Ashes to Ashes

The mask keeps out the dust. Not all of it, but enough to keep me from hacking and coughing and falling to my knees. A storm’s rolled in, towering clouds of ashy grit blacking out the sky. It tastes bitter. It always tastes bitter and sour and clogging the throat. I want to spit it out, but that requires me taking off the mask. I refuse to do that because it would only make all of this worse. Its already slipped through the lens and stings my eyes. I don’t want any more of it in my body.

The wind, though, the wind is the worse part. It keeps me from moving. All of my strength collected in my legs and I cannot move as I wish. That is the deal we all have. If there is strength there is movement. And that deal has been withdrawn. The storm has taken it from me, taken me down to a stone. Immobile and still on the precipice of a dune that dwarfs mountains.

Dust and grit and sand, I sit on dust and grit and sand, constantly swirling and shifting and buffeting into me and the world keeps spinning without my movement. I pull the coat tighter around my shoulders. It keeps out some of the grit and some of the sand. Not all of it, but enough.

Something shifts beneath me and I am forced to stand up. The wind, the howling wind of razor blades lifts me and for a brief moment, I take flight upon a bed of knives. Broken skin, and I can feel the blood trickle from me, spark, and sputter against the cloth. It slams me down again and the dune collapses. A landslide of bitter grit, and I am but a single stone along for the fall. Tumbling and scraping, sand working its way through the cloth and lens, finding every single soft, sensitive part of my body, and tearing it open. Pain, dull itchy pain of insect feet and needle pricks hit me and I do not want any more.

I am buried. I am free. The moment passes and I am under a mountain of sand. Another moment comes and I am flying again, the razors taking my weight and keeping it aloft. And throughout it all, I am calm. The storm will pass. The pain will pass. There is still the spark and stutter of my blood against the cloth that will always be there, always be in my deepest core and that will see me through this storm. The mask slips and I swallow the desert.

Immediately, my hands scramble to cover my face, to keep as much dust out of my lungs. Some slips in and the burn starts. I need to cough and hack and expunge the foreign contaminant from my body. But I can’t. The mind says that I cannot because that would only allow more dust and grit and sand to enter my body and that cannot happen. It burns. It burns the chest and the mind and the wind does not stop howling. My hands scratch and tear at the cloth, trying to get it back in place. The lenses have shifted and I shut my eyes. Maddening howling dark, blind, deaf, pain, scratching pain of sand burrowing in my skin. The mask slots back and the lens clamp tight. I huddle in the sand as close as I am allowed, hunched, and covered against the howling wind. The dune settles in its collapse and I am offered a brief respite.

In a valley now, some shelter from the wind and the dust. I hazard an attempt at opening my eyes. I am only rewarded with an expansive stretch of dull brown sand and choking gray ash covering all that I can see. But one foot moves in front of the other. And the cycle repeats as I slowly stagger forward against the storm. The jacket’s getting more and more worn down, more and more threads coming undone and loose and snapping in the storm. By the end of it, I probably won’t even have a jacket, just tatters and holes and threads roughly in the shape of a torso clinging to my body.

I think it is my imagination, but the wind is dying down. Still biting and stabbing and scratching and doing all sorts of terrible things to my body, but I can move. I can move in the shadow of the dune valley. Shadow of the wind blowing across the ash, the hidden hole of my movement.

I am not moving as my strength would allow. I am not moving as I should, for the shadow of the wind is still stronger than I am. But I am moving forward. My will is still manifest in the physical, still pushing me forward. And I relish it. I relish the challenge, the spark in me that seeps into the stained cloth sticking to my skin. It grows and surges as my legs burn and strain. Beneath the mask, I smile with grit-stained teeth. I shut my lips again. Too much, even a cracked smile is too much entrance for the storm. But still, it is enough.

It is cold, the surge in my gut. Ice cold, no matter how much I tap into it. Always cold and sharp and digging into my flesh, just as the wind does. Knives and daggers and razors and thorns. My existence in as many words. Knives and jagged blades and so many wonderful sharp needles. I start smiling again before I think better of it. That can wait for later when the world decides to start being less terrible. Poor choice of words. The world is always terrible. But it can be terrible in different ways. I will smile when the storm stops and some other travesty strikes my journey through the desert.

