midnight sun. 

I awoke in a world of sand and ruin. 

Alone, in the middle of a desert, with no memories of where I was and who I was. Only echoes, missing puzzle pieces lost to time, fragmented images, blurry slivers of memory—colors, songs, words, distortions. 

The desert was cold and dark, vacant and vast—nothing but dunes of fine white sand, crumbling ruins of dilapidated stone, and a full moon looming high in the star-studded night sky, lingering a little too close to the earth for comfort, just barely out of arm’s reach. The sand glittered like shards of opal beneath its luminous halo—a crystalized sea, the tides rising and falling endlessly. 

I sat up and could only stare, taking in everything. Eyes wide in fear and awe. My mouth open, my jaw agape, but no words dared to break my reverential silence. 

I strained to remember something, anything, but all I could conjure was a flash of white, the faint strumming of an acoustic guitar, and a name. A softly spoken whisper of a name—a name I knew was not my own. It couldn’t be. Charlie. A gentle murmur, a dying breath. Charlie. Charlie was someone, someone I knew. But I did not know how I knew; I just knew that I knew. 

There was a cage in my mind without a key. I knew those memories were there, I knew there was more to me than just these fractures of thought—I could feel it there, lingering, a mocking presence, but I could not access it. I reached and I reached, but it slipped through my fingertips every single time. 

In the wake of my failures, I bitterly accepted my incomplete existence, understanding that I would remain burdened with the knowledge that I was someone I could not remember. Someone missing, someone lost, someone who did not belong. 

I rose, ready to stretch out my legs and wander this unfamiliar land—but it was then that I looked down at my body, or my body that was not a body; I was made of smoke and fire, a sentient blaze. But at the same time, it was a body, a skeleton of burning ember and ash. No legs, however; I floated above the sands, light as air.  

I knew I should feel some sense of shock, surprise, absolute terror even—but nothing, not even a sliver of panic. I simply observed, grasping at the threads of flame, unscorched. Curling, coiling, weaving in and out of myself. A new body, but an old soul. 

I drifted to the edge of the dune and stared out into the horizon. 

And I then realized I had not been alone. 

I saw, in the distance, a silhouette standing against the pale light of the moon. 

With blinding white eyes staring right back at me. 

starfire. 

I was frozen.

This figure beckoned me forward, but I did not move—I could not move. I was entranced by their gaze, lost somewhere in the space between myself and them, not within my own body. 

I was afraid, in some sense of the word; I did not want to be, but I was. Maybe it was the eyes stirring that unsettling feeling within me—the specks of starlight staring right through me, delving deep into my soul. Maybe it was the figure itself, standing so still and dark against the light of the moon. Or maybe it was me, my burden of fear rooted in fear itself, without cause or reason.  

I did, however, consider the thought that traversing through this liminal world would be easier with someone by my side. Maybe they knew something. Maybe they could tell me where I was, who I was, how I ended up here. Or maybe they didn’t know, maybe they were as lost as me, and I could have someone to share in this feeling of emptiness. 

I then realized I was more terrified of being alone than I was of this strange figure and their strange eyes. 

They continued to signal; they would not stop until I heeded their beckoning. 

I fought against my paralysis and won, soaring ahead with newfound determination, gliding up and down the mounds of sand. I was fast and fluid, like a wildfire—moving in unity with the gentle breeze, dusting the tops of the dunes. In this moment, despite the teeth of anxiety nibbling at my consciousness, I felt free. One with this strange place in which I had found myself. I felt like I belonged here, like I was born from these hills—but I knew I wasn’t. 

The eyes became closer and closer, brighter and brighter, until I was staring at twin suns. Standing before me was a tall, hooded figure. A dark, dense shadow was cast over their face, those blinding white eyes the only thing piercing through the black veil. Tall and hunched, they looked down upon me with a gentle yet terrifying gaze. 

“Come on,” they said in a low, raspy voice. “I will introduce you to the others.” 

“The others?” I asked. 

“Yes,” they replied. “You are not alone here.”

Without another word, they began their descent down the dune, and I had no other choice but to follow.

cluster.

More blinding white eyes turned to me as we approached. Three other figures stood before me. 

One was a hazy mass of gray fog, swelling like a cloud. The second, a mosaic sculpture of shattered stained glass, red and blue in the face, yellow and violet in the arms. The third, a large splotch of ink, black tendrils dripping like an open wound. 

