his former home; walking briskly towards the shed which sat outside the consuls' residence.
It had been many months since the night on the road to the Master Dam; when he had discovered the unopened door and then been interrupted before he could reveal its mysteries. A lot had distracted him since then, but the allure of the door and the hope that it contained his workshop had lingered in the back of his mind. It teased him on those quiet nights at the God Dam, when he lay awake in bed; too consumed by the day’s excitement to sleep. And it gnawed at him when he was out practicing out in the lake, his mind free to wander while his body went through the motions. All that time had passed, and yet the questions never left him alone, stalking him from a distance like some patient predator. Had he lost his only chance? Did he even have a chance to begin with? Perhaps the door contained nothing. Perhaps it was just a simple storage shed. If he knew for certain he could accept it, but not knowing made his chest feel like an endless pit. He had to know.
Lefty sped up, walking quickly across the empty town. He knew there could be no hesitation this time, no deep breath or moment of contemplation. He would find out what was behind those doors, and he would do it now.
He began jogging as the shed came into view, then running. He dashed to the big double doors so quickly that he collided with them, his shoulder slamming against the sturdy wood with a loud thunk that echoed across the empty town. And then in the same motion he grabbed a handle in each hand and bounced back, throwing open the doors in a single grand gesture.
Sand was all that greeted him.
The doorway was completely filled with sand. The grainy golden substance stretched from wall to wall; packed so densely that it formed a solid flat surface, which stood unyielding as the doors opened.
Lefty was breathless. And not just because he didn't need to breathe in his dreams.
Finally… here was something surreal; a sight worthy of being in a dream. He had heard that dreams were supposed to be fantastical, that they contained situations which didn't exist in the waking world. Up until now, he had never experienced that. His dreams had always been a flawless recreation of the life he knew, minus the people in it. Now, he was really dreaming. He didn't know if this was connected to his workshop, or if it meant anything at all for that matter, but at that moment he didn't care. All that mattered was that he had found something new, something worth exploring, and his natural curiosity took over.
Slowly, he reached out and pushed his fingers into the wall in front of him. He found that the surface was unbelievably dense. Its texture resembled wet sand, despite the fact that it looked and felt completely dry. He clenched his fingers, trying to dig as deep as he could, but was unable to get more than his fingertips in. Withdrawing, he pulled a small clump from the surface and looked at it. As he felt it transform in his hand his head tilted in curiocity. The thick particles grew light and powdery as they were removed from the wall, most of them drifting off like dust in the wind. The wall itself failed to react to the loss in any way, standing as sturdy as ever.
Lefty stared at the weird sand crumbling between his fingers for nearly a moment, before opening his hand to let it drop to the ground. The dusty powder never made it there, seeming to disintegrate as it fell through the air, fading away like it had never existed at all.
Looking back up at the wall, he reached forward with his other hand, and clawed another clump of sand from it, discarding it to the ground just as he had with the first... except faster. This was followed by another handful, and then another. The young man alternated hands as he began to dig at the wall in front of him, speeding up with each swipe as he tested the limits of the unnatural substance, wondering if perhaps there was something hidden behind it.
For several minutes all he did was claw at the sand wall, digging in determined silence until he had carved a divot roughly the size of his torso from its surface; at which point, he realized the utter futility of his endeavors. The sand remained densely packed no matter how much he removed. The portions near the top of the door defied gravity, completely disregarding the progress he had made below it. He still wanted to get through the sand, but digging with his hands was far, far too slow... he would need a shovel!
…He had run about half way back to his house before he realized his shovel wouldn't be there.
He came to a stop and turned. Off in the distance, he could just barely make out the hazy form of the Grungle Mountains. They were the only landmark visible from Ash-Tab, the only thing that broke up the flat monotony of the desert skyline. That’s what he headed towards when he left all those months ago… and he had brought his shovel with him.
The memories walked through his mind like a friendly neighbor, reminding him of all he had done. He had used his shovel to fight three chefs on the night he met Ol Blu… and then the next day he had tossed it off the side of the mountain, hurling it from the beast's lair at the top of the Food Tabernacle. That’s where it would be. Everything else in this dream was just where he had left it in the waking world. And as he stood staring into the distance, he knew deep down that this would be no exception. If he wanted his trusty shovel, he'd have to go back to the tabernacle and get it!
So he decided not to use his own shovel.
That would be way too long a journey to make, especially considering that literally everyone in town mined sand. Surely one of the abandoned houses nearby had a shovel he could take, and that would work just as fine. After all, there was nothing inherently special about his shovel… it was just a normal shovel.
