Waking up with a mouthful of sand in one's mouth isn't always pleasant. But that is how I was abruptly woken up on what should have been one very boring Monday morning.
Waking up in the middle of the desert should excuse me from being late to school right?
Either way that was the first thing my brain registered. And to be completely honest, it was highly unhelpful. Though the second thing my brain registered was a little more interesting if I do say so myself.
Considering I was highly certain there was no way huge, skyscraper type buildings could be built and destroyed in one night, my brain produced two immediate questions.
First, why is it that everywhere I look there are destroyed buildings? And also how the heck did they end up here…Actually scratch that, question number two where the bloody hell am I ?!.
--
After further exploring my surroundings I hardly attained any new information to work with. I knew I wasn't at home, and that I had somehow come to be stranded in a desert filled with ruins of what looked like a decently big city before its destruction.
Other than that I'd almost hundred percent confirmed that I was most certainly not in Australia anymore, from what I remembered, Australia's one and only desert was most definitely not this yellow. So my two up and coming theories as to how and where I was boiled down to one. After I blacked out last night someone kidnapped me and dumped me in the middle of another country's desert for some weird, unknown reason or number two, somehow whatever the hell happened last night caused the landscape to completely shift and change which was most likely what caused all this destruction to happen in the first place.
I sighed and kicked at the sand below my feet, my arms crossed over as I scrunched up my nose in frustration as I stared down at my now sandy pair of joggers like that would somehow magically make all the answers appear.
"Oh well! No point in wondering about questions that can't be answered at this point" I grumbled, slowly moving forward deciding that it was best to find some good shelter before it hits mid-day and becomes too hot to move around.
I didn't get far before, in the near-deafening silence I heard a sound that made me stop and look around. It was a sound that I'd already seen ignored far too often.
An almost silent cry.
With silent determination to help I followed the sound over to a half toppled building.
'It was probably an apartment building before it was destroyed' I noted
Climbing up over the rubble, I followed the sounds of crying, silently thanking myself for at least being somewhat athletic as I was just barely able to pull myself up onto a solid platform of concrete.
I rounded the corner and my eyes landed on what looked like the source of the crying.
A small fragile-looking girl was curled up in the corner of what looked like her bedroom, it was obvious that the girl was out of it seeing as she hadn't heard me or noticed my presence yet.
Quietly trying not to startle the sobbing girl I looked around the room. It was to be expected of a girl who looked to around eight, bright pink walls, toys spread across the room tiaras and drawings of princesses, knights in shining armour and unicorns granting wishes.
As I moved across the wall of scribbly drawn pictures my eyebrows furrowed in confusion and slight concern.
On the wall of drawing there had been an abrupt change.
Drawings that were once filled with the hope and curious wonder of a child changed both in style and tone.
As though there was a huge gap in time, the once scribbly drawings of a small child now became the precise and detailed drawing of someone who's far more practised.
And the hopes and dreams of the small child disappeared in an instant, now all that remained were horrifyingly perfect depictions of things that looked like they had jumped out of a nightmare.
I stumbled back in shock reeling at the horrors in those drawings.
As I stared at the wall in shock I wondered, what the heck happened for such a change to occur.
'What horrors have I unintentionally stumbled into'
'And why-' "OI idiot what the fuck you doing in my bedroom" a highly ticked off voice snapped me out off shock and I turned around to meet the origin of the voice.
"Are you a fucking retard, I asked you a bloody question" the small girl who was once sobbing her heart out was now staring at me with a frustrated expression on her face.
"Oh u-uh, I'm er" my amazing social skills acted up again as I stumbled to form a sentence.
"Geez" she sighed "you really are an idiot aren't ya, so what ya name mister because as much I want too I've been taught to be at least a decent member of society and I'm pretty sure calling people names isn't on that list"
"Uh, sorry let's start this from the being shall we," I say kneeling down in front of her "my name's Xander what's yours" I hold my hand out for her to grab on to it.
"um, ew do you even realise how much blood is on your hand right now. What do you think this is, a blood pact or something" her face scrunches up in disgust as she whacks my hand away from her face.
"If you must know you plebeian" she spat at me with more than a hint of superiority and disgust "my name is Sadie so you'd do good to remember it"
I hardly even registered that Sadie had once again insulted me because I was too focused on the blood dripping from the palm of my hand.
'When the frick did that happen'
--
Walking through the desert with a mini demon princess brat on my back wasn't something I really planned on doing but here I was anyway.
I found my mind occasionally drifting before being brought back by either Sadie's complaints, the random sharp pains resonating from where I had apparently cut myself earlier or, the innate need to eat drink and sleep.
I often wondered why this even happened, I was perfectly fine tucked into bed reading 1 adventure book after the other. Sure I had always wondered, hell even wished, that I'd be someday able to go on adventures like that.
To be independent, to be dependable, to be the one that always rushed to save the day and to have allies that I'd truly feel at home with, but deep down I knew that all of that was just hopeless wishing.
Life was straightforward and people were greedy, there was no magical beginning to give me magical powers and tell me I had to save the world, and there was no secret identity to keep.
And now I'm being forced into a situation I'd rather not be in. Which is rather troublesome for a person like me who'd rather avoid any to all extra effort.
"-oi, idiot I'm talking to you", while I was zoned out Sadie had realised I stopped listening to her. "Sorry I was just zoned out for a second there," I said rubbing the back of my neck.
--
The sun had started to set over the horizon by the time we had found shelter in a broken-down shopping district. And so we pulled anything that could be used as bedding out from the destroyed windows of stores and settled in a small corner of the plaza and slowly drifted off to sleep. Tummies rumbling from the lack of food as we tried to cover ourselves with the few things we managed to salvage from the biting cold that was sure to come.