Her hand was cold and wet in mine. I strained to pull her free. The moisture on our skin fought the tenuous grasp of our extremities. Her legs had disappeared in the sodden soil. The earth sucked on her limbs, slavering for the rest. In the darkness only the sliver of moon lit her pale skin. Its light failed in her eyes, drowned in the black pool guarded by the fierce blue ring, thinning with the growth of her fear. The weight of the earth wore my spirit down as hours seemed to pass. Sweat crept down my arm in rivulets, defying the chill breeze. Exhaustion would soon crush me. My grip would slip. She was sinking. I could see the clarity surge up into her eyes. She knew. Her grey lips opened and closed yet I heard no words; a fish pulled from the water. The rain came down in a torrent. She was down to her waist. The hole was spreading outward. The soil's toothless gums chewed on my feet. She had given up on trying to speak. She didn't need to. Despair was all that was left to understand in her eyes. The words were washed away, pulled under by the current. The descent quickened with the fall of the rain. Her shoulders were under. My knees met the muddy surface. As her chin felt the earth's touch, her eyes were vacant and her face turned to pallid marble. She let go of me and went under, leaving behind brief bubbles of air that burst under raindrops.
The sun broke through the clouds, searing through them until only the blue of her eyes remained. The soil hardened around my legs, locking me in place as I stood watching the dirt transform through the hand that had held her. In that position I remained, unable to move. "She was taking me as well," I thought as my eyes closed.
When I woke, the wind was blasting me. That which the soil had not swallowed was covered in sand and dirt. I could still see my hand grasping at the air in front of me. Her bubbles left circles on top of the soil wherein she lay. My eyes closed once more, and could not open. There I was, a prisoner in arenite skin. In darkness. Loss and sorrow flooded my thoughts. I wanted to be broken, smashed into little pieces and pulverised until nothing remained. Instead the wind eroded me. Whittling away at my sediment at a geological pace. The years shaved away at my layers until only the core was exposed. By then I had forgotten the struggle with the elements. Her face was nothing but the shift of the top soil through the seasons. With time the meaning and desperation of that night slipped from my mind's grasp. I had become a part of the forces I had fought. Where hope had once fueled the futility of my rebellion, I now crumbled and scattered in the wind that which was left of me, that which I never possessed, was lost.
