They used to tell me of time when the sky didn’t burn. When people got gray hair. They used to tell me things could go back.

Tongues of sand tried to find their way around my evap and into my mouth, licking around my goggles, seeping in every crack. I only noticed the sand because my neck seal is cracked. You never notice things til they really try to piss you off.

“Jorv, I’ve got to find a new neck seal. The sand is killing me.”

“Well that’s what you get for picking a fight with a kervian!”

“You’re not really still pissed about that are you?”

Jorv looked back at me, the bloody cut on the side of his face was filled with sand, but I could still see it. “Of course I’m still pissed! You almost got us both killed, and being kicked out of town into this sandstorm will probably finish the job! That is if that big ass kervian doesn’t come looking for us first!”

Almost as if on cue we both heard the grinding sound of a skifter.

A kervian skifter.