—

Heat, blistering heat that bakes me through the shredded tatters of my stained leather. I do not miss the wind. That would make me an ingrate. And I do not want the wind to cut and rub me raw and sore and I don’t want to bleed. The chill, though I have the chill to keep me cold. Searing cold in me, through me, and the sun and the baked sand ash cannot do anything about it. I watch the swirl of colors, gold brown and white gray twirl in my footsteps. Tumbling dance hypnotic and shaking the dunes down. Mountain ranges that slowly fall due to my footsteps and the change of the world at a whim. Bleeding sun, flaming orange red that slowly burns on my skin. The jacket does not cover enough of me. I am pale, turning red and charred.

It’s a slow burn from the blank sky above, the white uncovered by black clouds. That’s good at least. No sign of any more storms. But the sun, the endless burning sun, keeps my focused occupied.

The light shimmers and quivers, wavering lines that lead me forward. Ever forward and I cannot stop. I do not have the mask on, for all the good that does me. I can breathe and cleanse myself of the grit in my throat as I see fit. But I have to keep the moisture and chill in me. The heat seeks to rob me and the light, the quavering light in the horizon does not want me here anymore. In all fairness, we are in agreement. I do not want to be here. And the sun does not want me here with the light on my back, but I am here and it is burning me and shimmering and I cannot keep moving.

Water. I need water and food and I have none. I just have the heat and the walk and one foot in front of the other and that is enough. That will let me put the next step down the path. And I have the lenses making the light less harsh. Scratched black glass that gives me some small peace of mind. The jacket is useless now, only the lenses.

The light quivers and shakes in the distance and it has shapes now. Shapes rising and falling from the dunes and the sand. Shapes breaking down the waves. Shapes that are not smooth and round and rolling.

I do not get my hopes up. I do not let that wonderful little kernel of joy settle in my stomach. It’s better to just let that little bit of me die so I can keep moving. The desert plays tricks. It plays my senses and tells me of things that are not there. There is no water, there is no settlement. There is no grand reprieve from the deadly sun. There is just another step forward and maybe a raging storm if I am lucky enough to receive it. I doubt it though. The sky is too clear for such a blessing.

But I am wrong. It is not a trick of the light, nor a fanciful hallucination to offer me false hope. It is real. There are real shapes strutting up from the sand. Square things, low things. Almost like stones jutting up from the earth. But they are cut through in squares. Worn, certainly, by the sun and the wind and the sand, but they are still too sharp for anything made by the storm. I sigh and let the chill seep into me once again, feeding it. I do not trust the square hovel ruins in the sand. I do not trust that they have the insight to keep anything insane from moving in.

It slips through the joints and the fibers in my muscles, the gap of fat underneath the skin, all the smallest parts of my body, driving ice and glorious pain through every small nook of my core. It hurts. It hurts to tap into the chill, the jagged knives that part my body. And it feels simply sublime, the growth, the stretch, the wonderful rip and tear of my body. Something cracks in my core and I finally, finally smile the savage smile of daggers and needles that I am.

The ruins remain quiet as I approach over the dunes and the grit. Smart things, hiding in the scant shade of slanty shanties. Smart things that do not approach and collect and assault. They will not remain smart for the foreseeable future, but they are smart now. They hide and scuttle and scamper and skitter from the heat, content in their small burrows. The shifting sand hides them, their tracks, their presence from me and my senses. But I know. I know they are there and snuffling and lurking. I know and I am getting impatient and they are going to be recipients of the impatience.

The first building that draws my interest sits on my right. Red stone line with poured gray between them. Been a while since I’ve seen something like this. Pretty, interesting texture. A stray hand traces the smooth lines and the chill leaps from my fingertips and snaps against the worn stone. I draw it back and it snarls at me. It snarls at the leash around its neck. Patience, it needs patience and it will be released. It will be released and it will be glorious.

The wayward touch shifts the stone and something settles and clicks deeper within the structure. Unstable, the whole thing is unstable. Probably all of them now that I think about it. Every single one of the ruins. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter at all. It will drop in time, and all I am here to do is speed that up if necessary.

