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I ignored Papa’s lessons. How could I use the sand as my insulating blanket when I didn’t trust the desert anymore?
It wasn’t that the desert held no dangers. It had plenty, like scorpions that could paralyze with their sting, spiders that liked to use flesh to grow their eggs, and the poisonous sweat cacti. One prick of their needle and all the moisture in a body leached out until a person or animal collapsed, a dry husk. I was faster and smarter than those perils and only feared the sinkhole. Papa had lost a good number of his family to one. It was why he insisted our homestead be near a rocky formation. But while Papa taught about all those other things, he never told me monsters lived under the sand.
Grief hit me as I stared onto the desert, which darkened as the sun went below the horizon. I was alone for the first time in my life. I’d never been away from my family. Never slept alone. Never knew how quiet it could be without any siblings around. A desert girl, I knew better than to let any tears fall, and I closed my eyes tight, which only served to amplify the silence.
I am alone.And I was scared. How could I survive when none of my family had? Barely any water or food. I’d never make it. The desert didn’t show kindness to the foolish and unprepared.
Yet, what other choice did I have?
I didn’t want to die. With that in mind, I had to make it through the night and ignore my extreme fatigue. If I slept, I might not know if the monsters came. Not that I had a plan to fight or escape them. More that I didn’t want to be asleep when it happened. Who knew where I’d wake up?
Our family didn’t follow any one religion. Maybe that was why none of the gods came to help us. Or maybe they didn’t exist.
I startled at everything that first night. The faint whistle of a breeze over the undulating sands caused it to shift, the tiny particles moving almost musically, changing the landscape. Would I hear it if the monsters tunneled through? Would the rock under me vibrate and warn of a monstrous arrival?
Would I ever feel warm again? My body and soul couldn’t stop shivering.
Despite all my discomforts, I fell asleep and woke with the dawn, alive and unharmed. Kind of surprising. I had a sip of water, a bite of the single piece of leathery cacti I’d found thrown to the ground a few paces from my youngest sister. If I’d not been on my shelf, but on the floor with the others, I’d have been lying there too.
A morose thought to start a day that didn’t prove any better than the previous. The next was even worse. Despite fashioning a cover for my head and body, the full stare of the sun beat down on me as I plodded, one foot after another. The blisters on them had burst, and after the initial sting, I felt nothing.
Nothing at all.
Mind and body were numb, but my instinct to survive remained sharp. When I caught motion from the corner of my eye, I’d pounced, snaring a scorpion by its tail. Not even thinking, but remembering the lessons of my father, I snapped off the end with the stinger before sucking on it. I gagged, stomach rebelling against the bitterness hitting my tongue. I wanted to stop, but I heard Papa, “To stay alive, eat the live.”If it moved or could grow like a plant, then it could nourish, unless it was a red-tip needle plant; those poisoned everything.
A scorpion wasn’t a bug, but meat. Just a different kind than usual. I looked to the horizon as I choked it down. I didn’t enjoy it, but I would have eaten more. Anything to ease the knot in my belly—and survive.
I kept walking, no sense of time or direction. Out of water and food. But the scorpions, and even a few spiders, kept me going until they didn’t, and I fell face first in the sand.
Get up.
I tried making it a command. Even thought of my father barking it in his loud voice. But I had nothing left. I lay on the sand and waited to die.
The sun set, and everything cooled. Sand, air. Skin. My breath began to puff. And yet I didn’t shiver.
I saw the swaying hem of a robe first, the fabric roiling with the motion of the person’s feet. There remained enough light to see the toes peeking, the nails of them painted blue.
The woman stopped by my side and said nothing. I had to be hallucinating. Maybe I’d ingested some poison, or my diet didn’t agree with me. There most definitely wasn’t a woman in the desert with me.
“Are you going to lie there all night?” asked a voice dry with amusement.
“I think that’s a good plan.” I was surprised my dry tongue managed to rasp out an answer.
“Giving up?”
I didn’t want to, and yet my body couldn’t take anymore. I forced it anyhow, pushing to my knees, my entire being shuddering with the effort. I managed to get to my haunches and got a good look at the woman that couldn’t be here. I might be young, but I knew meeting random beautiful women in the desert didn’t happen.
Beautiful of bearing, her face uncovered, and yet her features showed her as one desert born. Her eyes were as dark as her hair. She wore a robe of intricate stitching, and it undulated with her movement, shimmered with light. I’d never seen anything more gorgeous.
“Who are you?” I asked, and I knew for sure it was a dream when she replied, “I am Rotha.” A name I recognized.
“The goddess of war,” I replied.
“You’ve heard of me.” She tossed her hair a bit, as if preening.
“My mother says to not worship you because you’re a whore.” My mother always said I had a child’s honesty.
My hallucination recoiled and huffed, “That is a very sexist thing to say, child. Women can seek out their own pleasure.”
