Sands of Calamity - AzNovels

Chapter One

It's all gone. Everything is all gone. The cities in this area are all decaying slowly, causing large concrete buildings to slowly be chipped away and fall apart. The old parking garage collapsed last night due to the decay of its support braces. The Sandstorms that are destroying the valley took out most of the forest and covered the roadways. Nothing was left untouched, no houses, no highways, nothing was untouched by sand. We do not know who it was who initiated the dropping of the sub-nuclear warheads, nor did we expect that the next five years we would be swallowed by the sand that surrounded us. The forests nearby that I had grown up in were swallowed. All that remained were large dead rotting logs standing in the sand as a message of treason or terrorism. At this point, we do not know and we do not care. all we care about was staying alive in this new world of ours. Water quickly became scarce as the underground wells started to fill with sand, turning everything into mud. next came the food shortages. We used to get regular supply shipments from the outer farmlands but when the sand started to invade it became very difficult to maintain crops. It also does not help that the military enacted a ration. People started to gather in protest and anger. They were hungry and scared. I was selected to be a part of the Riot Squad in charge of keeping the peace and trying to keep people from leaving into the sands. we were mobilized after Jeffery and Linda ran out and tried to make it to the next town. We 'Recovered' the bodies, bad choice of words for something had torn the bodies apart. We were meant to keep people in the city and keep them safe. We were on border guard for two days before the last of the bombs landed two cities to the east. A dust storm obscured the image of the planes that had dropped them. Still to this day, we do not know who is responsible. The Russian, the Koreans, even our own country was blamed for bombing their own land. The dust and ash from the bombs settled all across the land and getting caught in the winds. As expected the crowds swarmed into the main road and threw whatever they had in their hands at us. We had our shield to keep us covered, but we had to retreat due to the teenagers managing to make Molotov Cocktails. The forward line fell back in line with the broken down APCs. they ran out of fuel a long time ago so we used them as temporary shelter and bunks. not a comfortable as you think but it allowed us to keep a watch on the roads at all times. This kept on for hours on end. We knew people were getting anxious but the sandstorms just kept growing and growing. Not to mention the strange creatures being sighted out in the desert.

Eventually, the crowd began to calm down and many of the people went back in their homes to prepare for the next storm that was on the horizon. We quickly went from guarding the borders to digging graves. A few years ago a new illness had developed among the masses. People call it "Sand-Sickness" but the only local Doctor calls it "Death by Sand". This illness is inflicted when sand is inhaled and gets stuck in the lungs for extended periods of time during or between sandstorms. Coughing can be heard throughout the night and sometimes into the days that follow. Many people have passed, too many in fact. Even the old soldiers came down with this illness. We lost the best poker player in our unit last week. John was a good man but he couldn't hold his poker face when his lungs were giving upon him. Every time someone dies we have to carry them out to the mass graveyard just outside of town. The armed guard follows us just in case the creatures appear. they are familiar to the praying mantis but 4 feet tall and deadly to everything. we lost four men to those, things, while they were dragging bodies out to the dunes.

The sandstorm passed during the night. It was small but still affected many. Many got mad again and wanted to leave. filling the streets in front of us but this time something was different. Something was very wrong, and I am about to find out what that meant. Instead of just rioting, they brought out their guns. most soldiers fled when the shots rang out into the early morning sky. I don't blame them, we ran out of our own ammo weeks ago defending the town from the Dune Crawlers. All of those who remained formed a long line and ducked under our shields. Those who were fast enough were saved by the bulletproof shielding but not everyone was fast enough. those who were not were shot and killed. They rushed the lines and started to beat us with the butt ends of their rifles and pistols when they ran out of ammo. I could hear a loud crashing noise surging up behind me. Another storm was on the way while we are in the middle of a riot! some of the people ran for cover but most of them continue their assault. My unit fell one by one. I feared I was the next to go but I managed to fall back into the thick of the storm. I quickly threw my thin sand scarf over my mouth and nose and fought to get my goggles on. the sand scratched at my skin in a way that felt like running glass over a thick hard rock.