Like water through her fingers. The memory of the dream is gone but the happiness and contentment lingers. Although the moments before passing out were a haze, and she is glad the fever is gone, she wished that the dream would have lasted a little longer. That way she wouldn’t have to deal with whatever awaited her next. Setting her willpower to it, she shifted to move out of the sleeping bag so that she could change out or perhaps simply wash off her assuredly sweat drenched clothing, except that dried sweat wasn’t the only thing that covered her.

The other was sand. White, fine grained sand. Confused to no end, she got out of the sleeping bag, remaining in a crouch in the low ceiling of the tent. Taking in her circumstances she was certain that she didn’t remember crawling into a sleeping bag, and she most certainly didn’t roll around outside beforehand either. In fact, she didn’t really remember ever seeing sand like this on their way here. Almost all the sand they had seen had been red.

Inspecting her surroundings didn’t help solve anything either, seeing as she was positive where she had laid Akhil to rest, now laid Isaac. Turning back to her sleeping bag she decided to simply shake it out and then find Akhil. He had most likely woken up before her and shifted them about. The sand was another conundrum but the best explanation she could come up with is that it must have helped her heal. She supposed that made sense in an odd way, though she would have to ask him.

Getting out and moving towards the exit of their cave she spotted something on her way out she hadn’t noticed through the feverish haze when they had arrived. There were cave paintings all over one wall. They depicted things from hunters to camels to even items of worship. Although older than she could guess, the barbaric beauty of the paintings as well as the sheer numbers set before her worked to progressively clear her mind of worries. Running her hand along one particularly detailed painting of a camel as she passed it, she found her eyes drawn to her hand itself. She had wiped it clean after stepping out of the tent but now it was once again coated in a grainy white. The way it shifted along her hand entranced her further as a connection grew within her.

She didn’t have the presence of mind to truly search the connection, but with each step the feeling of an extra limb she had never realized was there, deepened. As she moved she slowly started to feel out this limb, her hand trailing the flow of an ancient river depicted along the wall. As she neared the tarp at the end of the cave her hand seemed to gather more and more of the fine white powder. Moving the tarp aside, sleeping bag now long forgotten, she stepped out into the canyon and watched her hand simply fall away and disappear altogether. Jumping back and letting loose a small shriek she stared at the stump of her forearm, still coated in fine white residue

The shock did not last long though, as puzzlement quickly took its place. She could still feel her hand. Except that it wasn’t her hand anymore. Granted it was still hers, it just didn’t feel like a hand. Taking several steps back she watched as some of the sand still covering her arm slowly disappeared, miraculously revealing flesh. Something moving under the tarp caught her attention, and as she stood there she watched more of the white dust flow across the floor, and with a slight breeze, drift up to her. Stumbling back further, she watched as more of it flowed, faster now, and all angled towards her. Frightened by what was happening before her eyes, she tried to crawl further away only for the breeze to pick up and the sand to flow towards her faster and faster, until she knew it was inescapable. Fumbling to sit upright she held her arms in front of her and watched in an odd mix of horror and fascination as the sand settled on her stump and slowly reversed itself back into a hand, now only slightly covered in the same fine-grained deposit.

Dumfounded she sat there, not even sure how to begin speculating on this. Standing up and holding the hand out in front of her she slowly moved back towards the front of the cave, paying close detail to her outstretched hand. As she got closer, her arm indeed seemed to somehow accumulate more sand. With a start, she realized that wasn’t right. She was turning into this sand. She felt it, somehow. And then, as if her hand couldn’t hold itself up any longer, it fell to floor in a small pile. Stopping and switching her gaze between the pile and the remnants of her arm, she slowly moved back towards the tent watching as her arm formed itself whole, with a simple gust of wind guiding the process. After repeating this several times, she found that the closer to the entrance of the cave she came the more of her would turn to sand. She even had her whole arm disintegrate at one point. All she had to do to get it to reform was walk back towards the tent. That was something else as well. The farther back into the cave, the more flesh she had.

Letting her arm fall into a pile of sand once more she stood there and did not move back this time. She had tried moving it like her arm but had only been met with failure. Now, she tried to simply feel the sand. How was her arm the sand? Feeling it out she realized that her arm wasn’t the sand. In fact, she felt no connection between the current stump and the pile whatsoever. It was connected to something, and even then, it wasn’t so much as a connection as it was a budding awareness. Then she realized a startling truth. She was the sand. It wasn’t a part of her body. She was it and it was her. It all ran through some core, some third limb inside her. Invisible but felt. It was absolutely surreal. Focusing on this new piece of her that was involved with the sand she moved back into the cave but as she moved further back and her arm reformed, so did her awareness of the sand.

She sat down beside the tent to ponder on this. She didn’t even have a starting point to contemplate on. Something had happened to her since she had entered the cave. Seeing how when she moved out of the cave she turned to sand.

