A Stone In The Desert

For "The Stone" prompt of Ironage.media

I cannot deny that I have lost. I have lost my way, I have lost my battalion, and above all else, I fear I am starting to lose my will to keep going.

The light of the morning brought proof of what I feared most. The sandstorm of the previous evening had shifted the landscape entirely and removed what few landmarks there were from view. On top of that, my fellow soldiers, who were so dead set on making it to the objective before daybreak, were nowhere to be found. For all I knew, they, along with all of our mules and wagons, were buried under the blazing sands that I now strode aimlessly across. The only sign of them I can find is a single flintlock pistol with a cartridge already loaded.

Rather than waiting to meet the same fate that might have befallen them, I decided to walk in the only direction I was sure of, east toward the blistering sun and toward the location my men might have reached.

With me, I take the firearm. I don’t expect I’ll need it for defense, as no opposing force would be daft enough to travel this far into the sands, but should I not manage to find my party, then its solitary round might serve a different purpose.

I have no way of knowing for sure how long I’ve been walking now, but judging by the location of the sun, which at first sought to blind me and now burns my scalp, I would guess it has been for several hours. The stinging in my legs gives credence to this theory as well. I also have no way of knowing how far I’ve actually walked, as the swirling winds of this hellscape remove all the tracks I leave on the dunes behind me.

My sole comfort, the canteen issued to me, only feels to be getting lighter and lighter as the sun moves from my head to my neck. I know that, even though I’ve been rationing, it will be dry before the day is over.

As the sweat begins to soak my back and the presence of the pistol at my side becomes more apparent, something enters my view on the horizon for the first time all day: a rock.

I have heard from those more experienced in traversing the desert that the sand and the sun will play tricks on your mind as the day winds down, but seeing as this is the first thing on this hellscape I’ve seen all day, I change my course and head right for it.

The light of day fades by the time I reach it. The stone stands even taller than I can reach and has a gracious overhang just large enough for one to sit under. I touch my hand to the stone, and to my surprise, it is cold. Not cool like one would expect a stone that had been in the shade to be, but more in the nature of ice.

I sit down under the lip and pull the pistol out of my belt. After turning it over in my hand a few times, I unscrew the flint from the jaw and, with weak hands, use it to carve my epitaph into the canteen.

"I did not wish to die alone. To whomever reads this, thank you for making sure I didn’t stay that way."

I put the flint back in the lock and leave it cocked open. After an entire day of fighting off exhaustion from the heat, I feel like I have nothing left; the desert has beaten me, and the only solace I have is a calming place to rest my burnt back against, close my eyes, and try to forget what awaits me in the morning. If this place is to be my grave, then at the very least it comes with a headstone.

I feel something wet fall on top of my head. For a second, I thought I might just be imagining things, but then it happens again and again. I look up and feel what it is, this time on my cheek. Water is dripping off the top of the rock. I fumble for my canteen with frail, seared fingers until I give up and just press my mouth up against the face of the stone. It’s not much, but it is the most wonderful and pure thing I’ve ever had, so much so that I don’t even care where its source is from. With every single gulp I take, I feel my strength return to me, and soon I am able to unscrew the cap from my canteen and let the water trickle into it while I rest my eyes again. For the first time in the last twenty-four hours, I feel like I might just make it.

I feel the sun beating down on me once again as I rub the sleep from my eyes. However, once they’re open, they struggle to grasp what’s in front of them, or rather, what’s not. The boulder is gone. Had I hallucinated the entire experience?

I reach for my water flask again and hear the swishing of water coming from inside, confirming that I hadn’t lost my mind yet, though part of me wishes I had, for it would make explaining the phenomenon much easier.

I take a sip of the water and realize a new problem that confronts me. My sleep was so sound that the sun was directly overhead. Now I had no way of knowing which direction to walk in.

I breathe deeply to stifle the panic that’s slowly building inside of me and try my hardest to remember what direction I was facing when I closed my eyes.

I give up after a minute of pondering, realizing that standing still wouldn’t be any better than walking in a direction different from the one I chose yesterday. So I set out, clinching tight to the flask, which is still surprisingly cold, and do my best to keep one foot in front of the other as I march on in a straight line.

