The World Of Sand

 

Written by Hannah Shapley

Tris ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She didn’t know where she was, all she knew was that she was in danger. Tris looked over her shoulder and crashed head-long into a door that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere! Suddenly, the door creaked open. There was the most amazing sight she’d ever witnessed. Tris’s mind went blank. Only a longing for this new beautiful, pure place remained, so Tris Song stepped forward into this new world.

Tris blinked open her eyes -- or tried to blink them open. Why was the simple task of lifting one's eyelids so hard? Slowly, thinking became easier as the fog surrounding her thoughts gradually dispersed. Tris groaned. Now she had room to think she realised the pain -- her head was throbbing, her back ached and her fingers were numb. Soon her ears started working and her fingertips regained some feeling. Waves crashing against rock filled her ears and Tris felt grains of sand under her arms. Her brain slowly pieced together the parts, the waves, the sand and the slow feeling of sinking - wait, sinking? Her eyes flew open and she screamed, the sand under her was like a giant mouth swallowing her whole, arms flailing. She desperately tried to get up and out but everywhere she moved she sank, until eventually Tris gave up and let herself be taken by the sand. Sand was all around her, making it hard to breathe, so she held it; sand was all around her, making it hard to see, so she didn’t.

Just when she thought her life would end, Tris emerged from the sand and fell for about 2 metres, landing with a heavy thud on a hard rock floor. Gasps went up all around her, even a small muffled scream when she landed. Suddenly a voice shrieked,

“Quickly! Scan her!” and then she was surrounded by a dozen people in biohazard suits and holding strange machines that looked like a gun mixed with a vacuum cleaner. The strange people aimed their weird devices at Tris. She expected them to make a loud noise, or fire something at her, instead they made a tiny whirring sound,

“She’s clear,” one yelled, “get ‘er up!” Every single person rushed forward to help, but that wasn’t what she needed.

“What is this place? How do I get back through the door?” she yelled at the many people around her. They just stopped and looked at her, as though they hadn’t understood.

“Oh, you come from the city,” the squeak of a voice came from Tris’s right; “you do don’t you?” The voice belonged to a small girl, around the age of 6 or 7, 

“The city? Well I guess I do, but I need to get back there!” An old man came up to her left, 

“The only way to escape this mess of a world is to get through the maze, but that is just a legend. You would die trying. Right now you need to leave.” His voice carried authority and knowledge, and Tris knew that she could either leave on her own accord, or she would be forced out,

“OK, I will leave, but first you need to show me how.” The man simply pointed up in reply,

“Jump.”

Tris leaped upward and swam through the quicksand, and in less than 7 seconds she was on the beach again with no sign that she had ever been underground.

“The maze…” she mumbled to herself, “that’s my target.” she looked around, a hysterical laugh finding itself in her mouth. Where would she start? Looking around she saw a tower peaking over the mountain tops. Her legs automatically set toward the peak, and her stomach rumbled reminding her of how long ago since her last meal was. As if summoned by her wish a patch of dark blue berries appeared around the corner. She rushed toward them picking off as many as her hands could hold and stuffing as many as possible into her mouth. Tris could’ve cried from happiness.

“Who are you?” The voice was an unhappy reminder of where she was.

“Why are you eating my berries? What are you doing here?” Whoever this was was not pleased for Tris to be there, quite the opposite in fact.

“You’re berries? Who are you?” She had tried to match the person's scornful tone, but unfortunately the questions came out more fearful than she would have liked.

“I am the owner of those berries you just ate for free.” Tris turned and faced the person, severely annoyed, but nothing could have prepared her for what she saw: a giant squirrel! Her jaw dropped. This didn’t help the first impressions Tris was making, and the the giant squirrel kept on scowling at her.

“I cannot believe that you have the audacity to look at me that way, I don’t know why you're here because you should be underground AWAY from the sandworms!” 

“What sandworms?”

“The sandworms that suck the life out of you, NOW LEAVE!”

The squirrel swung a huge paw at Tris, and hit her square in the face,

“Owwwww!” Tris complained.

“I SAID LEAVE RIGHT NOW!!” The squirrel was roaring (as much as a giant squirrel can roar) and suddenly Tris now remembered the maze. leaving was now the most appealing thing anyone could have suggested so she bolted away. 

This world was now much less beautiful than it previously seemed. As she walked Tris thought about those sandworms, they suck the life out of people? How? She thought thoroughly confused, how do these sandworms suck the life out of people? Are they big? She decided to push those disturbing thoughts from her mind and continue walking.

It was a few hours before she reached the maze and was surprised to see what looked like an abandoned castle; few of the towers still stood, one being directly in the middle of the complex -- the one that she had seen from a distance. More than half of the castle was simply rubble, and posters were everywhere displaying warning signs about sandworms. Some had pictures of something that resembled a tiny yellow worm with two little fangs where the mouth would be. They looked like the stuff of nightmares. Something caught Triss' attention in the corner of her eye. When she looked she saw a maze, the maze. It was giant, but it was also the only way back to her world, her family. Even though she knew she wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t strong, Tris Song knew in her heart that she would make her way back. She remembered her younger brother playing pranks on her and making jokes with her- or at her. In that moment nothing mattered more than getting back home, not even her life. 