No, I didn’t turn into sand. I became the sand. It all seems to be tied to the cave though. Can I even leave the cave? Am I cursed?

Not knowing what to make of it and fearing the implications, she turned to find a second opinion and remembered that they were lacking a member of their three. Having not seen Akhil outside during her experimentation she reluctantly went back inside the tent to wake up a man that, for all she knew would shoot her for interrupting his sleep. Pursing her lips, she relented to herself that that scenario that, although possible, was unlikely from what she had seen. Nevertheless, she decided to just do a quick search for weapons before waking him and that if he did anything suspicious she would just beat down him while he was still groggy.

That thought brought a smile to her face.

*poke*

Mmmmm

*poke* *poke*

Mmmhmmm

...

*Whack*

Hmmm. Something is happening to my body.

*Whack*

But honestly, I feel so tired and relaxed right now that I’m sure it’ll just stop and then I can go back to sleeping

*Whack*

C’mon, just leave me alone. I honestly can’t even tell what part of me is getting affected. I’m just so close to unconsciousness and so far away from being awake that I just don’t care.

*Whack*

Man, this must be some heavy stuff to still be keeping me from falling asleep. Wonder why. Well, whatever it is it can wait.

*Whack*

“AH-urk!” I scream and gurgle at the same time as my chest explodes into pain.

“Wake up cunt.” A harsh yet beautiful voice rings out in my ears and I open my eyes to look up at the demonic goddess that stands over me, a sinister smile on her lush lips. She towers above my unworthy figure, a leftover pole tent her chosen implement of torture. Reaching to my side I seek to turn the situation around and save myself from my fate with the firearm I know I stowed away before slumbering. Except that it’s not there. Speaking of which I’m not even in the tent.

“Looking for this?” She asks holding out the pistol while slapping the pole tent across my shins, letting me know from the sharp ache that they were the concentration point of her strikes. I grit my teeth, not willing to give my persecutor the pleasure of seeing me in distress regardless of how much my instincts scream to please her in the hopes that she spares the rod.

“I was worried you would do something like that if I woke you up. Do you know where Akhil went?” She asks, confident in her control of the situation.

Uh-oh. She’s probably not going to take that news well. But then again if I tell her later she might legitimately shoot me with my own pistol.

“Nope. Haven’t seen him.” I say eying the pole she has hovering threateningly over my chest.

I’d choose death any day of the week if it meant she doesn’t poke me with that thing in the chest again. Besides, I'm the guy that she’s seen kill someone already, and me telling her that the only other man in the group, who also happened to be kind-hearted and a doctor for Christ-sakes, happened to die somehow in his sleep and is already buried, leaving no immediate evidence? Yeah, you tell me how that works out for you buddy. I’m sticking with this. “He probably went out. Uhhhh, actually did you check the stuff and see if he took anything?”

Wow, that sounded lame. Always had a problem lying to pretty women.

She steps back and away, and I watch her warily move over to the supplies and begin rifling through everything. Obviously not finding anything missing she stands back up with a puzzled frown.

“Most of everything important is here but the canteens are full and the shovel is missing. Well, while I’m sure he’ll be back soon there’s something else that I need you to see, so move your crippled ass to over there.” She finishes gesturing towards the front of the cave.

I nod my head, grateful that she is no longer holding the tent pole, and gingerly pull myself free, wrinkling my nose in the process at the smell of my sweat-drenched clothes and sleeping bag. Well, good news is I’m not sick anymore. Grabbing the tent-pole she left, I use it as an improvised cane, seeing as putting any weight on my foot which is now the size of a melon is probably a bad idea. As I make my way forward however, Malika seems to be staring intently at her right hand. The way in which she is waving it around makes for a rather comical sight. One which I am wise enough not to laugh at.

Looking at me briefly as I approach she turns her attention towards the tarp.

“Watch closely.” She states as she moves the tarp to the side and shoves her hand out in a grand gesture. And holds it there.

And she’s still holding it.

Yep, not seeing anything.

Still going.

Oh, looks like her arms’ shaking, probably getting tired from holding it out there for so long.

Dropping it to her side, she looks at it in disbelief, “I- I don’t understand. Just earlier it- I know it was real! I’m not crazy!” Wow, she is getting pretty worked up about this and not in the good way. Hope she’s not seeing stuff like I did. Just to be safe I angle my body so that my cane is out of sight.

Sticking her hand back out she closes her eyes.

And then she pushed me.

Except that she didn’t touch me. It was the oddest thing I have ever felt. Like she reached out with some ethereal hand and punched my heart.

“I don’t understand. I almost had it. It was there!” She seems exasperated and confused.

“What did you do?” I ask in wonderment and a healthy bit of fear.

“What do you mean?”

“I felt it. You did something when you closed your eyes. It was like you tried to…” My words fall off as I really have no idea how to describe the sensation. I close my eyes in concentration and try to feel out what was there.

