Forgetful Sands Ch1

This walk was taking eternity. The further she walked the further it seemed she still had to go. Trekking through the desert was hot and never-ending. It also seemed the further she walked the less she remembered. Her memories were slowly disappearing. With each step her mind lost more of its ability to remember. She tried so hard to remember. Why was she walking through the desert any way and who were these people with her? She looked around and counted one, two, no there were three others with her. She tried and tried to remember who they were, her mind seemed to wander away from what she'd been focusing on for a moment and she had a vague thought that scared her. Were they actually traveling together or just going the same way? After a few seconds of internal debate she came to the conclusion that they were indeed together. The more she looked around the more sure she became that they were indeed traveling together. She looked around again as if searching for answers to why there was nothing here except for her, no wait a second there were three others too, how quickly she'd almost lost that thought, even though she just managed to convince herself of it. Ok Alcar, she thought as she shook her head to clear away some of the fuzz, she tried to once again take her surroundings in, for how many times now she didn't know, again willing herself to get it right this time. There was her, the three others, and sand. There was definitely sand, tons and tons of sand. Well those things and of course the heat. There was so much heat and it was everywhere she looked, she could see it bouncing off the eternity of sand everywhere she looked. That was all she could see, just heat and sand, heat so intense she could feel it seeping into her mind, slowly scorching her memories. Some of them were surely being burned away in this intense heat, it was as if she could physically feel the memories leaving her person ever so slowly one by one, possibly turning into some of the very sand she was walking through. Oh the heat was killer but it was being made even worse with the sand, what the sun wasn't scorching or burning out of her the vast ocean of sand felt as if it were pulling the thoughts forcefully from her, the ones the sands tugged and pulled were the thoughts and memories she was sure she'd managed to hide in her mind from the heat.  If this combination continued something, some small warning in the back of her mind perhaps, was telling her over and over to fix this, to make the memory theft cease. She knew she had to do something or the rest of her thoughts, the rest of who she was would be baked or pulled from her mind, making her forget everything she'd ever known, every memory she'd ever had. With each painful step she felt, no actually if she were truthful with herself and she might as well be since she knew she wouldn't remember it much longer, she was positive another memory vanished.  Alcar shook her head, once again trying to shake off the fog that was slowly but securely enveloping her brain. After shaking her head, for the umpteenth time in a matter of minutes, and looking around. She was positive she had no idea where she was anymore. No matter how desperately she tried she couldn't for the life of her remember where she was or what in gods name she was there for. The one thing she knew for certain, at least at that moment, was whatever she needed to remember had escaped her. She could remember it was very important but, beyond that she was at a complete lost.  She wracked and wracked what memories she had left, even as they slipped from her grasp step by step, no matter how sure of its importance she was, she could not recall what it was she knew she must remember. It was madding to know that you needed to remember something, knew that it was extremely important, and yet no matter how hard you tried you lacked the capacity to complete even that small task of knowing where you were and why you were there. Well shaking her head didn't make anything come back. Wracking her brain as it emptied out slowly wasn't working. She was running out of ideas, and since her mind wasn't working right she was starting to doubt she had the facilities to figure out any other ideas.

All she could remember was that she was here with the other three people , whom she couldn’t remember, and what they were doing was of absolute importance but what it was she couldn’t remember. She stared at her companions, at least she was pretty sure they were her companions, she didn't feel like an outsider nor did she feel like a prisoner, she had a small realization a hope really. She suddenly hoped that by staring at them she might be able to figure out who they were. 

         There was another girl with them a short girl, Alcar knew she was shorter than herself she didn't know how she knew this but she was certain of it.  Alcar turned and looked behind her then down at herself. She turned around again and noticed they were dressed different, even from behind she could see the girls clothes, she had on some sort of skirt made from what looked like animal fur with a belt around it but her top was separate. The top was made of the same material but looked like it only covered the girls bosom tying around her neck and behind her back by strings leaving most of her beautifully tanned skin showing. The only other parts of her that were covered were covered by a sort of pack that was slung over one arm and a strange sort of sandal that covered her entire foot and laced up her leg almost to her knee . From the back she looked beautiful she had brilliant red hair that was braided into some sort of intricate bun. Her hair was so pretty Alcar stared at it for a while wondering in the beauty of something so simple as hair. All of a sudden the girl stopped and turned around glaring at her. But as the girl turned to her Alcar's breath was taken away, she had thought the girls red hair was stunning but the rest of her left Alcar as breathless and speechless as she could possibly be. With her minds nonfunctioning state she didn't have time to say anything before the girl narrowed her eyes and turned back around. But the way she looked was burned into what little memories Alcar had. In fact they were so stunning they almost consumed her. The girls face was almost angelic she had the greenest eyes they reminded Alcar of a trees leaves, she was pretty sure she still at this point remembered what a tree was, the girls mouth was perfectly shaped, or had been before it had been pulled into a line of irritation. Alcar could still see the most amazing just plump enough lips under a pert little nose she'd noticed one last thing about the girl as she turned away from her. The red haired beauties ears had come to a point at the top, she slowly reached up and felt her own ear but was not surprised to find they were rounded. then she thought that the beauties ears were just like the rest of her perfect. Alcar was so amazed by the beauty she almost stopped walking. But all of a sudden she spied the other two travelers and wanted to get a closer look at them. She's slowed down considerably from the shock of the red head and she had to hurry to catch up.

