Journey Into The Aftermath |✔

Chapter twenty four: Forever, Together

Luminous colors of a light-shaded cobalt sky lit up Chase's vision in a searing flash as he shot up from two feet underneath sand. Gasping for air through multiple coughs, he tried to quickly take in his surroundings while choking out the grains. Once he saw that he wasn't walking on some astral plane beyond the grave, he shook out the sand buried deep in his hair and tried to raise one of his limbs.

The loose layers of sand poured off his arms as he coughed again and realized that the sand was pure white and pink. Though the white was one solitary hue, there was rose, blush, peach, coral, raspberry, and very hot pink covering Chase entirely. At first he just though it was radiated soil, but it was grainy and soft-and hot-like plain old sand. Almost to confirm his suspicions of the current enigma, it even glistened in the beaming rays of the soft sunlight. He looked down in the hole his body squirmed in and saw that the sand continued to be white at least a couple more feet down for as far as he could tell.

When both arms reached the surface, he went for his legs. They were under a huge white and pink sand dune and it didn't seem to want to budge in the least. He shouted in frustration and wiggled from side to side attempting to make any sort of difference to escape the almost floral sand coffin.

He dug into the sand as much as he could but with every inch he digs away, the loose grains poured right back in the cover the gap in an instant. He even punched the hill hoping some effect would become of it.

With one last breath of determination, he dug at the hill while shifting his legs back and forth. With the combined effort, he tried to pull on his legs where the newly made gap held intact. More yelling came but his arms gave out long before either leg came close to the surface. The last of that last breath left his frail body as he fell to his back.

Looking back up to the perfectly clear sky and the sun sitting snug in the corner of his sight, he suddenly remembered the moment when he was hundreds and hundreds of feet closer to the exact same image, when he could just see the dotted stars beyond the blue layer of sunlit sky. The memory continued into where the rover began to descend into the sandy hell below.

He found himself back in the twisters and waves of relentless sand over-taking him and...

—lov—yo-u—to-o—

"Skylar!" he croaked as his eyes widened and the rest of his body flared to life in a fashion he's never experienced before in his life.

He found himself running across the surface of the sand fields looking for a sign of my body. All happening so fast, he didn't realize how easily and quickly he pulled his legs out from under the dune he couldn't hope to tackle just moments earlier. He stared to call out the name but with a voice so raspy, his energy for it died quicker that he expected. By the second of third call, he found himself whispering, barely able to hear himself.

He trained his attention to his sight and looked for a sign of anything that wasn't the color palette of a twelve-year-old girl's dream wedding. To his ultimate disdain, there was not one single abrasion in the hilly and valley design of the sparkled pink field.

Tears becoming a new source of water, he dropped to his knees and clutched the sand beneath him with a ferocious roar that dove into the retched depths of an almost tangible fear. He gave one more look to the savanna around him while on his knees. When he saw nothing but the gentle ups and downs of the sand, he let the sand spill out from his closed fists as an inescapable pain tore through hid very being, all washing back into a strained scream to the heavens above.

He fell back onto his arms and sobbed to himself.

Pull yourself back to together a voice pounded in his head. She's probably just as worried about you.