Besides… there was something eerie about the mountains. While his dreams hadn't yet created any people or creatures, he got this sinking feeling that he was being watched whenever he looked towards The Food Tabernacle. Something was up there. Waiting for him. He could feel it staring at him. And the sensation was equal parts fear… and guilt… as if he had stolen something from the mountain and now it was glaring angrily in his direction, promising revenge if he ever returned. Lefty couldn’t explain it, but he felt like he had a debt to pay. Sins to account for. He had the creeping suspicion that if he returned there in his dreams, something he had avoided in real life would be waiting for him...
As if to answer his fear, a faint sound suddenly echoed out in the distance. It was barely audible, but very distinctive. A deep, metallic, furious… “cluck”.
Nope.
Lefty shuddered, and turned around, trying to ignore the mountains and their implications as he hurried back towards the sandy shed.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Along the way he barged into one of his former neighbor's houses and took a shovel. It would do just fine.
When he returned to the shack, Lefty found, to both his amazement and annoyance, that the wall of sand had repaired itself in his absence. Once more it was smooth and flat, showing no sign that he had ever dug into with his hands. He grimaced. It was worrying to know that his efforts might be undone so quickly. Not that he had made much progress, but still. He would need to move fast. Maybe the sand hid his workshop… maybe it didn't. But there was only one way to find out. Grabbing the shovel with both hands he stepped up, and began to mine sand.
Even though it had been many months since Lefty had done this, the act of digging came back to him instantly. After all, he had been shoveling for most of his life, and he was actually very good at it. He hadn’t realized he was good at it, but that was only because he never had any incentive to dig with speed or enthusiasm. Now that a wall of sand was the only thing standing between him and something he wanted though, Lefty shoveled with a zeal that was unmatched.
Before long he was standing in a tunnel, surrounded by stubborn walls of sand that continued to ignore gravity regardless of how voraciously he dug. Had he been paying attention, Lefty might have realized that his tunnel was far longer than the shack itself, that he should have exited the other side already… but he was too busy to look back. He just kept swiping away at the sand in front of him, working with a single-minded determination, not realizing the utter strangeness of his situation until it took another step into the surreal.
He had been digging down at his feet for quite some time before he noticed something was wrong. Finally the flurry of digging stopped, and he took stock of his situation. He was standing in a pit now, surrounded on all sides by towering walls of sand. He spun around in confusion, first one way, and then the other, looking for the exit and finding none. He was certain he had been digging straight forward this whole time, carving out a horizontal tunnel, and yet here he was, standing at the bottom of a hole. It wasn't until he decided to look up that he realized what had happened.
Above him the tunnel he had dug stretched for nearly forty hands, now a straight vertical shaft that ended in a small rectangular opening. Though it was far away now, he could just barely make out the street he had been standing on and the building that lay across it, both of which were oriented at right angles to how he now stood.
The sight staggered Lefty, the young man leaning against the wall for support as he was struck with a sudden sense of vertigo. For a few seconds he was intensely dizzy, his mind trying to make sense of where up and down was in relation to his body, before realizing it was useless. Shaking his head, he turned his eyes back to his feet, to the area he had to believe was the ground… and began shoveling even more furiously than before.
He didn't know what was going on anymore. He had grown so invested in the digging that he had forgotten he was dreaming and lost sight of his goal. All he knew was that he was in a deep hole and something was wrong. The supernatural sight had filled him with anxiety, and though the excitement of discovery may have been a good motivator before, fear proved to be an even better one.
He dug like a trapped animal, consumed by a primal desire to simply get out. His strikes became frantic and furious, each one hoping to find something but running into nothing but more sand. On and on it went, the pit growing deeper and deeper, until the light from above started to fade. By now the doorway had shrunk into a tiny distant speck, and the walls were barely visible. As the tunnel dimmed into darkness Lefty began to dig even more erratically, his tunnel becoming narrower as he went down, the walls seeming to close in on him as he focused less on making a wide space and more on just digging for his life.
The dream had become a nightmare. His rapidly beating heart pounded in his head. He couldn’t see. He could barely breathe. And all he could think about was digging. Just keep going deeper. It’s the only way out. The only way to escape. Dig. Dig. Dig!
And then all at once… the floor gave way.
Lefty's shovel traveled completely through the sand he was standing on and the inertia sent him face first into the abyss. As the floor crumbled beneath his feet a bright light filled his vision. He was blinded. And falling. Tumbling through the open air for what seemed like far too long. And then suddenly he hit the ground, landing flat on his back in a surprisingly soft pile of sand.
For a moment he simply lay there, dazed and confused… but happy to be free, smiling as he stared up into the blue sky once more. He was so happy, that he didn’t even notice how empty it was. Not only were there no clouds, but there was no sign of the tunnel he had just fallen out of.
