On February 22, 2022, through means unknown, all of humanity was transported to a gigantic desert of sand and a merciless sun. They were naked. Cripples lost their prosthetics and those who needed pacemakers clutched their chests and died. Bewildered and terrified, the physically fit set off in all directions like a spreading wave. The blind, crippled, comatose, elderly, children, and little babies were either left to boil in the bulging sun or were trampled into the coarse sand and turned into a flattened mush by a billion footsteps of those fleeing. A few dared to stay, but the indomitable chorus of pained, dry screeches and moans drove most away from those sandy, soon-to-be graveyards.

Those who fled followed others who fled, nobody knew where the naked body in front of them was running. Blind led the blind. A billion glistening, exhausted bodies kicking up a sandstorm. Those who fell behind were trampled. Soon, however, that bulging orb who inflicted so much misery began to dip, the sandy hills were swallowing it up. The air chilled and the crowds slowed. Many kept running, yet a great deal quickly realized the threat of a desert freeze. Rudimentary shelters and holes were quickly dug by hand; there was no shortage of desperate labor. Millions of people packed together like sardines in order to conserve body heat as the wind suddenly drew fierce. Sleep came only to a select, fortunate few.

The morning drew up again to impose its wrath. Those who sheltered rose to find no trace of the runners: the sand had swallowed them.

This is when the thirst began.

This primal need, previously dampened by fear and confusion, engraved itself like a curse into the minds of these hell-bound souls; It wasn’t long before blood was spilled, and drank. At first it was a gigantic free for all, however primitive gangs began to form comprising the most physically superior people of society. They leveraged their strength to crush unfortunate weaklings. In a land of sand and sun there are few resources to exploit, however bones were soon ripped from fresh carcasses to be used as clubs and spears. Battles of unseen proportions rolled through vast stretches of empty sand. One day a field would house a million rotting corpses on a thick carpet of blood, the next it would be an empty slate, ready for humanity to release more creative violence.

Humans have always been inventive with what limited resources they had available to them. The skin and bones of the dead were creatively repurposed into clothing, armor, and tents. Trenches stretched miles deep, dug by bone shovels. People created makeshift bricks by mixing blood and sand and letting it bake outside. Blood farms emerged where prisoners of war were slowly drained of blood; when they died they were dissected, their organs roasted in the sun and eaten and their skin and bones repurposed.

Nothing went to waste in a land of sand and sun