The Expatriate-the story of a Prodigy

17. Barren

 He did what any other banished person would have done and probably would in the future-he wandered the desert on and on. His shoes dug softly into the sand while his whole body was one sweaty and dirty mass. But that wasn't his worst problem there. The thirst and the hunger was overwhelming and he was already dehydrated. In his messy and dizzy state, he felt as if he was floating, though his feet were digging into the sand with each step that hurt his soles and semeed to be burning his feet, actually.

 He let his mind and body just go anywhere they wanted, staring at the sun until he was sure he was blind, then at the horizon. He maybe tripped a few times or stumbled forward, away and away from the grey wall, but he didn't know for sure nor did he care. 

 He just hoped that time would pass, as it always does and that the desert would take him away soon-he didn't care of the device that Fawkes had hung around his ankle. Let them be disappointed if he let himself be taken to death as soon as possible without putting up a fight at all since that was obviously what they would be most entertained to see. 

 After a solid hour of wandering, he felt as if his tongue had already dried up and his feet were ready to collapse onto the sand and burn more skin on. Part of his brain absent-mindedly worried how short he would last and how much the desert was damaging to his health-the other part groaned that death had been what he had been wanting everyday since Andrew's death, and it was barely a few days-or maybe, only hours-away. The later part of his mind won and Alex did his best to drop his concerns for himself. 

 However, Alex Mars was also a human just as he had ranted to Fawekes. He had the animal instinct to worry about and care of his thirst and hunger that was now slowly creeping into his brain warily. He naturally tried to remember what his last human meal had been-water and bread once more yesterday. He now wished very desperately that the food would just pop out of thin air for him.

 As you could see, his mind was unclear and ambiguous. The words of water and coolness kept returning to his mind, though. 

 The sun started to start its slow descent towards the horizon, and Alex Mars could already see his shadow on the sand. The only other shadows that were existing on the accumulated grains of sand were the shadows of the sand dunes. He watched in amusment as the wind played with the sand once more in the cooling temperatrure, and maybe at one point, he sighed out in relief as the day started to cool down bit by bit. Ah, finally the ground would be less than 120 degrees Celsius and his rubber soles would have a chance to stop melting.  

 But then, he remembered what the general and Mark and John had said-the desert still wouldn't be Utopian at night if it had been hell during the day-the night might be worse(thought it depended on your preference on whether you abhorred the cold or the hot-and here, Alex was beginning to hate both). He watched in fear and weariness at the horizon. A few seconds later, his legs gave up and he let his body collapse onto the sand and he groaned. The sand was still heated up, so the sand against his limbs weren't the most pleasant experience-it felt as if he was burning but wasn't bnurning direclty. But he wasn't planning to get the hell up and let himself go out further an time soon-there was no benefit in that act for now, and the muscle cells in his legs had either fainted or died. 

 "Jesus," He yelped out, splayed out on the desert floor. "Jesus Christ," He yelped back again, voice weaker now. He this time wished that the device at his ankle was more than capable of simply checking that he was alive-he wished that it could hear him. But it couldn't, so he just sighed out loud and stared at the darkening red, purplish, and bluish sky. The sky he had looked up his entire life-but this time, not from home, nor the notorious military base, but rather in the desert, the last place he had expected his own body to be at. Still, the fact that he wasn't watching the sky from outer space nor a different sky comforted him. He just kept lying there, thirsy and hungry, dumb and staring. Soon, the red and purple and blue was chased away by black and...soon, the stars. He sighed out in relief as they appeared one by one until the whole space of black and void was full of them like a pretty, luminous wallpaper on the ceiling. Last time, they had pushed him back at the last second when he had been ready to kill himself. Today, they were gonna work as an indirect sedative to push himself back once more. Then, among them, having been covered by a cluster of clouds, the moon came forward. It was a half full moon that night, and the pearl-white ball of rock and iron rotating the planet Earth seemed to look like the grinning mouth of a dumb smiling emoji. Alex's drying lips couldn't smile back, but he managed to groan back. "Chris the Martyr," He croaked. "I'm sorry," The last part was more of a sad whisper than a croak. "I'm sorry I let you down," He let his sore arm rise and trace the outline of the moon with his fingertips. A sigh escpaed his lips and he let his arm fall limp to his side once more. 