Tris would go into the maze, but she wasn’t stupid! She had seen the sandworm pictures and the stories about all the life sucking, so she knew she had to find a way to kill the little beasts. That started with finding weapons. She knew it was going to be hard to kill them, if the entirety of mankind had fled underground, but Tris had to start somewhere. Instead of walking to the maze she walked towards the castle. As she walked in she saw a tiny creature resembling the things on the posters, sandworms, she thought. But then Tris had an idea. Looking down at her hard leather boots she lifted her foot up and brought it down on top of the sandworm. With a disgusting squelching sound the sandworm went limp but just as she thought she’d succeeded 2 more noticeably smaller sandworms crawled out of the dead one’s body! Tris shrieked and ran deeper into the castle, ignoring the many sandworms that tried to latch on to her. She ran until she saw a sign saying ‘weapons’ hanging over a door and just like when she had first gone into the new world she crashed as hard as she possibly could into the door, putting all her weight to the right, leaning onto the door. It burst open and clouds of dust flew everywhere. Tris coughed and waved her arms to get rid of it. It was dim because the only light came from a tiny window at the top corner of the room. It was a small room, more like a cupboard and lots of hooks that would’ve onced held weapons but now only two were actually occupied. These weapons looked similar to the things the people underground had, but they also had a strange compartment at the back with what looked like a shredder. Tris yanked one from the hook and immediately dropped it. She hadn’t expected it to be that heavy. She reached down and picked it up again, this time more carefully. It was heavy but not so heavy she couldn’t hold it. Putting her finger on the trigger she aimed it at the wall then pressed hard down. A blade shot out towards the wall then a vacuum started sucking up dust. The dust went into the shredder and was held in the plastic compartment.

Remembering how the sandworm turned into two when killed, this weapon was absolutely genius. Ready now, Tris ran back outside, eager to test herself against the maze. She shot the weapon at as many sandworms as possible, a thrill of delight every time one died. As she approached the maze Tris realised that in the centre was a huge glass spire and at the top she could just see a door, the same door I went through to get here she thought, that’s my way home. The walls were made of bricks towering around her. They would have once been perfect and impossible to climb but they were now crumbling and infinitely easier to get on top of. One part had even been reduced to a large pile of rubble. Tris started towards that part and scrambled on top, then proceeded to get onto the main wall. But as she got up she realised that the wall was crawling with sandworms, hundreds-even thousands clung to it, swarming toward her across the hard red bricks,

“No!! Get back! I-I have a weapon!” Even though she knew it was futile to talk to worms she couldn’t help it, sandworms were falling off the wall in their desperate flurry to reach Tris, but not enough fell. She was clicking the trigger as fast as she could and she seemed to be making a little bit of progress. Pushing forward she was accidentally stepping on the tiny idiots, making them duplicate. It seemed like hours until the sandworms stopped coming at her but Tris knew it really had only been minutes. She stopped to catch her breath. The spire was close now but what she then saw horrified her. A giant sandworm was coiled around her way back home. No,  she thought, it’s not one giant one it’s thousands of. It was hissing -- all the sandworms were hissing in unison and somehow between the hisses they spoke,

“Surrender now weakling, for you will soon feed the clan” it was hissing, menacing and strangled as if it was hard to muster the words.

“What clan?” Triss' voice was laced with fear, really it was shameful.

“Tell me! A-and let me pass, I have this weapon!” The sandworms made an odd raspy coughing sound and she realised it was laughing at her. Its body even quivered with uncontrollable laughter. Anger mixed with determination and fear caused a power Tris never knew was in her.

“I will not get eaten by you foul beast!” as the words emptied from her she leapt forward, holding the trigger of the weapon down so the blade was constantly out. The fight for life had begun.

Having no experience with a blade, Tris waved it around wildly, desperately trying to hit something - anything! The huge sandworm cackled again, becoming larger and larger with every swing. A few sandworms broke off from the giant one, latching on to her. Every time one grabbed on to her, Tris felt a stab of pain, as if sharp darts were creating wounds everywhere on her body, but unlike darts the creatures were sucking. Suddenly the phrase sucks the life out of you sounded more descriptive and truer than it ever had. She was still hitting as hard as she could at every possible place but soon Tris gave up on that and just ran towards the glass spire, no longer swiping everywhere but aiming her blows forward, toward the spire, toward the door, toward home, she thought. She could feel herself getting weaker each second, so Tris used her last bit of strength to get to the door of the tower, stepping inside and climbing the stairs.

The door was there, all of its brown splintering wood, its rusting metal hinges and what looked like the only new part of the door, a shining gold door knob. The pain disappeared, the fear gone, expelled from existence, just like before - what before? Tris could no longer remember anything else, the only thing that had ever existed was this door…

Her hand lifted and rested on the door knob without her making any attempt to, and her eyes did not blink even though they were dry and her cheeks wet. Why have I been crying? Why was there any reason to be crying? 

“No!! I will not let you go!! The clan is starving! We must have you!” The hissing roar broke Tris from her trance, pain filled her body. The sandworms were killing her. No! I must at least die in my home world!! Her hand twisted the door knob and Tris crawled through. Every nerve in her body was on fire but she made herself pull the rear half of her through the threshold and onto the otherside. 

Tris Song looked around. A hallway stretched out in front of her, coloured blue and purple. Two rooms were on one side of the hallway, one had light streaming from it and laughter. Tears sprang from her eyes. She knew where she was, even if a woman and a boy around three years younger than her hadn’t come out of the room and told her. They were holding hands, both of them smiling. Tris remembered holding hands with those same people. The tears were uncontrollable now. Could this somehow be a nightmare? Or a prank by the boy standing only metres away? No, the answer was immediate and certain, but something else drew Triss' attention. The sandworms were gone. Perhaps she would joke with her brother and parents again, but not right now, she thought, and the world closed in around her…