Raindrops Ch.1

CHAPTER ONE
"As children we are taught to follow our dreams, that nothing is impossible. The world is as vast as our imagination and that there is always hope, but as we grow up we learn to tell the difference between childhood fantasies and reality. We lose faith as we realize the horrible truth; that the world doesn't want our dreams"

The sword slid into the sand with a slight grating sound, the bearer of the weapon carrying it as much for support on the slippery dune as he did just to hold it. The blade was old, its sheath long lost, and though it was well-cared for, rust had still claimed some small parts of its guard.
Around the young man's shoulder was a brown, patched up canvas bag. Some small parcels at its bottom pushed out bulkily, but it was mostly empty, the result of poor findings. Like his bag, the young man's wardrobe was patched, from his thin jacket to his dark undershirt, all of his clothes were worn and frayed. Only his high boots, crafted from aged leather, had any remnant of their original appearance.
This young man, whose name was Raphael, took another step, his foot again sinking several inches into the parched sand. Had he been wearing the traditional footware, his boots would be full of sand and blistered feet, but foresight had kept this from happening.
He reached the crest ot the dune and surveyed the waterless land below him. It was an ocean without water, for the dunes were like waves and flowed across the desert at the mindless march the wind set for them. Instinctively, he squinted his eyes against the sand's unrelenting glare. A warm breeze swept up the dune, hurling sand into Raphael's face. His eyes teared at the stinging touch of the sand, sending the world into a blurry mass of shapes and costing him a couple of drops of precious water.
Grimacing at the pain, Raphael turned against the wind and wiped away the grit with his jacket sleeve. By the time he could see again the breeze had shifted elsewhere, giving him the chance to return to his seeking.
It was a few seconds before his attempt was rewarded. Half buried by a sand dune was a small group of buildings, which appeared to have once been part of a larger collection, perhaps even a town, but Raphael had never heard of a town in this area. For him, and many who had been here ahead of him, it'd always been the desert and its ruins.
Determined to make it back with the sun still in the sky, Raphael slid down the sandy slope. His momentum continued as he broke into a run at the dune's base. When he came closer to the ruins he slowed his pace, weighing to prospects of each of the five visable buildings. Deciding on the one closest to the sand dune looming over the ruins, but not yet buried, he shifted his pack as he walked.
The air inside the stone building was much cooler than the air outside, and the only source of illumination was the light streaming through the open doorway and paneless windows. The floor was made of stone but Raphael couldn't see it through the three inches of collected sand covering everything.
In the back of the ruin were the remnants of a wooden table, the legs on one end broken. Along the wall on Raphael's left was a low lying cabinet-shelf combination made of the same dark stone that all of the ruins were made of. The wood of the doors were rotten, just like the wood of the table proved to be upon closer inspection. Some of the doors had weakened so much that they had fallen right off their hinges.
Raphael frowned, he knew that wood could dry rot, essentially turning into powder, but the rot that was eating the table and the doors was more like the rot he'd seen back home. Without water, it shouldn't have rotted in peeling strips.
Such thoughts could be considered later, he reminded himself. He leaned the sword against a stone block and pulled his bag off his shoulder. From it he retrieved a wide-headed spade and began digging through the sand on the floor around the table. Whenever and object of decent quality was found it was placed in a pile. Mostly, the objects were pieces of bronze silverware and clay and porcelin plates. When at last the pile of treasures had grown to a considerable size, Raphael took a break. He wrapped the silverware together in a single piece of canvas, but the plates were wrapped carefully in several layers of a much softer material.
With only a little room left in his bag, Raphael glanced at the cabinet. He rose to his feet, removed the stopper out of his mostly empty water bag and took a drink. The bag sloshed with every motion, and Raphael didn't waste a drop of the precious liquid it contained. When he'd drank what he could afford, he returned the stopper, making sure it was securely fixed before he slid the bag back to its place at his side.
He pulled at the bronze door handle on the closest cabinet that still had its door, but intsead of opening, the wood cracked and fell apart.
"Oops..." He said, imitating a young child. Inside the cabinet was the gleam of metal, the prospect of which made Raphael's skip a beat. He reached for the gleam, but stopped as the sound of steps in the sand came from the nearest window. He slid soundlessly to where he'd left his blade and gripped the cracked leather wrapped around the hilt, waiting.
The sound moved towards the door, then stopped. Like a phantom, the wind moaned through to windows and the steps continued.
Fear seized Raphael's heart, he had no idea what could be lurking outside. He discovered that the hand holding the blade was shaking and willed it to stop. Beyond the stone walls the steps were almost to the door. Raphael was certain that his heart, with each booming beat, was going to betray him.
But nothing came, no figure, human or otherwise, moved into the doorway. As the wind moaned again a large tumble weed rolled into view not far from the door. The sound was made when it struck the sand with its uneven weight.
A sigh escaped from Raphael. He slid back across the sand to the cabinet and reached inside. The metalic gleam was neither tool nor jewelry, rather, it was two gracefully curving short swords, each worth its weight in gold. He wrapped these in seperate cloths, then used the remaining cloth to hold the two together. When the treasures had been securely bound, Raphael tied the package to the cavas bag using several lengths of leather cord attatched to the bag's outer layer.
Satisfied with his haul, he left the ruins. He walked up and over the dune he'd come from, then followed the valley formed by the joining bases of several dunes until he reached a long vehicle covered in a dusting of sand.
At the press of a button, a hatch opened near the center of the vehicle. A rough net was in place to hold any objects found in the ruins away from the motor.
He eased the canvas bag into the hatch, then closed the cover with a mild slam. Once in the seat, he slid the brake latch down its bar, causing the whole machine to shudder. The three turbines on the vehicle's bottom began to spin and Raphael leaned back.
The four stands lifted into the vehicle, but it stayed in the air, floating just over a foot over the ground. A ring of sand formed around the vehicle, pulsating with the turbines. Raphael eased to craft forward, then hit the accellerator. Around him the world blurred, he placed the sun on his back as he headed home.

Raindrops Chapter 2  (ASR) ~Never Lose Your Dreams #1482114 by Pet Roc