What had he been doing?

As a teal-haired lad stood there in the heated sand, toes pinched together as tightly as they could, he could help but try to remember what he had just been doing.

The first question had honestly been why he suddenly had no shoes? Certainly, when he left Hillworth that afternoon for a quick trip to town, he had been wearing shoes. In fact, he had been wearing a brown striped shirt, casual slacks, sunglasses, and shoes. He didn't need to count his jewelry, that was almost a given.

As he stood in the sand, toes still clenched uncomfortably beneath him, Howl began to speak in a vaguely distant tone, casually pulling his sunglasses over his eyes. It really was bright out, so he needed to protect his eyes, right?

"Now... I know I went to get some tea... I... I began to make my way back to Hillworth..."

He paused. Obviously, this strange desert he was in was not Hillworth. The sky was a hazy red color, similar to how the sky could get when there was a horrible fire burning enough smoke to nearly block out the sun. His eyes behind the sunglasses lenses flickered for a moment to the notable glowing orb along the horizon. There was obviously no fire.

"I think the very last place I recall passing was the pizzeria."

No, Howl couldn't call it a "pizza place," he had to call it a "pizzeria." As he stood in place, he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, placing more weight on one foot, then to the other. However, his feet weren't the only portion of Howl's body that was suffering. He could feel sweat building up on his brow and under his armpits. Apparently his deodorant did not feel like working today. In fact, all of his clothing was sticking to him due to his skin sweating. He had only been standing there for what felt like a couple minutes, but his throat was already completely parched. It was a strange sensation of feeling wet and dry, all at once.

"...Bloody hell! I can not stay here like this... I need to find shelter!"

Despite how his feet complained about his decision, his feet began to attempt making their way through the sand. It was particularly tricky to get a footing in such vast amounts of sand, but the thin young man was pushing forward out of sheer necessity. Thinking over what had passed to lead to his arrival in this strange desert would have to wait. Shelter and something to drink. Those were the things Howl needed at the moment.

There was finally a place that made Hillworth seem like a paradise. Too bad Howl could not appreciate such a novel idea.