A warm breeze brushed against her face, pushing her hair off her back. It was a true sign that something had indeed worked. She had teleported.
But had she made it to her destination? Was she on another world? Or was she just back on Earth?
That answer required her to open her eyes.
One deep breath. Then another. A final third and Phact willed her eyes open.
Sand.
Miles and miles in all directions of nothing but dark yellow sand.
“What…” She whispered, turning around twice, looking quickly in all directions. “It's a desert…” The warmth was strong but nothing like what they made it out to be in the movies about wanderers lost in the sea of sand. Above, Phact could make out the star that acted as a sun in a cloudless sky.
If this really was Phact…”How am I the senshi of doves then?” the woman mouthed, her head dropping back down from the sky. Long ago, Eternal Sailor Tsui told her every planet was different. But Tsui had also mentioned signs of tigers as well as the spiritual ones that attacked her.
The senshi had to admit she had expected….something. Anything! But no. Phact was a barren wasteland of hot sand.
“How could I have been the senshi of such an already dead planet….” Phact gasped, her hand coming to rest over her heart where she could feel it racing.
The wind blew once more. Stronger this time as she felt the layers of sand stir around her. Several pieces brushed against her face drawing her attention to them. They seemed to be warm, almost caressing unlike the hard edge of Earth's sand. That was when she heard it. A whistle?
As the wind died away, so did the sound. There was something the wind was blowing through…
“Where are you?” Her voice whispered, turning to the left. That ear had picked up the sound ever so slightly more. It took a moment but Phact finally felt the breeze pick up again. A third time and slightly stronger, it made that whistle even louder. “Gotcha!”
A smile crossed her face as she turned and stepped towards it. Each step became fast. Each step made her heart race. Each step she moved towards something.
Breaking into an all out run, which took a good deal out of her given she wore heels that sunk into that sand, Phact moved forward. Slowly, she began to make out something in the distance. A tall almost pyramid like structure began to take shape. The closer she got, the larger she realized it was!
It towered over the landscape of sand, casting its shadow over everything around it.
Nearly out of breath, Phact finally stopped atop the dune she had come to. The heat had proven that even if it was milder than Earth, it could still be deadly. She was exhausted but smiling. For there, laid out in front of her was more than just the sea of sand.
The remains of civilization.
From where she stood, Phact could make out the vast landscape. All centered around what she could only guess was a building of vast importance. The pyramid structure lay in the center. A ring of sand around it before she could see different stone shapes poking from their sandy grave. All was still. All was empty.
But there had been life here before. Someone had build these. Someone had lived there.
Phact’s smile began to stretch across her face. As it grew, so do the joy to know that she wasn't the senshi of a seas of sand. This had once been a home. This had once been a world…
And then in a flash of a moment, Phact could have sworn that she saw the same landscape but lush, green….alive.
So caught up in taking it all in that Phact never realized the sand was shifting under her weight until it was too late.
“What the….” She managed to get out before the ground gave out. Falling to her rump, the senshi of doves was in a slide down the dune and straight into the buried city below!
How long had it been since this plant had heard the sound of a voice? Now it rang out with her screams of surprise!
Down the sand carried her! Into the rows of stone which Phact quickly realized were the tops of structures. The sand was far deeper than she thought!
But she didn't have much time to consider it before she came crashing into one of those very top!
Feet flipped over her head and she rolled up as what sand followed her smacked into her face. Did planets have a sense of humor?
Spitting sand out and trying to flip herself over, Phact found herself gazing at stone work. Around her, she could hear the whistle of the wind. So, this was the area that had been ‘calling’. So nice of it to invite her to drop in…
It took a moment in the loose sand for her to get back on her feet. Once she finally had, the senshi moved to make the climb to the top of the stone ‘roof’ that stopped her. They almost seemed endless from this point of view. Random flat ones, round ones. Angles and edges appeared in all directions. How large had this place once been?
“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone there?” Of could she would not get a response. How could anyone live in this place? There weren't even birds in the sky!
But something did answer her. That same whistle! But this time, she knew where it was coming from.
Eyes turned and she looked up at the top of the pyramid. “What is up there?”
Her feet were already moving forward. Instead of walking though, Phact was jumping, using the stones exposed to make her way forward. Several she were convinced tried to kill her but the path to the center was easier this way.
The path from the edge of the stone ring to the pyramid was not.
Slipping her feet back into the sand, Phact was only able to make it a few steps before she felt her heart race. This was unlike the excitement before. This was pain. Pain that began to fill her chest so badly that she could hardly breathe. Pain that over took her as if someone had come along and begun to stab daggers into her body. If her hand had not been over her head, Phact would have sworn she was having a heart attack.
Wobbling, her legs losing strength, Phact sunk to her knees.
Dread and despair was filling her every fiber of her being. She felt scared...no...passed scared. As of her very life was in danger and she needed to run.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t move...
“What is happening to me...” Phact winced out through the pain. Fighting to lift her head out of the sand, she gazed forward and caught sight of the opening of the center structure. Her eyes faded it in and out of focus to the point where Phact could have almost sworn she saw a woman standing there, holding a knife and screaming “You have doomed us all!”.
A woman's voice was screaming...crying...but there was no source. She was alone. She was the one crying…
She was vomitting…
The cold and wet concrete of the park quickly wrapped around her. Her body heaved one more time and what was left of her stomach poured into one of the puddles.
Collapsing to the other side, Phact laid on the shallow water of the rainstorm, letting it beat down on her skin. Her eyes were glazed over and her hands shaking. Nothing made sense but one thing was sure in her mind…
“I killed my world.”
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