A Sandstorm’s Sadism

“I once knew a couple. They were an unlikely pair but destined for each other nonetheless. From them, I learned one invaluable lesson: love, new or old, holds power greater than any will.”

—Robin Benz

It’s taking a long time to find Roo. After my conversation with Arenah, Mirei and I took our leave and decided to walk around. Part of it is to get to him, and the other part is to simply explore. Mirei skips in front of me, holding her wooden Xilio figure up high in the air on a raised wooden sidewalk. She doesn’t say a word to me, so I don’t say anything to her. My eyes follow the toy as I think to myself about everything I’ve learned.

Arenah had explained that the Rooted Xulte Festival of Dance and Song happens very soon. In fact, it’s in a week. This is why Chonti Village is so bustling; there are garlands to be weaved, performances to be perfected, and stages to prepare. Flower petals of all colors will dance in the air while rhythmic and lyrical music uplifts the festivities. It’s one of the biggest celebrations of the year, and one Roo himself is determined to participate in. Usually, he simply walks around and enjoys the festival as it is. But this year, he told Arenah about his desire to perform.

Of course, she completely shut him down. She even said if she sees him on any of the stages she built, he will die an early death. I believe it, but I’m not so sure Roo does. My gaze wanders from the toy Xilio to the massive tree branches high above. People mill about on them, walking the branches of Chekagi Tree to get to a certain array.

Roo’s love of freedom reminds me so much of myself when I was younger.

Freedom is a capricious thing. Some of my brightest memories are when I snuck out or when my illness abated for a few hours, allowing me to run around and go outside. But other days, freedom made me suffer. The worst time of my life was not when my illness nearly took my life, but when it nearly disappeared.

Just thinking about it sends me into a cold sweat. I’m different than I was back then, yet it hangs over me like a curse. I don’t want the same to happen to Roo, no matter my feelings about him. He needs to balance his duty and his personal life. Right now, he’s content with waiting to do that until the summer solstice, but since he’s going to stay around Mirei and I until further notice, I don’t want his mistakes to come back to bite us.

My eyes absently shift to the left.

I wonder if things would have been different had my attention stayed above me that day. Was it chance or a subconscious unease that pulled it elsewhere? No matter which is correct, that merry afternoon devolved into black chaos.

Where the boundless sky should’ve been instead lurks a monstrous, writhing wall of dust that wasn’t there before. Its shadow plunges over the whole village, taking away its color.

Mirei’s Xilio freezes mid-flight. It quivers, then clanks to the ground.

And then the screams start.

“SANDSTORM!”

A cacophony of shrieks and sobbing replace the idle music. Every person in the village—no, the country—runs for their life, scrambling eastward, tripping over each other and bruising children. Winds that rival a strong tornado’s rip through the calm breeze. Lamps that run on magic flicker until they darken. Glass shards fly. Instruments smash. The water fountain spurts and clogs.

A family dashes past me, faces aghast. I hardly see them. I’m stuck.

“Brother, why aren’t you moving?! Run!”

I can’t Mirei, I’m stuck.

“We’ll die!”

I know. I know, so why can’t I move?

Maybe I don’t want to move.

“BROTHER!”

The whole block has been deserted, the gusts now blowing wreckage down the cobblestone. The main road has been replaced by a parade of pandemonium. The sandstorm roars, engulfing the east side of the village’s wall. Mirei’s screams melt into the deafening din of wind and sand. All I hear now are its whispers of death, singing to me. The storm bears over everything, consuming light, structure, and sense, including my own. Perhaps if I was more accustomed to this world I would have run already. Arenah definitely would have.

I’m not like Arenah.

My heart thuds once. Twice. Then it tugs. Something is tugging me forward.

A small hand slaps across my cheek.

“Snap out of it, Haruki!”

Mirei sobs, shaking. Her face is lined with tears and her lip trembles. She screams, “Do you feel that? It’s Roo’s magic connection! It’s tugging us toward him!”