At least a dozen of the same red and gray stone buildings line themselves up down an avenue reduced to dust. My chosen one looks to be something like a market. Maybe. I can never tell. But these types of ruins are always full of markets. Some of them are probably cantinas or something similar. Never could seem them up and running though. Tables too small, no benches. Every so often, a drinking hall slotted in, but all the good stuff picked clean or empty. Shame, real shame that. I don’t much care for the mash, amber and murky. Saw a bottle up for auction once at a way station, but all the way to the stars in terms of price. If only, if only.

Something shifts and creaks to my left and I freeze. The chill sharpens and spikes and finds its way to my palms before I shut it down again. I need to know what it is before I let it loose. It doesn’t understand that. It never understands that, but it batters and throws itself at its cage of flesh and bone. It hurts, it hurts to stand still and wait instead of throwing myself down the hole of savagery. But I shove it down to the veil of civility and caution and I wait.

A shadow moves from beyond the noise, beyond the glass and beyond the lined worn stone.

In a way, I am relieved. I am relieved to know that the shadows are against me, amassing a legion line that I cannot see. But I know it is there. I know that there are things lurking in the dark, sharp biting things with jagged teeth and starving maws. Knowing is always better than not, even when the nightmare is given form.

I stop and move to the center of the road, open and clear under the burning sky, and the chill grows. I let it grow and spike and surge through my chest and down to my feet. It hurts. It hurts as it arcs through my feet and spider webs along the sand. It melts and slots and slips together and I am standing on swirling glass that molds around my feet. Sharp cracks and snaps pour from my body. It has some amount of gratitude as it pours from my skin.

More shadows and more movement and more falling stones from brushes and caress. A screech pierces the silence. The stone is cut and gashed deep enough to draw blood from veins. The chill shifts and slithers and hisses through me, and once again I smile.

I keep scanning and keep turning, eyes to shadows. More movements. More slipping things and long languid motions that just leave a cracking tip beyond the corner. More, the chill takes more from me and I give it. My eyes go to the roofs and I grin. One of the braver ones has finally decided to make itself known.

Gray, so long and gray, thick plates covering its stomach. Even still, it slithers. There is motion in their statue pose on the precipice and my eyes can’t stay on one part of it. Leads to the neck, scales and lines and scutes, before dipping down to a coiled tail draped over the edge of the stone. No eyes but always watching. No ears, but always listening. No soul but always judging from their nests in the hidden corners of the world. And this one, the one on the top, the one not looking but looking at me, is the distraction.

The chill spikes and shudders and shatters the world behind me as an associate of the gargoyle gets a stray thunderbolt to the chest. It hits the back wall as the clap of sky booms and echoes to the bright burning sun. I sigh. Its good. It feels so good, so incredibly amazingly good to just let it pierce into me. Light and power and surge through my blood, my bones, my flesh, and it feels right. The world aligns behind me and beneath my feet and it all makes sense for that brief series of moments where the thunderclap echoes and bounces and fades back into nothingness.

The silence reigns again and I gaze to the lone sentry still on the perch. I watch the gears turn and the thoughts collect in whatever passes for a mind in the thing’s skull.

I don’t hear the noise they make. I can’t hear the noise they make. I don’t even know if they make noise. But the shift in the air, those threads beyond sense that they pull and pluck like violins and loom, I can feel that. I can feel that in the chill. The soundless howl of anguish and pain, a limb severed, and the growing rage beneath the sorrow. The chill grows and slips into the folds of my gray matter and it does not care.

It does not care for the assault, the slithering things of rock steel scale from the shadows of the warped stone and blazing sun. It does not care for the whipping tails, long and weighted and stinging. It only cares for the released, the tempting releasing of itself from the prison of my body. And it feels good. It feels right to let it go and let it surge and spike and arc around me in a maelstrom of delectable pain. It hurts to let it out, to let it do as it wishes with my body and the surge and the chill do not care for my pain. I do not care about it either, for the slips and the folds, the forgotten savage parts in the depths of my mind sing and dance at the carnage of the hurricane.