“I…I don’t know where I am. I am lost,” I confessed to their empty stares. “Can you help me find my way home?”

“We are one in the same,” replied the fog. “We too are lost.”

“How…how did we get here? Where is here?”

“We don’t know,” said the ink. “We woke up here, stranded. You too, yes?”

“Yes, yes, I just woke up.” 

“As did we,” the stained glass replied.

“Do you have a name?” the fog asked. 

“No…do you?”

“I am Crow,” said ink.

“Violet,” replied the mosaic sculpture. 

“Sol,” answered the fog.

“Polaris,” whispered the cloaked figure. 

“How do you remember?” 

“We don’t,” Violet admitted. “We came up with them ourselves.”

“You…just made them up?”

“Yes,” Polaris said. “Is that not what names are to begin with? A creation of syllables assigned to us, made-up titles that someone decided we should have? If we cannot remember our original design, then we must redesign ourselves in our own image. Become reborn in these early moments of new memory.”

“But—but it won’t help us figure out who we were. Before showing up here. Before losing our pasts,” I mourned. “It just…erases us.”

“We aren’t erased, just…retired, for a while. Why must we remember right away? Why not revel in this new identity for a moment or two? We are stranded in a desert with no one but ourselves—we needed names to address one another. We can’t seem to remember our old ones. So, we make new ones.”

“Polaris is right,” Sol agreed. “We have a chance to start anew. Wherever we are, whoever we are, whenever we are—we can make it our own, if only for a little while.” 

I sighed and looked to the stars in deep consideration. They seemed to know the answer just as well as I did. “Then…then I shall be Charlie. Just for the time being.”

“Welcome, Charlie. It is nice to meet you.”

glass. 

We wandered for miles. 

Up and down, up and down—this sea of sand was never-ending. 

Polaris led the way, we four trailing their shadow. When asked where we were going, they simply responded, “We are following the moon.” That we were—the moon, once at its zenith, was now slowly descending from the sky, and we were chasing it to the horizon. Maybe then it would be close enough to touch.  

We wandered through stone ruins that were haunted by history, cracked and worn. We would stop to rest every now and then in these ruins, and I would comb through the wreckage, overturning loose rock and debris, searching for anything of note, anything that would point us in the right direction and tell us where we were—but I uncovered nothing but more sand, more stones, and the occasional pale spider scuttling for shelter. In spite of my disappointment, I tried to imagine what these ruins once looked like in their prime. Perhaps looming towers that grazed the heavens. Perhaps grand temples, housing ancient texts and holy idols. Perhaps home to someone, somewhere, maybe just as lost as us. 

Most recently, we stopped to rest in one that looked as though it could have been a church, with the fragmented remains of a spire lying atop the rubble, and a shattered apse half-buried in the sand. 

I took a moment to, once more, sift through the detritus. Violet assisted, helping me lift the heavier stones. Sol and Crow were poking around elsewhere. And, by their lonesome, Polaris lingered by the edge of the ruins, sitting cross-legged in the sand, waiting for us to grow bored with our exploring and continue on with our voyage. I caught their gaze, those lonesome, distant eyes staring right through me, as though I were a ghost. 

“What do you remember?” I asked Violet, averting my sight from Polaris.

They scoffed just a little. “Nothing. Same as you.”

“No, I mean…for me, there are these pieces of memory that I can just barely grasp, more so echoes than anything. I remember a flash of light, a song, and a name. I was wondering if you remembered anything like that.”

Violet stopped for a moment, standing still with a large chunk of rubble cradled in their glass arms, in contemplative silence. They stared at the ground, then at the sky, then at the debris, then at me, and after a few pauses, they decided, “Yes…actually. I recall a burning in my throat. A dull ringing in my ears. A deep shade of purple…hence the name, y’know. And…that’s it.” 

“Better than nothing,” I cracked lightly. 

I began to work again, scooping up a bundle of stones and setting them aside, but Violet remained in place. Once more, they had fallen into deep thought. I did not prod; I too had a lot of questions to ponder, a lot of thoughts to work through, but I chose instead to suppress them, in order to keep myself sane.  

“What name do you remember?” they finally asked. 