Roo.

I blink slowly, then fully process Mirei’s state and what she said. I slap a hand over my face, groaning. What came over me? I’m still dizzy and disoriented, but that insistent tug grounds me.

I clench my jaw, knowing what I have to do. Then, I rip off my shirt.

“Brother, what the—“

“Don’t question it!” I snap.

I frantically wrap the linen fabric around my right hand and tuck it tightly in place. Now that it’s nice and snug, I snatch Mirei’s wrist. I look down at her, wind whistling between us, whipping our hair and clothes up in a beastly frenzy.

“Let’s get to Roo quickly! We’re going to run!”

“Can you handle—”

I cut her off with a finger to her lips. “Don’t jinx it.”

In the opposite direction that everyone ran, I take off with Mirei in tow. I can only hope that my stamina with a punch of adrenaline will last me the whole way. We sprint past debris and dodge flying wood planks. My thoughts are racing as we follow the tug.

A forest such as this surely never experiences sandstorms. The architecture proves this; if they knew, then every building would be made of stone. Something is wrong about this. The only explanation is a magical one. But neither Mirei nor I are able to figure it out, because we come from a non-magical world! Moreover, even if we were to run away, there’s no way we could navigate the arrays. So, our only option is to go with Roo, who is, for whatever reason, incredibly far away.

He’s the one who told us not to stray far, for crying out loud!

I keep my attention focused forward, but even still, I can make out the sandstorm rippling closer in the corner of my eye. It has pierced deep into the village, now. My chest spikes with pain, and I cough violently. But I only push my legs harder. We round a corner.

Just when I think I’m about to faint, I catch a glimpse of green through the shadow.

“Roo!”

There he is, dancing.

We fall against the building’s corner, huffing and crying. Ahead, just ten meters from where we stand, is where a vast sea of sand splits the cobblestone. Roo is near the edge, adorned in gossamers of green light, hands and feet completely transformed into the forest’s claws. He swirls and spins in a loose circle, leaving patches of rich moss with every step. Then, like the beat of an ancient heart, something thuds beneath the ground once, twice, thrice—

“Vine of Vera, come forth!” Roo commands. Instantly, dozens of wrangled, thick vines smash through the road in front of us. They shoot high into the dirt-blackened sky before promptly bringing five people back to the ground. They are victims who couldn’t escape in time!

They wail and shiver. Two of them are toddlers, and the rest are elderly. They’re close enough that I can hear their sniffles. The vines tuck them close to the ground a few meters behind Roo, wrapped securely around their bodies. They must have gotten pulled into the air by the sandstorm, but Roo saved them just in time. He slows his movements until he stops, standing still in a patch of blooming moss.

Just as I’m about to rush forward and beg him to get us out of here, Mirei yanks me back by the hem of my pants. “Brother, don’t move! There’s something wrong!”

I frown and squint. That’s when I notice strange movement in the sand ahead. The sandstorm roars, as if angry it couldn’t devour its prey. Then, figures bigger than even Arenah stumble from the wall of dust and into view.

I count twenty.

They’re made completely of sand and are vaguely in the shape of humans, but have animal-like extremities. One with the body of a massive snake and a human head charges toward Roo, faster than lightning. Roo extends both arms beside him and instantly a wall of tree roots sprout from the sand’s edge. A resounding crack! splits the air and a blood-curdling shriek sounds from behind the barrier. This is when Roo whips his face toward Mirei and I, the picture of fury.

“Back up, you dumb nuts! You’ll get frozen in time!”

I want to shout back, ask him what he means, but coughs rattle my chest and scrape my throat raw. There’s too much dirt and sand swirling in the air. I raise a trembling, clothed hand to cover my mouth and nose, watching fearfully as Roo turns back around and resumes his concentration. The tree roots quiver against the sandstorm’s onslaught. They can only fight for a few seconds more before getting uprooted and soaring into the abyss above.