Perhaps that strangeness would have struck him eventually, but when he did finally sit up and look around at his surroundings all that digging he had done was pushed into the back of his mind. His mouth hung open as he took in the strange sight around him. He was outside, the familiar heat of the desert sun beating down on him… except it wasn't in the desert he knew. There were no dunes. No rolling hills or landmarks of any kind. There was only an ocean of sand, perfectly flat and stretching to the horizon in every direction,
Stranger still was the sand itself. It was almost indescribable. It was a stark, almost blinding white… except it didn’t hurt his eyes to look at. Probably because it was also a dark blueish green. And a soft shade of violet. And a bright blood red. But still very white at the same time.
Like I said, it was hard to describe.
It was clearly sand though. It felt like sand and moved like sand. It even smelled like sand. But it was strangely consistent. Every particle was exactly the same; uniform specks of some clear prismatic gem, which, like tiny prisms, refracted the perfect white light into every other visible color.
After staring for a while Lefty managed to tear his eyes away from the sand and stand up. At least the sky was normal. It was blue and cloudless, with a bright yellow sun that beat down from above him. It was only then that he realized there was no sign of the tunnel he had fallen through, nor the strange dusty sand it was made of. Even the shovel he had brought with him was gone, lost somewhere in the transition between places. The young man took a deep breath. He didn't know where he was, but the terror of the previous moments had passed, so he began to explore.
For a long while he wandered around aimlessly, traveling first in one direction, and then another. He ran for a bit, and then tried walking backwards, before realizing that direction and movement were pointless in this place. No matter where he went things looked exactly the same. Even the footsteps he left in the sand disappeared as soon as he stopped looking at them. There was no point of reference, no way for him to tell where he had been or how far he had traveled. Despite walking for what seemed like a long time, he felt like he was standing in exactly the same spot he had landed.
Exhausted, Lefty plopped down onto the soft ground, sitting in the sand without any idea of what to do. The fear and wonder from earlier had both long since faded, and in their absence he felt only… boredom. It was just like before, when he was living in Ash-Tab. Another day stuck out in the desert with nothing to do, except this time he could not even return to his comfortable bed; there was nothing for him here… nothing but the endless sand.
And so, with nothing else to do, he returned to his old hobby from back in those days. Reaching over with his index finger, he drew a little circle in the sand, making the line slowly and patiently, ensuring that it connected back where it began. This little act made Lefty smirk, satisfied that he had control over something in this world, even if it was just the lines in the sand. He looked back out into the horizon, watching the strange stuff shimmer in multicolored whiteness for a second, before turning back to his drawing. He had intended to draw a triangle around his circle, and then maybe a square around that, but adding to his drawing was impossible now.
Sitting there where his circle had been, was an equally sized disk made of sand, just floating half a digit off the ground.
For a few seconds he simply stared and blinked at the flat disk. Then he tilted his head around to analyze it, careful not to touch the thing. It was about as thick as his fingertip, as if his drawing had risen out of the ground and formed a three dimensional representation of itself. He reached down tentatively and plucked it from the air with no resistance. The surface of the disk was smooth, no longer having the grainy texture of sand, and solid too. Lefty brought his other hand up, and tried to dig his finger into its center, but found that he couldn't; it wasn't like the sand in the tunnel, this thing was solid.
And then it all came back to him. The tunnel, the shack outside the consul's residence, his empty home town it stood in. He was dreaming.
His eyes grew wide as he held the sand disk in his hand, and rose to his feet in excitement. He tried to say something out loud to express his joy, but no words would come, just a jumble of incoherent happy noises. He knew where he was now, and what the disk in his hand meant. He tried to recall the information from his books, to remember what he was supposed to do next, but as he did, the sun began to glow brighter. The light reflected off the sand around him, and soon the whole world was glowing brightly. He realized that he had gotten too excited again, that the dream was ending, and so he clutched the disk tightly to his chest, trying to keep it in his thoughts, trying to remember the shape in his mind, trying to hold onto it as the sun grew blindingly bright, and the desert of his dreams bloomed into a pure intense whiteness. He closed his eyes to block out the light, and when he opened them once more… he was awake, laying in the feather bed that Pluuthrchk had provided him the night before. It was morning, and beams of bright sunlight were landing on his face from the open window.
Groggy, he stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling above him, trying to remember all that had transpired in his dream, wanting to live the moment again even as his mind transformed that moment into a hazy memory. He brought a hand to his face, rubbing his cheek to confirm that he was indeed awake, as the sleep faded from his body. Finally, he sat up in bed.
It was only then that he looked down at his other hand. It was clenched tightly closed, just as it had been in his dream. Slowly, he opened his fist, and as he did, a partially crushed disk made of whitish sand fell onto his sheets