I feel raking talons grasp my arms, only to fall away as the discharge enters whatever passes for their heart and stops it cold. I feel the whiplash tail strike against my cheek and the surging power travels through my jaw, through my teeth and scorches the linking tail bones as it slinks away. It does not get far before it hits the sand and melds into glass.

A gap, a short gap, and my eyes open once more. A dozen or so slinking things of steel scale and slithering figure sit around me and I stand in the center of a glass sculpture, still molten and dripping in the desert sun. Dirty, murky glass, grains and blobs and grit still not quite a part of the new existence of its brethren. Pieces and blood and bone scattered and froze in the sculpture, slowly sinking to their place for all eternity. Dull gray yellow, a sick sun beating through the window of the chill’s making.

That same shifting howl from beyond reality echoes and bounces through the structure, the whorling shifting waving thing that traps me. And the chill grows again, against his sorrow. It cares not for the sadness, and frankly neither do I. I was happily content to simply slip through on my way to somewhere that wasn’t a desert, but they decided I was an intruder and that was the worst crime imaginable. And now there is only one left and I am still the villain. The chill prods that simple thought and I do not know if it is mine. But the rooftop vanguard finally shifts and slinks down to the molten earth, weaving in between its brethren frozen forevermore.

It sticks to what it thinks are the shadows. Even though my glass is murky and opaque, I can still make out the movement of the avenging snake. Whipping and fluid, joints not quite locked in as they should be, tendons and muscles too loose and flexible. It pours itself through the gaps and the passages, the channels and canals like slick oil. And it thinks its clever. It thinks it’s sneaking up on me. It thinks that it is smart enough to go through the glass and hide in in the stone shadows so that nothing could ever see it coming.

The surging chill shatters around my feet, tendrils of electricity, blinding blue white, stretch and filter through the glass, melting more and more and more stone to viscous orange. The guardian keeps circling, keeps finding new places to cram itself into so it doesn’t have to face me head on. That is inevitable. That will come and it is a fool to think otherwise. The bodies frozen melt and slump and collet in their jumbled heaps.

To its credit, it does a good job of finding new places to hide, compressing and shifting its body to impossible shapes. But everything’s gone now and it is open and free and staring at the monster that came into its den and slayed its kin. It lets loose as wordless howl for the stars alone and sprints towards me, silent as the grave.

My hands find its chest, the slick scales offering no real purchase, and the chill takes over. It is not my body. It was never my body. It is the chill, the spike and needle and jagged saw that tears me apart and it looks to a new territory to conquer.

And the scales provide that. The bones are new perches, the flesh, new warrens and dens. And the skull, a new prairie to roam and explore as it sees fit. Through the blinding white, I watch. I watch the arcs and the glow and the sparks travel in the gaps between, the overlaps, the disjoints and the spaces where nothing exists at all. And I watch the glow turn the gray to black and char and smolder. Fat and muscle melt and fuse into one as more and more of the spark pours into the pitiable thing. It can’t take it. It can’t take the spikes and the needles slipping between the fibers and it can’t do it.

Another beautiful scream, agony, sorrow, and boiling hatred for the world that made me exist and let us meet. The air moves around me and the shifting glass settles into a molten plain surrounding us.

The chill relents and stops and I get a chance to breathe deep and finally see the world for what it is beyond the arc once more.

I stare into the blank eyeless face, blackened and charred and slack. I withdraw my hands from its chest. I burned a hole through it, more glass on the other side. Nothing interested beyond the char and the melt. It’s not my best work, but my hands are at least clean. A little ashy, but that’s almost a given. Think it’s more from the desert than the hole in the scaly skin. It falls and shatters a pane.

Tired. I am tired and hungry now, the chill and the spike receding. Its tired too from the play and the work and the glorious conquering of a new place. And I am hollow. The gaps still ache and twinge with the receding. Everything’s static and pinpricks, insect legs plucking at my skin. But I sigh an ugly, revulsive breath to the burning air and stretch, letting the muscles grow back to their proper shape, letting the bones slot back to the proper joints.

It’s getting to be midday and since I have a cleared the area, this place seems as good as any to ride out the worst of the sun.

