Three Weeks Too Long

Monday

We had given up wandering the desert. We found a landform made of sandstone that resembled a small cave and had decided to set up a permanent camp. The last of our rations had just run out. Edwards and I had decided to go scout out and see what we could find while the rest of the crew set up our new dwelling.

It was about noon when the Captain and I set out. We had walked roughly for roughly an hour with no sign of anything that closely resembled food and were about to turn back. There was no sense in being burnt to a crisp if we weren't going to find anything. That's when it hit. A sandstorm worse than the one that got us lost two weeks ago. It came out of nowhere and gave us little time to react. We saw it rapidly approaching in the distance. We both froze for a second when we first laid eyes on it. I looked at Edwards and breathed one single word that got the point across. "Run". We started sprinting (more like clambering) up and over sand dunes, but the storm was faster. Within twenty seconds it was already on us. The visibility was terrible, but before the sand had disabled our vision I had noticed a particularly large dune. Hoping that the backside would help shelter us from the storm I yelled to the Captain and he seemed to understand my plan. We began doing our best to race up the dune, the sand burning our lungs.

We had just made it to the top of the dune and slid down the side for some shelter. I was relieved that we had escaped most of the storms rage. The backside was steeper than I had expected and as we slid down the dune we began picking up speed. I quickly noticed that at the bottom of the dune there was nothing. A ravine. My relief quickly turned into anxiety as I realized how much speed we were picking up. I tried to yell to the Captain, and even though he was only about twenty-five feet in front of me, the sandstorm still drown out my shouts of warning. I tried to concentrate on getting myself to slow down. I was desperately grabbing at the sand but it kept dragging me closer to the edge. The ravine kept getting closer and closer. Edwards had now realized the advancing danger and was also trying to find something to grab a hold of. I was beginning to lose faith when I felt my hand collide with something solid. I immediately grabbed hold and my body jerked to a stop. I had grabbed onto a sandstone boulder which had been submerged in the sand. I quickly turned around to see where the Captain was and how close he was in proximity to the ravine. I turned around just in time to see Edwards going over the edge. I made eye contact with him just before he went over. He didn't look scared. There was no terror in his eyes. Just regret and sadness. He mouthed something. "Enjoy the sun." It didn't make much sense. Then he fell. There was no "snap" or "crack" when he hit the bottom. Just the raging winds of the storm.

I sat there in the sand staring at the place Edwards had just been. What else could I do? Five minutes passed, ten, fifteen, twenty. The storm stopped.

I trudged back to the camp, emotionless. I still hadn't planned out what I was going to tell the crew when I finally made it there. Marcus was the first to greet me. "Hey, what happened to you, you look like Hell. And where's the Captain?" "Dead." I stated bleakly. The crew went silent. "What do you mean 'dead'?" Smith questioned. "Did it have something to do with the sandstorm?" I didn't want to talk about it. I'd seen men die before from old age and sickness but this was different. Edwards was holding our crew together. Without him. . . "Hey you still with us?" I hadn't realized that the whole crew was staring at me. I nodded towards Exavier to indicate that I was ok. Exavier had always worried about me. He was my best friend. It was his job to worry. I decided to explain what had happened. "It was the sandstorm. We tried to hide behind a dune but it was too steep. There was a ravine at the bottom. Edwards went over the edge." We sat in silence for an hour and then went to bed.