When she got close enough she realized that the other two were not women or girls, which she'd somehow known but was relieved to find her memory had been correct. As she studied them she was drawn more to one of them than the other first. He was tall actually he was very very tall. He was so tall that he stood at least a foot above the other man and the other one wasn't short at all as far as she could tell, he seemed much taller than her anyway.  The tallest man had black curly hair, it was sort of short, she felt her own hair and realized it was very short compared to hers, she was a little surprised to find hers hung well past her waist and was very smooth when she pulled some of it in front of her to look at it she was a little alarmed to see it had almost no color at all it was so pale it crossed her wandering mind for a second that maybe the heat and sand had taken the color from it too along with her memories but she quickly dismissed it and dropped her own hair to complete her study of the other two in the group, she once again focused her vision to his hair.  Ok his was black and curly and was only as long as the base of his neck and muscular back. As she studied him she noticed he was actually very muscular, every part of him not covered by clothes was covered with lightly bronzed skin that was toned, she could see the muscles of his back move with each step he took. While she studied him she was almost amazed to realize one of his arms looked to be about the same width as the red headed beauty's entire body. She was once again mesmerized by one of her group as she watched the muscles of his back bunch and relaxed as he walked in front of her. She tore her gaze from his back and made herself look at the rest of him. She noticed that he too carried a pack one much larger than the one the beauty carried but he didn't bother to sling it across his arm onto his back as she had he carried it in one hand that swayed too and fro as he stepped through the sand. His clothes were very different from the red head and her own, she looked down and noticed her clothing was covering every inch of her skin unlike the other two but her interest wasn't in her at the moment so she shrugged her shoulders and studied the giant man some more. The only clothes he had on were some sort of thin light colored, almost the same color of as the sand that surrounded them, loose fitting pants. She could tell they were loose everywhere but at his waist, which was held by a belt that had a lot of things attached to it, they seemed to be loosely following the movements of his legs. The sort of  ballooned out making it difficult to tell how big his legs were but she was pretty sure they were just as muscular as the parts of him she could see. He didn't have a shirt on and his feet were covered with a sandal that looked a lot like the kind the girl was wearing but she couldn't see if the straps went as high because his pants covered him down to his ankles.

On closer inspection of the other man she realized he was actually much shorter than she had originally thought. He was still at least a head and a half taller than her but he was still about two or three heads shorter than the giant of a man next to him. He was smaller in many ways she realized, he seemed to be less muscular than the tall man, not a weakling by any means but his body was not nearly as immense as the other man. He seemed to have strength plenty but was not muscle bound as the other man looked when she compared them from their backs. She noticed he wore the same clothing or pants and shoes as the giant and also had no shirt on. His pack was larger than the girls but smaller than the giants and he had his slung over one shoulder in the same manner as the small beauty. His belt was also cluttered with things but it didn't seem to have as many attachments as the large mans belt had. His hair was straight like hers had been when she'd looked at it, however the lack of color of hers made his all the more confusing. He had brownish hair but it wasn't just one shade as the others were his seemed to have many shades of brown in it some lighter some darker, the colors weren't only one color here one color there it was like his hair couldn't decide to be one color of brown so it took all the different colors of brown and grew them all together so they were like a brown rainbow of sorts, she couldn't think of another way to describe it, she could see so many different browns in his hair, she didn't know how she knew this but she knew his hair was different from just about anybodies she'd ever seen before and until she'd seen his hair she hadn't realized there could be so many browns in the entire world. But where hers was as long as her waist his only hung to about his shoulders. He didn't let it hang free as she did his was gathered together at the base of his neck and held together with what looked like leather, or whatever the strings of the beauties top was tied with,  tied together keeping it all in one place. She noticed quite a few differences between the two men but the ones that stuck in her head the most were his hair color of course, the fact that he had a covering on his head. She thought for a moment and somehow remembered she'd seen something like it before, it was called a hat she thought. She smiled a quick smile happy with herself for remembering something. But just as she remembered what a hat was he shifted his pack and she noticed something on the skin on his back. His skin was tanned like the other two, though not as dark, and when his pack moved she noticed something black on his back, she could only see some of it but it looked like a picture of some kind. It was so different from the other two backs she was shocked. The girls back, what wasn't covered by her pack was smooth and brown with nothing on it and the giants back was the same way. This man with the hat and interesting hair had a marking on his skin, a marking she somehow knew would never come off. It startled her and made her stop walking. She thought who would put a picture on someone's back? How did it stay there. She suddenly had so many questions. She stood there and watched them walking away from her while hundreds of questions, some she understood some she didn't, ran through her head. She looked up at the sky and saw nothing but blue as far as she could see. She looked around her and saw nothing but sand. The next thing she knew she felt an overwhelming sadness envelope her. She opened her mouth to say something but forgot it by the time her mouth was open. She closed her eyes and could still see the sand and sky. When she opened her eyes again everything looked blurry. She felt tears fill her eyes until she couldn't tell what was around her. The next thing she knew she was crying. Tears running silently down her face as she watched the blurry figures get further and further away, until the tears seemed to stop and she was filling with what felt like an emptiness. As the emptiness engulfed her she gave into the urge to let the sands take her and crumpled to her knees in the ocean of sand. She felt so empty and alone. She closed her eyes from the brightness and heat and lay there waiting for what she knew would be the end of her.