—

Glorious shade. Wonderful, amazing shade that keeps the sun from burning me. Shade that nurtures growth and still and faintly suggests hints of an existence that is not burning sand and scorching sky. Such a fanciful daydream. No such place exists. No such temperature is possible, but it can hope. It can dream and unfortunately, it takes me with it. It takes me down into the wonderful idle hope of something other than desert. Odd though. I’ve been to places that haven’t been desert, but it hurts to think of them now. Much easier to simply accept that this is my life now, wandering the sands as long as I have until I too turn to dust and scatter with the wind.

But for the moment, I am okay with the false hope that may or may not be real. I am not okay with the severely lacking canteen, but that’s a problem no matter where I am. The surroundings just make it a little more drastic is all. My assailants had to be drawing water from somewhere, so I’m not too worried. It’s just a matter of finding it and using it for my own devises. They also have a charming habit of collecting things I like in adorable little nests, just for me. I assume other people are welcome to peruse their wares whenever the urge strikes, but I am the only one I know of that makes a habit of doing so. They’ve gone to all the trouble to keep the goods, so it seems a waste to let them rot underground.

It’s the fourth building I hit that has the entrance deeper into the complex they make. It’s the claw marks that give it away. Sliced reapings of stone chips and deep gouges scattered by my steps and pouring from a hole in the back wall. Tight fit, but I can make it work. The chill slips between my fingers, eager yet exhausted and the thin arc lets me see.

I stare down the rifle barrel. Each gouge spirals and shifts and moves through poured stone and hardened sand. The ruins tend to go into the rock under the sand if they go down at all. Never found the pattern of what counts and what doesn’t. Some get full rooms and stashes and vaults. Some barely set a foundation in the earth. Some are on blocks and fallen over like titans at slumber. Some barely fit a single person. Never quite got the pattern of what is an isn’t a building, so they all get that name, so long as they’re standing.

Its cooler down here in the rifling stone. No halfhearted suggestions of that, no murmured promise lost in the distance between. An actual livable, comfortable temperature that human beings and its closest relatives might be able to inhabit. For a day or so. Then the scaly things might come by and inquire as to their new member. Usually. Not in this case.

The idea of a permanent settlement once more crosses my mind, but I push it down. Nice, maybe, but I have my life to live and I don’t want to do it here. And there is a large amount of bias involved. Anywhere is better than the desert, even slightly below the desert. Doesn’t mean its anywhere near good. Just better. If I were to live in a single place, it would be somewhere good. Might even shoot for great. I am not after the adequate.

To my immense pleasure, the hole hall widens and I can stop crouching. Not that there is much difference, but I take pride in my full height. And I can still touch the ceiling if I jump a bit. The spiraling gouges are shallower, almost down to a level surface. Main room and all of the branching paths that come with something main. They all keep getting wider and wider and I sigh in relief. I’ll have to come out the squeezing way and I am not looking forward to that in the slightest.

“Help,” says the echoing tunnel and once again I freeze. It bounces and sways, coming at me direct. No sliding sound from behind the mind.

“Help,” it says again. And the voice sobs and I do not like sobbing things. I understand that there are appropriate times to do so, but generally speaking, it is not a productive act. Although, in this case, it is rather useful. It keeps the sound bouncing. It keeps the echoes coming and through the rubber sound, I find the right hole from the sound. Left one, but not too left. A few more sit to the left, but a lot more to the right from the sound hole.

The floor is almost level here, the scrapes worn smooth. I’m going to roll an ankle at some point and I can’t exact anymore vengeance. I already killed everything responsible.

Bones, I step on crunching bones and my stomach drops. Mostly small ones and that’s fine. I like eating things with small bones, usually. But the bigger ones have me worried. A skull sits in a groove, looking very much like how I expect mine looks. The jaws cracked and the top is missing, for the most part. Still enough to keep the shape the same. Still enough there to make me realize it as a skull.