“Well…Charlie, actually. I know it’s not my name. I don’t know how I know, but I do—it just doesn’t fit in my mind. It…almost feels wrong hearing that name in association with me. But it will be my name until I can remember my own.”

“Oh,” they said, paused for a moment, then opened their mouth to speak again. But no words emerged, and so they turned to the rubble and continued sifting alongside me. And we remained in our shared silence for a few minutes, quietly excavating. 

I cast a sidelong stare at Violet, but they kept their head down—something within me told me that I once knew Violet, something told me I once knew all of them. From before all of this. Or in another life, another reality. But especially Violet. Their voice, the way they spoke—it did not evoke remembrance, but it evoked the feeling of memory, the sensation of realization without the realization itself. 

I was still staring. Violet was still avoiding my gaze. 

I wanted to connect, but I couldn’t figure out how. 

But all of that quickly faded from my mind when Violet broke the silence, pointing. “Wait…I think I see something.” 

I looked to where they pointed. Deep within the rubble, a glint of light caught my eye. I cocked my head to ensure that what I was seeing was not an illusion of the moon’s glare, and I saw shape, dimension. 

We both exchanged glances. Then, without delay, we dove into the rubble, digging madly through the stones. Violet called out to the others. Sol and Crow came rushing to our side and helped us delve; Polaris rose with a flourish of their billowing cloak and slowly approached, standing a few feet behind us, just watching.  

We dug and dug and dug and eventually uncovered the source of light.

Sitting in the sand, amongst the debris, untouched, unbroken, was a large opal key. 

breath.

Crow, the self-decided key-bearer, was wielding the key like a sword, the black ink of their hands spilling over the crystal as they swung it left and right, slashing at the air like it was their sworn enemy.  

“You are going to break that,” Polaris scolded. 

Crow scoffed. “Please. This has been sitting under a pile of rocks for—what?—like a thousand years? I don’t think this thing can break.” Attempting to prove their point, they raised the key over their head, and feigned a sharp, downward movement. Polaris was quick to rip the key from their grasp, wiping away the ink on the sleeve of their cloak. “Killjoy,” Crow muttered. 

“Infant,” Polaris bit back, then handed the key to me. “I trust that your hands are safer.”

“Sure, give the precious object to the person that’s eternally on fire. Safer hands, my ass.”

I cradled the key in my arms, like a fragile egg I could not let break. Tendrils of flame billowed around it, but the crystal did not char nor burn. Rather, it glowed like a piece of ember. 

Admittedly, Polaris terrified me just a little bit. I was not entirely sure why. They were soft-spoken and kind, just a little strange and distant—but they exuded a certain aura. Though we all shared the same eyes, theirs carried a grim weight. A chill would creep down my spine every time they set their sights on me, which they did rather often; I would catch them staring at me or one of the others every time I looked their way. They were the first to wake here, so they said, a full moon cycle before us—perhaps the loneliness had made them colder. 

Regardless, I would protect this key with my life if it meant staying on their good side.

“So what do we think it does?” Sol asked.

“Well, it’s a big key. I’m thinking it unlocks a big door,” Crow replied, a little begrudged.

“No, I mean—what is it for? What does it mean? What does it do?”

“Again. Probably the door thing.” 

As they bickered, I turned the key over in my hands time and time again, tracing its edges with the faintest brush of my fingertips. Despite the flames, the crystal was cold to the touch, but I felt something—a pulse of sorts—thrumming in the palms of my hands ever so slightly, calm and melodic. 

“No,” I then spoke. “It does something. It means something. I’m sure of it.”

void. 

“No, I know we don’t remember anything, but like. What was the first thing that came to mind when you first woke up? Like, I’m talking colors, pains, noises—Charlie remembered a song. Right, Charlie?”

I had not been present in the conversation, but the evocation of my name and the four sets of staring eyes that came with it brought me back to reality. With the key in my possession, I felt distant, drawn elsewhere, though I hadn’t the slightest idea where elsewhere was. My physical body was slipping into autopilot every now and then—staring ahead and walking in a mostly straight line, my consciousness lost in the stars. “Oh. Yeah,” I said, still feeling rather disconnected. “Song, flash of white, and the name Charlie.”

“Yeah, see?” Violet exclaimed. “And I remember a burning in my throat, a dull ringing, and the color purple. These little details have to mean something.”

