Burning Sand 2 Novels & Stories

I look again at the faces around me, "we never forget." I take two steps and grab a lit torch from the sand. I place the torch to the wood beneath Boot's body. Others step forward, take torches from the sand, and light the wood until the heat makes us move back. Warriors will remain on the beach and keep the pyre burning until Boot is ash. He won't be alone.

"I… I didn't know!" "Declan," I said evenly, "if you order your warriors to stop the men carrying the stretcher, it might not be too late." But before he could react, one of the warriors came running back, panting. "Alpha! As ordered, the body was thrown into the incinerator at the waste plant for fuel." He straightened, almost proud. "I even waited until she was completely reduced to ash before returning to report." Declan's knees gave out. He hit the floor.

"As proof of the curse, I gave you a mark which you have already seen. In order for the curse to break, you need to find true love. When that person says I love you, then the curse will be broken." How hard could it be to make a woman fall in love with me. “That is simple to accomplish.” I said with pure smugness. She shook her head. "No, it is not that simple. The moment that person loves you then you love them back, you will feel a burning sensation on your mark and it will glow signifying that as true love then the curse will be broken. If it does not, then you will remain immortal until you will find your true love."

Nico’s men grabbed at me, but I dodged them, feeling the heat searing my clothes off my body, the smell of my hair singeing in my nostrils. Then I was tackled to the ground. Sanda’s body covered mine. “It’s too late. Too late.” She sobbed into my neck. “No one could survive that.” “It can’t be true.” I gasped, my lungs burned from the heat and the toxic fumes. “He’s not dead. He can’t be dead. He can’t leave us.” I cried over and over, clutching Sanda against my scorched body. Some of the women from the staff came and covered me with a blanket. “Miss, we need to get you inside. There’s nothing to be done here. The fire department are on their way.”

There was silver burning everywhere. I gritted my teeth and placed my hands on them and grunted as the burning pain shot through me. I pushed with what was remaining of my strength and at first, nothing budged. I kept pushing until the boulders shifted slightly and I crawled out from under them. I stood up on shaky legs and the burns increased. My vision became clouded with pain as I realized in horror that the little space of air that was left was poisoned with burning silver. If I lingered here, I was surely going to die.

She blinked at the showerhead. From the tiny nozzles, not water, but wet sand began to flow. Clumps of it, sticky and warm, pattered onto her ruined skin. The sensation was foreign, gritty, coarse, then sharp. She winced as raw salt separated from the grains and worked its way into her burns. Lisa cried out, a wounded sound, an animal sound. “Travis!?” Still no answer. Just the soft hiss of the sand trickling to a stop. And then… click.

The game was designed to break you, to find whatever trauma you'd buried and drag it kicking and screaming into the light. The bus finally stopped. Through the window, I could see a desert. Endless sand stretching in every direction, glowing faintly under a sky that had no sun. The sand itself seemed to move, shifting and reforming into patterns that looked almost like faces. "Welcome to the Sandbox," the driver's distorted voice said. "Population: you. Try not to lose yourself." The doors opened, and heat hit us like a physical force. It wasn't just warm—it was burning, suffocating, like the air itself was trying to cook us alive.

She felt something squeeze her heart as she thought that the two of them were still together. She sighed and dismissed them from her mind. She is not here in the Philippines for this. She's not Phoebe anymore, she's not the girl they're known as sweet and lovely. She's Meira Hayaizel Sandejas, the only heiress of Sandejas family. The famous author, the owner of Sandejas Publishing House all over the world. Smiling, Phoebe took the clothes she liked and put them in the cart that Nate was pushing. She only planned to buy one but many beautiful ones caught her attention.

Astrapi was shouting something at her, but she could not hear him over the sound of the sandstorm. Her ears were filled with the shifting, sighing sand that felt as if it coated every inch of her. Beneath her scarf she licked her lips and her tongue came away coated with it. So far, Menos was more like the City of Sand than the City of Earth. Astrapi was still shouting and she turned her head, to see him, irritated as the tiniest exposed parts of her skin were strafed. He was holding up his arm and pointing at it.

Mariam leaned on Saadiya for support as they both watched on as the people present threw handfuls of sand into the grave while reciting the verse; "We created you from it and return you to it and from it we will raise you a second time." Mariam's hands shook when it came to her turn to throw the hand full of sand into her friend's grave, she restrained herself and limited her grief to only crying although she just wanted to scream out her feelings. Immediately she was done, she left the grave site with Saadiya, unable to contain her emotions but Omar stayed until the end. He felt he owed Parvina at least this much.