The stench of death is that of dust. Nothing wet or oozed. Just dry dust and the slow process of grinding everything to ash. Clean platers at least. And the voice is lucky. There is still enough of it to make a voice. Baked into the groves are more and more bodies, more and more bones, varying in size. Some as small as my pinky, some as large as my torse. Decades, maybe a century, they’ve been here and I’ve come along in an hour and wiped it all out. I shrug the tatters closer around me. They don’t provide anymore warmth, but the fabric, the soft kiss of tanned leather, offers me some support. The chill sits quietly just above my stomach and probes into my chest. It is starting to wake up again. I was hoping for a longer nap.

The chill pulls towards the stone, to the floor, to the earth, pulling me on a leash and I feel my heart quicken and pulse. The hairs stand on the back of my arms, a cold sweat on my brow forms and I shiver. I shiver at the empty halls as if it were full of scales and talons and deep sharp things. The chill crackles and sparks against the dark halls and cool stone and it pulls at my core. Pulls at my core and heats the body and quickens the blood. I come to a wide closed bulb of stone, still spiraling groves drawing my eye to the far wall.

A thud and another join the sobs and the cries for assistance. And it is the groves that speak to me, one that is smoothed over with rock. Slate gray rock against dull gray yellow floor. Not quite the same gray, and the pebbles on top keep dancing. Once the echo hears my footsteps it goes silent again. Somewhat. Still crying and sobbing and trembling probably. But I am here now and the grand act of signaling can stop. It doesn’t.

I lay a hand on the smooth cold stone and it comes away slick and damp. Fresh. Very fresh and it is such an odd thing to touch. Stone but soft, a membrane of rock that bounces. I hit it with my fist and it does not crack. I hit it again, and it just bounces and rocks and shakes the dancing pebbles free. Such a stubborn thing, but there are at least two of those in near vicinity. The chill probes at my mind and suggest a new course of action.

Slowly, with stoppers and valves and blocks, I let it trickle through the skin and the pads, touching once more the air outside. And it crackles and sparks and burns. It burns the rock and the skin. And drips.

A mouth. Of course, the sounds came from a mouth and lips and tongue and teeth. It screams and whimpers and shakes and trembles and I see no reason to make it stop. It is not sobbing or whimpering any more. I finger the hole and tear away at the rock, pebbles and grit and sand and dust pulling away. The mouth is attached to a face, face to a body, and body to a healthy set of limbs. The eyes though, the eyes take a moment to finally collect and process the face looking his. It’s a him, too. Interesting, but not the most interesting thing I’ve seen today.

He finally stops whimpering and shouting and screaming. Little hiccups and jumps in the breath, but he is quiet, for the most part.

“Hello,” I say. It’s what should always be said upon a first meeting. He doesn’t say anything back to me. I find that understandable, but rude.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he says. Honestly, that’s not a bad way to go about meeting new people. Can’t imagine it would be entirely effective, but it makes sense. And I might have to try it out, just to see if it fits.

“I don’t plan on it but you never know.”

I reach out my hand, and like a trembling twig, he reaches up and takes it. The chill spikes and runs into his palm with a snap and a crack. I merely tilt my head slightly and let the sound echo down the tunnel as long as it sees fit. The man opts instead to place a hand at the lip of his tomb and climb under his own meager power.

He sits there shivering, glancing around to the shadows that carry snakes and scales and sharp claws. I sit with him. I’ve had a very long day so far and I do not want to go back up to the surface. The act of staying here for a semi-permanent base does seem to be more and more appealing.

“Who are you?” he asks and I think for a long moment. Another good way to meet someone new, although I still think a simple hello is the most applicable.

“Jill,” I say. It’s mostly right. He’s still shaking.

“Ike,” he says, unprompted, “My name is Ike.”

I shuffle to my feet and dust myself off. There are treasures to be found somewhere and I intend to find them.

“Come on,” I say, “No point in staying around here. Unless you want to go back into the hole.”

He does not and we move along.

—

A decent pond of clear water that tastes a bit too much like rocks for my palate, but otherwise fine. That’s the big find down here. And it’s a good one too. It’s actually cold, actually able to sap some of the heat from my body and take it away. It reminds me, unfortunately, that I will be all too hot again sometime soon. But for the moment, I let the pond take away my ideas and wayward nightmares and simply contemplate the fact that I have found a decent supply of water that eagerly fills my canteen.

