Sands Of Destiny 𖣔 ᵃ ʳᵉʸˡᵒ ᵃᵘ

2| The Horizon

"Rey!" An angry voice growled, pulling her from her beautiful dream.

She opened her eyes to find the harsh reality that was her life. She was in the small room where she had slept since she was a little girl. It was dark with only one small window high on the wall for light.

The floor was hard and dirty and she had only a blanket to sleep on. She looked up to see a narrow beam of light pouring into her room. Dust swirled in the air clouding the small amount of light that she had.

She turned to see her master, Unkar standing above her. He was a large man with a thick black mustache and a bald head.

"Wake Up!" he snapped. "Sleep is for the dead."

If that's true, then I'm far more alive than you, she thought silently. All Unkar ever did was sleep, eat and order her around. A thousand comebacks rang in her mind, but she didn't dare to speak them, for she knew what the cost of doing so would be.

She sat up, and moved to stand.

Just as she did, Unkar threw a large bucket at her. It hit her hard in the stomach. And she couldn't help the small groan of pain that escaped her lips.

"Get some water," he demanded.

She grabbed the bucket and scurried to her feet. Then she hurried out of her small room.

She stepped out of the dark room and into the brightness of outside. It was dawn, and the sun barely peaked over the distant horizon, but it glared brightly in her eyes after being in almost complete darkness. She lifted her hand to shield the glare of the sun from her eyes as she looked out to the horizon.

She turned away from the unknown of the desert behind her master's mansion, to the town, Jakku, where she had lived since birth. She walked down the narrow streets of the village to the well.

As she walked, everyone she passed looked at her. The young girl wore a tattered white shirt, which was torn and cropped, exposing the fair skin of her belly. She wore a short white vest over it. White strips of cloth were wrapped around her arms up to her elbows. She wore loose white trousers and brown boots. And she wore a white cloak that fell to her calves. Her brown hair was pulled back in three buns.

Upon seeing her, they all knew that she was either a slave or a daughter of the street. The wealthy treated her as dirt. Others, bandits saw her as what they believed to be an easy target to rob or capture and sell in the slave markets. But there was more to her than what met the eye.

Hidden beneath her cloak was a small dagger, and though it was behind her back, it was at easy access. There had been several occasions when she had been forced to use the dagger against bandits and slave traders.

Though she hadn't been able to protect herself from a life of slavery. But as bad as Unkar was, she knew that there could always be worse. At least she had food, water and a place to sleep. She had seen orphans less fortunate than herself.

But if she had been born as a slave, or had fallen into the life she lived under different circumstances she wouldn't be so troubled. Her own parents had sold her to Unkar when she was a little girl. But she still loved them and hoped that one day they would come back for her. She would have escaped long ago, but if she did how would her parents find her? As long as she stayed where she was they would be able to find her... at least that was what she had always thought.

Finally, she reached the center of town where the well was located. She tied the rope to the bucket handle and lowered it into the deep hole. A splash echoed as the bucket was filled with water.

She heaved on the rope, pulling it up to the top. Then she began the long walk back to the mansion with the heavy bucket.

As she neared Unkar's mansion, she stopped to look out across the desert, towards the horizon. She couldn't help but imagine an ocean in the place of the sea of sand.

She couldn't help but wonder what was beyond this town, this life she had always known.

What was really out there?

She had heard rumors and legends of a group of black veiled riders, who were said to be a dangerous desert dwelling people. A group of bandits and assassins. It was because of them that no one traveled the desert alone, especially not at night.

But what was beyond the wide sea of sand? Did an ocean really lay beyond the dry world she knew?