galaxy storm

3. sandstorm

During his journey, he had fashioned a spear from the creature repelling skeletons he would occasionally encounter. Not only did his spear repel weaker predators but it was very sturdy stronger than steel, the spearhead was made from one of the teeth of a large skeleton and it was very sharp. He had cut himself quite a few times even with careful handling.

Currently Gareth had spotted a sand rat and had chased after it when it discovered him, the rat was a scavenger with a strong sense of smell and light brown spots on its body. The rat was about 2 meters long and a meter tall and was busy digging a hole when he discovered it. 

Having to chase a rat while injured was difficult and lasted for almost an hour in the scorching heat but Gareth wanted to kill it as it would give him food for the next few days.

After catching up to rat, gareth stabbed it in the head, the bone spear went in smoothly and Gareth didn't feel any resistance when it went through the skull. The rat went tumbling head first to the ground and died after a few twitches.

pleased with his successful hunt Gareth begun disassembling the rat not knowing that the previously calm weather had begun to get increasingly windy.

The planet Gareth was on was huge the time was very different compared to Earth. Here One minute was 250 seconds, one hour was 280 minutes, one day being 34 hours, one week having 16 days, one month having 22 weeks and there were 20 months in a year. 

Gareth had finished disassembling most of the rat in less than an hour when a large shadow had covered him, turning around he saw a huge cloud of sand rolling towards him with great fervor. It was a sandstorm and he had not noticed because he was to preoccupied with his catch and now it was too late to find cover. 

Caught off guard, he hurriedly packed what he had harvested along with his water and tools and laid prone on the desert ground when the sandstorm hit him. Instantly his surroundings went dark as the sand had obscured the sunlight. The strong winds made the sand feel like shards of glass were hitting him, he had to close his eyes lest the sand got in them. 

The sandstorm lasted for 6 hours and in the first hour Gareth could manage to stay grounded, in the second hour, the wind had almost tripled in speed and the sand were like tiny knives occasionally making tiny cuts on his body. When the third hour started Gareth couldn't stay grounded and had dug his spear into the sand to resist the winds but he could feel the spear loosening a few centimeters every few minutes.  Half an hour later his spear was dislodged and Gareth was carried into the winds.

Now he was at the winds mercy, the good thing was that he didn't have to experience the sand cutting into his flesh but now he was being spun around like a spinning top and thrown in various directions, it was still dark and being thrown around like that could cause about anyone to feel nauseous. About 40 minutes in Gareth couldn't hold it back anymore and began to wretch.

Another hour passed and Gareth had vomited out everything in his stomach and felt like he was going to vomit his stomach out next. He had lost consciousness more than a few times  and as he was about to fall unconscious for the 7th time he felt the winds had begun to weaken, knowing that it was going to be over he braced himself for a rough landing and after 60 minutes of holding out he finally felt he was falling. After a few more minutes he was suddenly met with the desert sand once more, he stayed in a fetal position and waited until the sandstorm had subsided.

It was evening when the sandstorm had ended and a particular bump in the sand began to shake revealing a sand covered Gareth. Crawling out of the sand he took a huge breathe of air. Laying on the ground gasping, he was glad that it was finally over. Thankfully due to landing on the soft sand he only suffered some dislocations and he immediately set them back in place. He had also managed to keep hold of his provisions and spear so he hung the meat to dry while there was still sunlight and ate a little of the uncooked meat when the sun went down and keeping the rest. 

Afterwards he covered himself in sand and slept for the night.