The great sun retreats from the desert, its devastating heat yielding to a bone-chilling cold under a moonless sky. The dunes are restless tonight. Sand devils wreak havoc upon the landscape in agitation, obscuring vision in every direction and keeping their secrets close.
The livestock are restless, too. The braying of camels in distress calls the nomad from his tent. The scimitar on his back, the skill of his hands, will be enough to turn away any desert dog that would steal from his clansmen. He sees nothing in this storm, though, and speaks soothingly to the creatures.
Dark, nearly jet black hands spring from beneath the sand behind his feet, grasping his ankles and yanking him face-first into the ground. He struggles onto his back and reaches for his blade, but when he looks up through the blood and sand in his eyes, his heart freezes in his chest. The devil has come for him tonight. There is no escape.
Impossibly strong hands wrap around his throat, like cords of rope pulling him into the creature's maw. The camels huddle together in the corner, staining the desert with their fear as their master shakes in the djinn's grasp like a small girl.
He takes the clothes, which hang loosely over his short, stocky frame, the coins, the blade, and leaves the empty vessel for the vultures. The thirst sated, memory returns, as clouded as the desert around him. He whispers to the strongest camel, which ceases its quaking and obediently rises to deliver the devil. He has many questions- When is this? How long have I been gone?...so many memories of others, younger than he, so much younger. Am I the first? Or the second? Or......but there is one thing he knows.
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