I continue on for an hour or two until I am overwhelmed with a sense of dread. The sun now beating down on the right side of my face lets me know that I have chosen the wrong direction and that my current course would lead me only further into the barren wastes.

I stop to think about what my next step should be. I could try to go back the way I came, but there was still no way I could tell how far that actually was. I could also try to head in the direction I now believed to be east, but I was so far off my original heading that I might move past the rendezvous point my battalion was due at.

Unsure of what to do next, I start turning in circles, hoping to catch a glimpse of any landmarks. Then I see it. The rock.

At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, thinking they must be being cheated by the fading light, but there is no doubt about it; it’s the same one I saw before. I swear to myself that it wasn’t there the last time I glanced in that direction. Is it possible that I’ve been walking in circles in a state of delirium?

I make a break for the formation while it is still visible under the sun’s rapidly diminishing light, but the more I move toward it, the further it seems to move away. Perhaps I have been made a fool by the desert after all.

I pick up the pace, almost to a sprint, yet the stone only seems to move quicker. My heart beats heavy in my chest as I plow through the shifting sands until the sun, playing its cruelest trick yet, sinks below the horizon, rendering me unable to see the edge of the dune that my foot misses, sending me tumbling down a slope as twilight takes hold of the sky.

I roll over, and in doing so, I realize that my canteen had flown off my body at some point during the fall. Now I am sure I’ve reached my end, lying on my back, staring at a pitch-black sky, demoralized and lost. I don’t think I’ll make it much further now.

I start to close my eyes and let the darkness take me, but all seems to stop at once as a light in the distance begins to grow brighter until it’s like holding a lit match an inch from your eye. Getting to my feet, I realize that this beacon is coming directly from the location where I last saw the stone.

I shake the sand from my tattered clothes and set out for the marker, its glow creating a pathway and illuminating any other obstacles that might lie between me and it.

Even though the wind has battered me and the sand has grated my skin and burrowed into my eyes, I start to make progress I thought not achievable, even under the natural light of day.

I press on, bounding over each dip and ridge that lines my path. I know not what fate this light will lead me to, but I take comfort in knowing it won’t be in this inferno.

The light obscures all other sights around me; even when I close my eyes or put my hand in front of my face, I can still make out the direction its source hails from.

Onward I continue, trapped in the battle between the guiding light ahead of me and the dark void behind, sprinting faster than ever before.

Dred sets in though when the light ahead of me becomes dim. I breathe as deeply as my strained lungs allow and charge at a pace only an animal set upon by predators could match until night’s veil makes its final attack and overwhelms my only chance at salvation. I close my eyes, knowing that hope is lost, and hit something hard.

---

"He’s coming to!" someone shouts.

I open my eyes to a crowd of familiar faces and even more familiar uniforms.

"We thought you lost," one of them, whom I immediately recognize as the commanding officer, says, pushing his way to the front. "How did you make it here?"

I sit up, rub the dust from my eyes, and in the process feel a welt right in the middle of my forehead. Looking around, I see that my desert prison has been replaced with the camp our force had set up at the objective.

"Answer me, solider," he reiterates.

"I don’t know, sir," I reply. "I must have run into the rock and knocked myself out before you found me."

"What rock?" he asks.

"The one that must have been in front of where you found me, sir."

"There was no rock," he says, a puzzled look coming over his face. "We would have known if there was, seeing as we’re still here."

"Excuse me, sir?" I asked.

"You were already here at the checkpoint when we arrived. We set this base up around you, and I can assure you, there was nothing but sand to be seen."

Looking around at all the other faces, their expressions confirm what the officer has said.

"Why don’t you just relax here for a bit and let the doctor look you over?" continues the office. "You’ve obviously been through a lot in the past few days, and while I’m not sure what, you definitely hit your head on something, so rest up and drink some water."

He extends his hand out, and within it is a canteen, my canteen.

"Where did you find this, sir?" I ask.

"It was on the ground right next to you. Come to think of it, you probably tripped and hit your head against it."

"Perhaps," I say, running my fingers along the smooth metal where I am sure I wrote the message, yet not finding any.

The officer turns to leave and motions all of the gawkers to do the same.

"I don’t know what kind of luck you have, son, but I sure hope you saved some for the rest of us."

"With all due respect, sir," I begin, looking out over his shoulder into the endless wastes behind him. "I don’t believe luck had anything to do with it."