Fragmenting, splitting, bursting shards of light falling to dust, the sound of shattering howls through his ears in a light tone. The light that once shone above him seemed to have left, now replaced by a sudden warmth.
The sun is now atop; a howling wind crawls up his exposed back, sand building up on the side of his numb body. He can feel it too; coming to his senses, he can feel his body resting on the warm sand. His lips kissing the grains, the sun already stinging him with its sharp rays, he limply finds a hold on his arm.
His fingers softly sinking in the sand, he lumpily rotates himself on his back; he exhales dry, mumbling his displeasure. As he manages to sit up, his eyes wander around the warm dunes; sweating away his only water he would be able to find in the area, he widens his eyes.
His ears begin to ring; only after he realizes where he ended up does his mind seem to have entered back into his body. He looks into the distances surrounding him, then back down onto his palms, some of the grains resting in his palm. He struggles to blink, his stomach cramping up as he figures out that the place he found himself was indeed not a dream.
Dry huffs escape him; scared, he somehow manages to get up to get on his feet. Like a toddler, he nearly loses his balance; struggling to keep a hold, he finally manages to find a solid stance. His brows cramp together; critically, he scans his surroundings, his gaze meeting only sand piled together by the wind, which blows against his ankles.
The sun burns his skin slowly; the stings are a soft reminder of how urgent it is to find a settlement or water soon. With that knowledge, he goes forward, his soles sinking in the grains getting pushed away under his feet. The young boy sinks his head, following the shine of the sand with his pupils; sometimes he'd hold up his hand close to his face, stretching his fingers as he tried to process the reality he ended up in.
Reality seems blurry; serious lacks in his memory become clear to him as he struggles to climb up one of the dunes, the sand not granting him any solid surface for his feet. Anything that happened before the cracking noise, which numbed his mind, was gone. Pure whiteness consumed what he left behind; he lets out a sighing noise, groaning alone as he reminds himself there was nothing left he could look behind at.
He stumbles down the dune again, barely avoiding falling on his knees as he reaches the bottom again, him scratching his neck and shoulders becoming more frequent by the meter, his eyes feel dry, and his dry skin rubbing against his eyes feels unpleasant as he blinks. His breathing mostly happened through his mouth, much drier than his lids; his tongue thirsted for water.
The boy fell down as the sun began to set; even though it now no stood directly over him anymore, its heat still burrowed deep into his irritated skin. Hunger has set in, chasing his ever-growing determination to find moisture. With a void huff, he dug his hand into the sand to somehow move his numb torso, the heat twisting his sight, the air around him dancing under the warmth.
With numb legs, he shoveled himself forward, his nails digging deep into the pale orange surrounding him. With time, his arms slowly lost strength as well, winds howling around him, their sounds making fun of his sloth-like speed as they sped over him. His fingertips begin to hurt; the grains are stuck deep under his nails, and his joints are also heavy, void of any moisture.
His face resting motionless on the grains, he looks blankly towards the direction his journey was planned in. The half of his face dug in the sand, his pores aching him for a scratch. Prickling as much as his burnt upper back, he refuses to stop nonetheless.
Why arrive here if he'd end up dead anyway? If it was a person responsible for him ending up in the middle of nowhere, he couldn't just dry up like that without finding out the reason. He sounded more desperate as he groaned louder, trying to shout dry words into the dunes.
He stockily reaches out one last time before stopping for good; both his arms and legs were numb, and throbbing cramps were developing in his calves. He flashes his teeth; his dried throat not able to give voice to his shouting, he slumps down again.
He balls his hands, his scratched fingers forming a fist, sand trapping inside of it, as he squeezes whatever he could to form a grip on. The question of why exactly he was decided to be the one to arrive here softly, following him with playful steps, lingered in his mind as he struggled.
Numbly, he rotates; the sun was digging too deep into his already burnt skin, his eyes darting around the perfect blue sky entrapping him in the sand. His head falling to the side, once again he widens his pupils.
A sledge, layers of cloth in washed greys and browns sliding atop the grains, two thickly hooded people sitting atop of it, with every blink he risked, his vision blurred; he stretched out his shaky hand at the blurred sledge. Before finally fading into complete darkness again, his hand falls, hopefully to find himself out of the dream he was trapped in.
The sledge came to a halt, the bent wood stopping in the split-up sand, both figures stepping up onto the sand, one grabbing ahold of the slumping body as the other looks behind at the trail the unfamiliar person left behind. Tucked ontop the layered cloth, they strap the body down, tying a tight knot arround the boys wrists. Both of the iron masks meet each other, reflecting the shine of the sun, as they look at each other through the many finger-thick holes.
Both crouch down, on their knees, following the path of the boy, an orange glimmer escaping the bandaged hand on the person in the front. As the sledge continues to move.