I can’t really feel anything. Nothing new. Nothing abnormal.

And then she’s there. I can feel her and not something like her skin. I feel what she is. Something at her core as it pushes and shoves against me. It’s like a door that she’s trying to get through but I’m leaning on it, resting on it, to keep it closed. I concentrate further and try to move away from the door. I find that it’s not just on her that this other part of me is leaning. It’s everywhere, all around me. This inner part of me is leaning on whatever it can find, but the only thing here for it to rest against was Malika. Sweat breaks across my brow and I can feel Malika’s door opening up, allowing her to pull in what comes through.

Holding my focus, I open my eyes and find a pile of sand at my feet with clothing resting on top of it. Upon further inspection, I can feel Malika and her door are also at my feet. The startling realization breaks my focus and I watch in shock as wind seems to howl and whorl around the pile as it reforms into Malika, now stark naked with her clothes at her feet.

A greater man would be beholden to what just happened and the ludicrousness of the implications. I am not a greater man and my gaze is locked in on nature’s bounty like a sex-starved teenager. Hey, it’s been a while alright, and all this life or death stuff all the time is getting to me. I start to move my eyes up only to have my reflexes betray me and not block the fastest slap I never saw coming.

"Bastard!" is all I hear as I keep my eyes averted as she gathers her clothes, it's a desperate attempt to preserve the tatters of my dignity.

“You did this to me didn’t you!” Her shout rings out with vindication from behind the tent.

“Listen, this is all weird to me too alright! I just woke up. Let me get some food and water first.” Moving over to the supplies I stoop down and grab one of the canteens. I try to and succeed in clearing my baser thoughts from my mind. I contemplate what just happened.

She turned into sand. It looked exactly like the stuff I saw before I went to bed. Perhaps even stranger though was that… feeling that I had. I could feel her pulling on… what was she pulling on? A door, a portal, a hole in reality? None of those seemed to fit. And how did she pull on it? It felt like… like she used her soul to be honest. It was filled with raw emotions and power, power that just, well, felt like her. There really was no other way to explain it. Her soul had been trying to pull on something and I had been holding it back. It had actually taken a great deal of effort to let her take hold of the door, to let what was there pass through. Leaning against the door just felt, right for lack of a better term. Like the door was simply meant to be closed. It was odd really.

As Malika walks back into view, all my leering thoughts spring back unbidden, but, with seeing as her gaze is still filled with vitriol, I manage to find that a particular rock by my foot is very interesting. Coming by she bends over and scoops up a protein bar along the other canteen before sitting on a ledge in a surprisingly affeminate gesture. Yes, the rock is very interesting. Indeed. Far more interesting than the supple curves and quarter size areola hidden behind that dress.

“The farther away from you the more I turn into sand.” Is all she says as she menacingly chews on her food while ever so subtly thrusting out her chest. Getting mixed signals here but then again, maybe I'm projecting. “Just now I started to turn back a little when I was behind the tent but it went away as soon as I came close to you.”

“What was it like? I could feel you in the sand.”

“It was… terrifying. And odd. I couldn’t really see anything. I could feel some of the stuff happening around me. I think. Before you woke I tested it with my arm and when I focused on it…” She trails off at the end and a pregnant silence descends upon the two of us.

“Could you move? Can you prevent it? I mean from what I could tell when I focused it was like you were…pulling on something to make it happen.”

Her eyebrows draw together as she ponders this. Finishing up her bar and putting down her canteen, she stands up and slowly walks away. She moves with her back to me and I watch as the tips of her hair start to fall away at a steady rate leaving a trail behind her. As she moves further, it falls at a faster rate, and then yet faster. All of a sudden, the falling stops as she stands at the edge of the cave. Slowly and ever so carefully I watch her move forward again until she is out of the cave and still whole.

“I did it!” She yells out before summarily turning into a pile of sand.

Well, if she is going to explore this new part of her I suppose I should figure it out as well. Chuckling to myself I resist the part of me that says to just walk over there and watch the beauty spring from the sand. Grabbing a blanket, I focus on suppressing myself like I did before, feeling it out and trying to discover more about this weird third eye. Moving closer I once more feel the doorway and through it Malika. Upon closer inspection as I feel it out, realizing that she isn’t so much as pulling on the doorway as she is simply changing what comes through. A gentle brook, a bubbling spring. That’s what the doorway is. Out of it flows an innate power, which she seems to pour into and throughout the sand. Reaching the pile of sands’ location, I hold out the blanket, look away, and breath out, allowing my… influence to spread itself back out, no longer bottled up within.

I feel her reach out, but before she grabs ahold of the blanket I bring my influence back into myself and chuckle at the sound of sand falling to the floor. I drop the blanket on top of the pile and step inside the cave, moving the tarp to cover the entrance.

I wasn’t holding a grudge because she hit my ribs to wake me up. I would never do something that petty. No, not at all.