AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Please, Effendi!’ Youssef’s voice was higher than usual, and scratchy, too. I realized that my own throat felt increasingly rubbed raw by the sand. Turning, I saw Youssef galloping towards us. ‘Please, let us stop! We have to stop moving! The storm isn’t dispersing, it’s headed right towards us! We cannot…’
The storm bellowed, cutting him off. A moment later, a brownish cloud of stinging vapour drifted between us, and Youssef was gone. Frantically, I opened my mouth and tried to call out, but I caught a full mouth full of sand and choked. Coughing like a maniac, I collapsed over Ambrose’s neck. The camel didn’t seem bothered in the least by the raging torrents of sand around us.
‘Blast! Ruddy stinking skanky hellhole of a…’
I coughed again, and had to close my mouth. Bloody hell! If you couldn’t even curse out loud anymore, things were really going down the drain!
Pulling the neckline of my thobe up to cover my mouth and nose, I raised my head a few inches from the stinking camel’s neck and tried to see where the others had gotten to. I blinked, thinking for a moment that there was something wrong with my eyes. The others weren’t there anymore. Neither were the camels, the mountains, the dunes or even the ground!
Only a tiny circle of space around me had remained halfway visible. Beyond that, all had been swallowed up by a yellowish mist. A mist that was turning darker moment by moment.
Bloody hell? Where’s the sun?
It wasn’t there anymore. The storm had swallowed it up like everything else. Like everyone else,
too.
Oh my God… Everyone?
‘Mr Ambrose!’
No answer. Wildly, I looked from right to left - if you could talk of directions in this semi-substantial world of swirling sand. Nothing. Not even the fluttering ends of his black tailcoat.
‘Mr Ambrose! Where are you?’
No answer. There was the roar of the storm and, other than that, utter silence.
Curse him! If he’s just keeping quiet to irritate me right now, I’m going to strangle him!
But what else could I do? How could I know for sure?
Well… there was one thing.
‘Dick, my darling? Dick, my darling come to me!’
No answer.
All right, he really couldn’t hear me. If he could, he would have definitely complained. Now, panic was really beginning to set in, and that didn’t make the problem of breathing any easier. With my breath speeding up, more and more sand rasped down my throat.
‘Ambrose! Ambrose, where are you, you bloody bastard!’
‘Grumph? Grumph!’ came the answer from underneath me.
I gave the camel a kick. ‘Shut up! I didn’t mean you!’
Taking my kick as friendly encouragement, Ambrose the camel hastened his steps. He seemed perfectly ready for a nice afternoon stroll through a stand storm. I let him go where he wanted. I was more than busy enough clinging on to him and trying to find something, anything in the darkening maelstrom around me that pointed to a sign of life.
Suddenly, there it was! A speck of black among the yellow-brown torrents.
‘Mr Ambrose!’
Did I hear an answer? I couldn’t be sure. Not over the roaring of the storm.
‘Mr Ambrose, it’s me! It’s m-’
Another violent fit of coughing overcame me. When it was over, the spot of black was gone.
Bloody hell! You can’t go on like this, Lilly!