 The sand was getting colder, but Alex didn't have any more clothes to wrap himself tight in. The only way to stop his feet from going numb from the cold was to move, and hard, but he was too tired for that. Still, he got up, shaking his fainted or dead muscle cells back alive, then shook all of his clothes off of any stray sand grains. Letting his back arch and his limbs hang loosely, he started to walk slowly in any random direction. His goal was to stay awake during the whole night till dawn-he would catch a bit of sleep then, then keep on going. His eyes now looked only for water or any stray cactus that might just be alive somewhere. Whenever he got tired and felt ready to collapse, he looked back up to the stars and gave a long sigh. In Asian countries, he had heard, sighs would shorten one's parents' lives. But he now felt that some sighs, those usually through the mouth that were long were, actually, good. They somehow seemed to be, well, helping him pull up and away the stress stuck inside of him. So he sighed out at the sky and tried hard for his lips to arch into a smile. 

 But finding even a small cactus is difficult in the middle of the deseret. The chances of discovering an oasis is even lower than that. 

 He knew that. But seems like the stars were doing a good job acting as a sedative to push down the feeling of being lost and hopelessness.  

 So he kept going. 

 Yep. 

 So on and on he went. 

 He decided to sleep at about 5 in the morning. His legs were sore from the hours of searching for water that wasn't going to appear any time soon. He cradled his limbs to his main frame to retain most of the heat he had in his body. A sigh naturally escaped his lips when he thought of the heat and any other possible dangers of the desert that he would be forced to face any time soon.  He still got up from the sand and resumed his slow wandering. 

 He wondered if scorpions lived in the area he was walking, wondered if there were cacti at all. He wondered if this part of the desert had been stepped on by other human feet-well, he concluded that it had been stepped on for sure, since probaby, decades ago, the place must have been American land (but now obviously wasn't). But he guessed that there was a pretty low chance of it being stepped on by expatriated Prod feet. 

 One thing he knew for sure was that he was soon going to die unless he was as lucky to have specific abilities or the luck as the Prod who had survived a week and 3 days. 

 The sun started to rise, and in a few minutes, it was already preparing to soar quickly to heat everything in sight in mere minutes. Staggering, Mars looked around, eyes searching for a miracle-maybe Jesus had sent a happy haven or portal right behind his back, and the only reason he wasn't doscovering it wass because he was already too tired to turn around. But maybe since he wasn't a devote Christian, big surprise!, there was no such thing as that. He only found his irregular footprints getting wiped off clean by hot wind.

 He had no hope at all now. He was sent here to die, so why leak himself of any energy till death? It would be better to die in a healthy state to tell the future generations who would one day dig out his body from the sand and perhaps, the sediment, that his life had been fine and food had been quite accessible till his death. 

 He let his knees collapse and stared at the sand between his bent knees, so hungry and thristy aand frustrated. Everything he knew was on fire, so hot-and he knew that his own skin was ready to be burned and scarred from the heat. He thought that he was now totally useless, and already lacking the efficiency as a human being-but only was capable of being help to the Earth by eroding into the sand and then the planet's direct crust one day as a carcass upon death by becoming manure for future trees. He despised everything of the desert, he despised himself for being a Prodigy with the most worthless ability of having bright ears. 

 A few minutes later, he let his back hit the desert floor once more, but for the last time, letting the sand claim his body first, not caring of when it would take his mind away. He let sand blow over him, covering him centimeter by centimeter. He thought of his family and only friend as usual. But his parents would understand, and he had already asked the heaven last night to send the Martyr his apologies. 

 He felt suffocated as the sand reached his thighs, but never groaned out-he was done. 

 Or at least, he thought he was done. 

 And thinking is hard to become reality. 

 At 12, the heat reached it height and the sun blazed at the sand, baking every thing in sight, which included a 17-year old boy half-buried in the sand. He didn't move but let himself be baked, deeper and deeper. 

 At 7, the sun started to creep back after making a full U-turn at the top, inching quite quickly back into its recluse of darkness. Then the winds started to dominate. They whirled over the sands, playing with them while moving on to any direction they wanted to take. They sometimes tossed the grains up, and they sometimes dumped and piled the grains back up on a different spot they wanted. 

 The boy was one of the places they had decided to dump their load on, and soon, they had buried him to his head. 

 At 10, they also receded and the whole desert, once more, settled in total darkness.