“Wait for me here. I’ll come right back.”

It was cold. The voice was barely an echo down the corridor. The walls on either side were slick and black. Parker reached out a hand and touched one. His fingers sprang back unconsciously. Ice cold, like death.

He turned over his shoulder and glanced down the hallway. It was more of the same, a neverending stretch of darkness. Who had been with him? Who was he waiting for? They said they would be right back. But where was this place? It was an unanswered question left hanging on his lips.

Parker started to walk forward. It seemed like a good idea, better than standing in the bleak hallway. High yellow sconces dotted the hallway like fireflies, flickering on and off. The cold penetrated his t-shirt and sunk into his skin. Parker wrapped his arms around himself, but he was shaking within minutes. The cold made blinking painful and walking perilous. His knees threatened to give out with each staggering step.

Something white glinted in the corner of his eye. He reached up to touch his hair. There was an icicle there, then another, then another. Snow gathered on his eyelashes, but he was inside. There was nowhere for it to fall from. Parker glanced upward, straining against the stiff muscles in his neck. His entire body grew weary, worn like an overstretched toy.

There was nothing above him but a midnight blue sky dotted with glowing stars.

His gaze dropped back down. The hallway was gone. He was standing at the bottom of a hole. It stretched a few feet over his head, too high for him to climb out. Not as Parker, anyway. He fumbled in his pocket for his henshin pen, but it was gone. The ground was hard packed dirt, and there were no roots weaving through the dirt walls for him to climb. Where was his pen? He dropped to his knees, feeling for a disturbed patch where the key to his transformation might be hiding.

A shadow crossed above him and something showered down across him. Then another. Then another. Parker looked down at his hands, but he couldn’t see them. They were buried beneath a layer of dirt. No, not dirt. More rained from above, coating his bent legs. Parker yanked one hand upward and held it to his face.

Sand. He was surrounded by sand.

The deluge from above rained harder, stronger. Massive loads of sand pinned him down to the bottom of the hole. His legs were submerged, and the weight was too great for him to free himself. Next, his chest was covered, heart thudding against the pressing force. He groaned weakly, writhing to break out of the quickly filling hole, but it was impossible. The sand climbed to his shoulders, his throat, his chin.

Parker tilted his chin upward. The shadow passed overhead again, shoveling in more sand. He clamped his mouth shut and squinted his eyes to avoid the impact as best he could. Sand filled his nostrils. He pushed air out to clear his airway. Another load of sand rained down before he could.

“No, please, stop.”

His voice was muffled and strained, choked by the growing weight on him. Parker waited for the next load to come, but it didn’t. He felt a heavy mass land hard over his legs. The impact was diffused by the sand, a small mercy. Someone was walking across his buried form. The figure crouched, reaching a hand out to brush stray sand from Parker’s eyes.

Parker took a deep breath, willing his eyes to focus. The first thing he noticed was a red ascot gathered at the person’s throat. It was a man. No, a teenage boy. A brown collar circled a pale throat. Cerulean eyes cleared and focused on an identical pair.

Sailor Taranis knelt on top of Parker’s buried form, expression blank. Parker’s eyes went wide. He was watching himself, or at least a version of himself. The two boys stared at each other for a time, neither one saying anything. Parker opened his mouth, and Taranis did too. They both closed at the same time.

Then Taranis lifted a hand, wordlessly summoning a sand ball. He let it soften in his palm, raining down on Parker’s head until his mouth and nose were obscured. Parker wanted to struggle, he did, but his body went limp. Above him, Taranis laid layer after layer until Parker could only breathe in the granules of sand. He felt them line his throat. He felt them fill his belly. He felt them choke all the breath out of him until there was nothing left to do but succumb to asphyxiation.

“I told you I would come back.”