“Oh,” Crow said. “Well, I woke up with this floaty feeling. And an awful taste in my mouth. Does that count?”

“I say it counts. This is kinda fun. It’s like putting a puzzle together. Sol, your turn.”

“I guess I remember…a ring of light, like a sun,” Sol said. “A crack in something…and the smell of smoke.”

“Pretty shitty puzzle so far,” Crow cackled.

“That’s because it’s not done, stupid. Polaris, what do you remember?”

Polaris, who had remained quiet and observant until now, turned away and cast their gaze to the sky. “Time,” they whispered, as a comet tore through the stars. “I remember time.”

hunting. 

“There is something over there,” said Polaris, pointing ahead—we all squinted and saw nothing of the sort. But Polaris pressed forward, with us in tow, and their words came to fruition, as a structure came into view.

A cave, carved into one of the dunes, upheld by stone pillars. Unlike the other structures we had come across, this one was mostly intact, the columns sturdy, the stone uncracked. The crooked mouth opened into a dark area, through which we cautiously entered. I, the designated torch, led the way. 

In my light, the shadows lifted, revealing…well, a cave. A stone enclosure, small and cramped. However, there was a sign of life, long-gone but still remaining. One leather-bound book strewn across the floor, pages charred and torn along their edges.

Sol took the book in his foggy hands. Crow and Violet swarmed Sol, who was staring absently at the cover, seemingly afraid to unveil its secrets. I went to join them, but I noticed that Polaris was standing still. Their eyes were fixated on the mouth of the cave—or rather, above it. 

I followed their gaze, and a soft gasp escaped my throat. 

“Guys, look…” I whispered.

Four words were crudely etched into the stone:

FOLLOW THE DESERT MOON. 

“Great,” Violet said. “It seems we are already on track.”

“But are we supposed to follow the direction in which the moon sets, or rises?” I asked.

“We have already been following the direction in which it sets. I say we just stick with that.” 

“But we can’t just guess. It could be detrimental.” 

“It all leads in the same direction, does it not?” 

“One way would be faster though.”

“So? Do you need to be somewhere anytime soon?”

“Well, no, but I’d like to not have to wander the desert for the rest of my life.”

“It doesn’t mean the actual moon,” said Sol, and we turned to look at them. The book was open. There was a frightful look in their white eyes. “It’s the Desert Moon we need to follow.”

“Yeah, right, the moon of the desert we’re in,” Violet said. 

“No.” Sol turned the tome towards us. There was a dark charcoal drawing on the page, an avian humanoid, a vulture with the bones and stature of a man. A tall, lanky creature, a bald head and vacant eyes with black feathers covering the rest of its body. “This is the Desert Moon. They seem to be revered as a god here.”  

“By whom?” Violet bitterly laughed. “We seem to be the only people here!” 

“I don’t know,” said Sol, then pointed at a written passage below the drawing. “It says they’re a guide. If we find them, they can show us how to leave this place.”

“Does the book say what this place even is?” Crow asked, leaning closer to the pages.

Sol flipped through more pages, but found most of them incomplete. The pages that were filled were filled only with more drawings of the vulture god, and more ramblings about finding them. 

“No…” Sol said. “Whoever made these drawings seems to be just as lost as us.”

wretched maw.

“The moon has almost set,” I noted, almost frantically, pointing at the silver sun dipping below the sandy horizon. “If a moon sets, a sun must rise eventually, right?”

“Not particularly,” Polaris replied with a bored lull. 

“But it should. It…it did once, did it not?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” 

I looked to the others, who only shrugged or did nothing at all. 

We had decided to take shelter in the cave, it being the only structure in the area with an actual roof and walls. Despite having no legs, my body ached as though I did, ailing from the phantom sensation of sore feet and twinging muscles. I desperately wanted repose, but I could not guarantee I would rest comfortably lying on the cold, sandy floor.

Still, I watched the moon set, not yet ready to lie down with the others. I needed to know. 

And, only moments later, I had an answer to my question. 

A sun did not rise. No, when the moon finally vanished below the sea of sand dunes, the sky became pitch black, and the rest of the desert soon became the same, illuminated only by the pinpricks of stars poking through the dark. 

And yet, while the four others slowly began to doze off, I still waited there, at the maw of the cave. Watching, waiting—no longer for a sun, but for something, anything. Anything at all to stir the deathly silence that lingered like smoke over the desert. 