Ike just sits at the water’s edge, gazing into the dark reflection of his face. Scraggly thing really, unkempt and wild, but he’d been in a hole. Holes tend to shift and morph the body in odd ways. Thin, much too thin for my tastes, but he is taller than me. Not that difficult, but still worthy of remark. I can feel his eyes on me. They make my skin itch and burn and tingle and the chill settles in the pores under his gaze. I huff again and let him watch as I let the bubbles come from my canteen. Part of me wants to go swimming, but deep water and myself tend to have an odd relationship. But it would feel good. Really, really good.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you,” he says. There’s a question in there, but he already knows the answer. I stand from my wonderful wading experience.

“I’m a Burnout.” And everything he thinks about is proven true.

He doesn’t run, which is a line to his credit. He just hugs his knees tighter to himself as he stares into the smooth glass of water. Not a good name for me, if I’m being honest with myself. But it’s what other people use to describe me, so it works.

I can feel his anxiety through the same space behind the mind. I can smell it, honestly. He’s still shaking and trembling and it infects me as well. The chill spikes and grows and rolls in my stomach. He is smart to not get into the water. It snakes to my ankles and spiders into the liquid glass. Sparks and tendrils and little wires of blue white light.

“I think I’m one too,” Ike says in the smallest voice I’ve ever heard anyone make.

“That’s a big claim, my friend. And I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve known you for like an hour. Do you want some water or something? I was hoping they’d stash some food too, but considering what you were, I’m not sure I want any of that at this point.”

I hold out my canteen to him and he nods. An odd sense of relief flows through me and I toss it to him. He fumbles and drops it. It doesn’t spill though. Thought ahead with my clever little mind and screwed the cap on tight. He drinks his fill and tosses it back to me and I let it fall to my open palm. I fill it once more.

“I have a deal for you, my friend,” I say.

“Anything. I owe you everything I have for saving my life,” Ike says.

“Again, big promises. For such a wiry thing, you sure like the big ideas. I’m talking something smaller. I’ve been wandering the desert for the past I don’t know how long and I’ve grown tired of it. You had to have come from somewhere, right? So, show me where that is and I take you back there. Deal?”

I turn to him and stare. He’s looking back out over the water, back to the sea of black glass that shimmers and waves around my ankles. Really is rather thin. Even if he were in a better state of being, he wouldn’t have that much more on him. Certainly, a bit of roundness and hardness to him, and all sorts of fun shapes. But they would all be angular and sharp and biting and cutting. Hair’s loose and pale and matted to thick strands in places.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. But… but I don’t think they’d want me back. I told you. I think I’m a Burnout. That’s why I’m out here. They didn’t want me there anymore.”

“You’re laying a lot of big things on me, friend. I just want to know if you can take me to somewhere that has a veneer of civilization.”

“I can do that. Sorry. I can do that. Just, expect trouble when we get there.”

“I’m okay with trouble. I dealt with our hosts, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me anymore. They were trying to kill me. I just saved my skin. Yours just happened to be close enough to get caught in that.”

An odd pang hits my core and the chill spikes again, threads into the water, eager and on the edge of tantrum. I look back to Ike and look to the water again. So smooth, so black, so cool and clear, And I look to myself. Dust still interweaves my hair, my face, my skin. Red, the sun has turned me red, probably burned, but I do not feel the throb and sting beneath the skin. Probably for the best. I cannot stand the feeling of sunburn. Eyes squinted and hard. I look back to him and he looks to the water.

The chill enters me again and I shiver. Cold, white-hot cold in my core, but content to stay where it is, content in its little cage for the moment. But it circles the soft hollow just below my stomach and it settles there instead. I look to him and I look the water.

“Do you really want to thank me,” I ask. He finally looks up from the water and his eyes are just as pale, just as bright and red as the sun. He nods and closes his eyes and takes a deep, deep breath.

“Come over here and help me wash my hair.”

He looks up again and my breath catches and the chill hums in my stomach. I’ve been in a desert for a long, long time. And I deserve some form of payment.

“Are you sure?”

“I know what I said. Come here. I’ve had enough sand in my hair and I don’t want to deal with it anymore.”

