By Teddy. S. 

Grains of cold amber sands plague me with each step. I drag at the weights that ground me from flight and grow heavier with each step. My feet are covered in crimson where burns have scarred my soles and blistered my feet. They had been born to fulfill my suffering. My body is rotting. There is still shrapnel to be removed from my chest. My right leg has become splintered and a piece of bone protrudes my shin. Through the amber sands I drag my limp, futile leg, mixing with the blood of my bandaged body, adhering to my skin.

I inhale, suffocating. My ribs squeeze and press into my lungs as if to shred them with the force of a snake’s bite. Yet, I live. I make an effort to force my head up at the sky: ash, sand and embers swirling in a violent force, never settling. A crack of red-tinted thunder lit in the distance of the burning sky, etching against massive steel cogs holding links of chain the size of cattle bearing into the earth. I let my body rest and exhale, “How long? How long will I spend wandering?” Bits of embers and soot settle into my hair and the thunder persists.

I continue moving in the burning amber sands, dragging my foot and a heavy ball of tungsten attached to the cuff of my ankle. My legs bring me to the sands, the weight holds me. Long bandaged arms reach out, they try to grab hold of the ground and pull me forward. They return, only to release a handful of sand and ash. I struggle to bring myself to my knees. My arms are shaking, digging myself deeper into the sands. I wince as I press my right leg against the ground. It begins to soak my bandages in another layer of red. I press my left leg against the ground and pick my body up. I’m unable to see ten feet in front of me. In the distance sand, soot and embers swarm. A storm is approaching.

Bits of glass grasp their hands into the soles of my feet, twisting their claws and breaking off. With each step, I come closer to Cinderella. So I pave the sands with a trail of crimson, one of many, my blood feeding the sands. 

I’ve reached my destination. In the front of this hellscape lies a trench sloped to a flat from all directions. We all knew we would meet this place one day; only a few of us sought it out. A thin layer of fog is settled at the bottom. Covering the descent are thousands of ashy crosses caked in an inhumane rusty ash holding the burnt corpses of the many: the headless, the heartless, the sinners, those who blinded themselves to ideals, and those who prayed. It mattered not what withered and thrived in this state of limbo, the sand only wished to feed.

I begin my descent, dragging my burdens with me. My iron ball only seems to gain weight and drag me to the center of the doline. There an hourglass stands, grain by grain. An hour of maroon, a second, a minute, a day of maroon. Each grain lacks meaning as they fall one after the other in an eternal cycle.

Chained to the hourglass is a young boy with a blank stare and hollow eyes. He sits soulless with his arms tucked behind him, unable to move. In front of him sits a pile of glass shards and the boy stares at them. Muffled sound, incoherent noise. None of it makes sense. 

“You there?”

The outline of a man with a bulging stomach and bleeding throat. All that can be made out is a silhouetted appearance and a mouth. As he speaks the sounds he makes gurgles the blood in his throat, grotesque. My bandages itch. “You there?” he repeats as blood trickles down and bits of what look to be glass protrude from his throat. 

“Do you seek salvation?” 

I look over at him. My skin feels like it’s burning. “No.” 

“What reason do you have in a place like this?” 

“To watch.”

The man sighs as if something new were only another nuisance. He unchains the boy from the hour glass. As soon as he is released, the boy lunges his body towards the shards of glass. The man pulls back on the chains restraining the boy to a cross. The boy’s body sits, slumped as the man begins driving nails into his wrists. The man grabs a torch and looks over at me. The last grain of sand in the hourglass falls and he sets the boy on fire. 

“Do they ever struggle?” 

The man pauses, as if thinking: “No.”