The desert encroaches. Cobblestone devolves into gravel, then into minuscule granules before becoming one with the sand. This sandstorm intends to turn everything to sand and then devour the village whole! Roo curses and somersaults backward, standing right on top of the vines that cover the people. Enchanted, I watch him fall onto one knee and slam both hands onto the pile of vines and people.

Then, he says one untranslatable word in his language, and the whole mass rolls and twists backward, right into us. Mirei and I yelp as the cracked ground beneath us becomes vines and we ride backward. However, a deafening crash behind us forces Roo to stop the vines carrying us. It’s a building that just blew over, completely blocking the road.

There’s no longer an escape. We’re surrounded on all sides by dilapidated buildings: some blazing with fire, others infested with sand. Roo curses again.

“Takahashi siblings, get out of here right now! On top of the rubble! Go!”

Mirei and I scramble away without a word. We climb boulders and bits of stone wall, high enough to see just how much the desert has devoured the village. At least half of it is completely desert. I can make out the frozen bodies of citizens, stuck in the form of running, sinking slowly into the golden sand.

Roo sprints forward a few meters before stopping, leaving a small distance between him and the desert. Then, he steps into a rapid dance, pulling vines from the ground with every flick of his wrist. When he spins, the vines spin together in a thick cage around him. Finally, I can’t see his body anymore.

The sandstorm whistles and bellows, almost like it’s laughing. It encroaches further. Seconds pass by and panic consumes me.

“What— is Roo— doing—“ I can barely speak between coughs. Mirei is full-on bawling, now.

Just when I think Roo is done for, threads of green light spill from between the vines. Where they shine on the sand, white flowers sprout weakly. The sand figures screech and deform if they step on these flowers or walk into the green light.

Then, I hear faint singing.

It’s quick, melodious, and extremely captivating. Clicks punctuate ancient words that lace together like the veins of a leaf. The sand figures do not stop their attacks to listen, however. They rush forward, kicking sand past the border so that they can get to Roo. I cry out, but it’s muffled behind my hand. Tears sting my eyes more painfully than any grime.

Just when the sand touches Roo’s vine cage, everything explodes.

My vision floods with a burst of green light and deafening cracks rattle me to my core. I’ve never heard anything so loud— it’s like the world is ending. Right as I think this, the sound and light die out.

I open my eyes.

A gasp tears through my mouth and my hand drops. A wall rivaling the height of Chekagi Tree itself pierces the black sky. It’s braided with overgrown vegetation and ore, completely blocking out the desert. It stretches for as long as I can see.

My unsteady gaze falls to the boy who created it all. His hair falls over his back in knots. He breathes heavily, standing on that mossy patch, unsteady— but standing.

Roo just shut out the desert with his own two hands.

Or so I thought.

In the blink of an eye, a torrent of sandy wind smashes right into Roo from the left, sending him flying into the building to his right at breakneck speed. He collides with the rubble painfully hard, kicking up a dust cloud.

My eyes dart left to where the shot of wind came from.

Sand snake, I realize, horrified. A snake as thick as an oak tree’s trunk and longer than a whale slithers toward Roo. Its scales are made of the sand and the rubble it has devoured.

My eyes dart right where Roo’s heaving frame lies. He’s covered in blood, coughing violently. He doesn’t see the snake. He can’t move. Mirei screams.

The snake coils back, gearing to attack—

I run.

I’m tumbling down the hill of rubble, running past the people twisted in Vera’s vines, running to Roo, running into the line of attack.

Away away away—

I see the snake launching through the air at us in the corner of my eye, but I don’t care. My hands, one clothed and one bare, clasp Roo’s grassy wrists. I pull, screaming at my muscles to work, pulling him out of the destruction and into my arms.

Away! Get away!

Right as I feel sand slam into my back, I throw him with all my might away, away, away.