He’s still a little weak, still a little unsteady on his feet. But he gets up and stands and towers up over me as he wades over. The chill seeps out from me and into the water. He freezes once it hits his skin, the tingle touching up his skin. He shivers and reaches out.

Long, I like to keep it long and tied and straight. Thin ribbons every handful of inches to keep it contained, but nothing else. No braids, no knots, no strands, just straight thin hairs that fall to the small of my back.

He unties the first knot easily enough and tosses the cloth back to the shore. Another one gone loose and back to the dry earth. A deep breath from me and the chill settles a bit. Something on me is free and hanging and loose. It travels up to my scalp and shivers down the strands, jumping from one to the other in a slow dance. It snaps at his fingers and he pulls away.

“It’ll be alright,” I say, “It will nip at you, but it won’t bite.”

Ike reaches out a timid hand once more and fans my hair out.

“It’s white,” he says. Thought he would have noticed earlier, but other things seemed to be on his mind.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Was it always like that?”

“Think so. Probably. I don’t remember it not being white. I do remember it being shorter though.”

The chill settles, still probing and prompting his fingers. Slowly, I take us to the water, sitting in the pond and letting the heat seep from my legs. He kneels behind me, combing out the strands. The chill dances between them still, taking its time to find and explore beyond the hair. It snaps and nips at his fingers again. Playful little thing it is, sipping of his skin and his bone and the thin layer of muscle beyond. He doesn’t pull away anymore. He doesn’t jerk and spasm when the tendrils hit. He just goes still for a long moment.

Calm, I am calm. Incredibly calm and still and I just want to sit in the water and let him run his hands through my hair. He has a good touch even with thin fingers. Dexterous and nimble, scooping water from the pond and letting it run down my scalp. I breathe deep and smell water. Clean water, still black water that enters my mind and soothes the gaps. I am safe here in the den of something I genocided. Of something turned to glass and ash from my touch. This is mine now, for the moment. I will leave here in a handful of hours and I let this place fade from my mind. Something else will come along and shuffle in the grooves just as I had done. They might stay longer.

The water slips down my back and I feel the chill trace and spark down my spine. It flows and shifts and spills and slips. Good. Good hands and good water and good cave that is now mine.

The chill shifts into my mind and stalls as his hands go to my scalp once more. Resistance from the other, resistance and push back and it goes around, just to find another wall. Pushing and pushing, clawing at the mortar of slip thoughts and calming fingers, soft bouts of nipping electricity between us. Brick by brick the wall falls and I let it flow through me, the rumble of backed stone, the rubble of thoughts in the cold water in the bottom of the world. All the dust is being washed away.

The wall cracks and splinters and I freeze. The chill finds another probing set of tendrils in my mind and I laugh. Ike pulls away, finally scared back to his senses. He is one, it seems, still forming, late bloomer, but I do not tell him what I feel. Too good. Too wonderfully soft as he runs his fingers through my hair.

He looks down to his hands and I feel good. The chill has broken through and suffuses the body, grown back to the hollows and the pits that it likes and I am full again. I am full of the sharp knife edges just barely pressed against the soft and delicate. My hair hits my back in a damp mess, clinging to my skin. The chill sings in my core, a soft hum that resonates up my spine. It likes his touch and nips once again. His hands stay and keep to my skin.

Ike’s doing something to me and I don’t care what it is. It feels good to have the sharp edges of the world shone away with fingers digging through my hair. I am cold and wet in every single way and I love it. I press my back into him, and like the timid shaking thing he is, he pulls away.

“When I do that,” I calmly explain, “that means keep going. Do you understand?”

I don’t have to look to feel the trepidatious nod that knocks his brain against his skull. Shy thing and the hands come back. They bring the tingle with them, that wonderful harmony with my own. His is softer than mine, much softer, though no less in its strength. The weight of another atmosphere added atom by atom applying pressure through my core. My own chill cuts through the weight, only to let it flow back in like the tide. Cut and part, union and flow. Soothing, hypnotic, mesmerizing in its repetition.

In the pattern, Ike finds his scant bravery, pulling his hands from my damp hair and taking them to my shoulders. I press against his hands and he has learned a lesson. Smart, or at least quick on the uptake.