This place is wrong. He shouldn't be here.
His breaths come harder and harder as he staggers across the sands, his scuffed armour clanging with each unsteady step. A layer of sweat slides across his skin, connecting his flesh with the burning metal. The heat digs deep into his flesh. Burrows into his eyes. Makes his bones heavy under the layers of boiling sinew and viscous blood.
But something else rummages around beneath his skin.
He lurches forward, breaking his shambling pace. He vomits up dry air. Then he feels it, as he leans on all fours with sweat dripping off his nose into the thirsting sands.
His skin crawls. His eyes itch. He heaves again.
Sand pours out from his mouth and mixes with that of the dune. He heaves and heaves, more grains running up his throat and scratching at his teeth and tongue. Then his teeth are no longer enamel but are part of the sand. And so are his cheeks and his jaw. They're crumbling away into the sands. Then all his black as he feels the sockets of his eyes fill up with cutting grains.
There is a brief moment of terror.
The last of the grains run free of an empty, scuffed set of armour. They come to a halt at the bottom of the dune where they lie with the others until the wind picks them up and scatters them across the other sands.
Paddy Dobson
19th February 2022