I poked my head outside, but the darkness was dense, so opaque that my flames barely pierced it. I was frightened, and yet, curious. Setting down the opal key that I had still been cradling in my hands, I slowly crept further and further, but a sudden whisper stopped me dead in my tracks. 

“I would advise you to stay put, Charlie. It’s too dark out. You will get lost.”

I turned, startled by the voice, and found Polaris towering over me. They held the same distant, dead-eyed stare that I had become all-too familiar with, but their words carried a sharp emphasis of urgency that was unlike anything I had ever heard from them. 

“I was just going to take a peek,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Polaris did not answer. They simply took me by the hand and led me back into the cave.

And as I reluctantly accepted defeat, lying down on the sandy floor and closing my eyes, I could not help but wonder if they knew something I did not.

eyes of abyss.

I woke in a fog of daze, forgetting once more where I was, who I was. Though my past memories did not return, my recollection of yesterday did. Charlie, I reminded myself, you are and are not Charlie. 

The desert was still dark. I had only been asleep for a few hours. 

Polaris was asleep—or appeared that way, at least, curled up facing the wall, breathing softly. My mind stirred with an inkling of defiance, that same burning curiosity that Polaris had extinguished. 

Just a peek. Just a tiny little peek.

Once more, I approached the maw of the cave and took a single step outside, staring out into the darkened sea.

And in the distance, blinking in and out of existence, I witnessed hundreds upon hundreds of disembodied eyes staring right back at me.  

The dunes were alive.

solar. 

I could not fall back asleep.

Those eyes were burned into my head. 

Ingrained in my subconscious. Staring at me every time I closed my eyes. 

When the moon reemerged, and the others awoke, I did not share in what I saw. But as the others stepped out into the open, I was hesitant to follow, carefully peeking out of the cave, waiting in utter despair for the eyes to meet my frightened gaze. But there were none. At least not for now. 

I grabbed the key and carefully stepped outside. 

Polaris gave me a knowing look. I lowered my head in shame. They said nothing and continued onwards, in the direction of moonfall. 

I walked alongside Violet, keeping as far of a distance as I could from Polaris; we chatted on and off, and I still could not shake the feeling of familiarity that seeped from their being. But, right now, I was not even thinking of the past; I was too focused on the present.

Sol and Crow were walking together, leaving Polaris alone at the front. I kept stealing glances their way, and every now and then, they would turn their head and steal a glance right back, as though they knew I was looking at them. 

“Do you think…” I whispered to Violet, as the two of us lagged behind the others. “Do you think that maybe…Polaris knows more about this place than they’re letting on?”

“Well, I mean. They’ve been here almost three whole days, as opposed to our two…so it would make sense if they did, no?”

“Yeah, but…I don’t know, I just wish they’d tell us what they knew. I feel like there could be a lot they’re keeping from us.”

“I think that’s just their vibe, y’know. They’ve got that whole quiet, mysterious thing going for them. They’re unreadable.”

They were, indeed, an unreadable figure. In part due to the fact that they had no face. Just a set of eyes that never shifted. I wondered what lay within the hood of their cloak, within that darkness that was just as dense as the desert’s moonless sky. 

I shared with Violet my ponderings. 

“Dunno. Maybe just a set of floating eyes?” They cackled. “Wouldn’t that be freaky.” 

“No,” I said in a more serious tone. “No, it can’t be that. That wouldn’t make sense.”

“Says the floating campfire to the walking glass sculpture.”

I laughed, but it was hollow, distant; my mind was drifting in and out, my eyes always returning to the back of Polaris’s hood. “I mean, it’s gotta be something. They haven’t pulled back their hood at all. I feel like they know what’s behind that shadow, and they don’t want us to find out.”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be like that. Sure, Polaris is a little weird, sure. But I mean, we all are, aren’t we? Plus, without them, there’s no way we would have gotten this far. We’d probably still be where we first woke up. They’re, like, the leader of this little group, y’know?”

“Yeah…I suppose they are…” 

There was a nagging feeling tugging at my consciousness, but before I could think on it, Violet lightly pushed up against my skeletal body. “Stop worrying about it, yeah? We’re all on the same team.”

“Sure, we’re on the same team, but do we even know what game we’re playing?”

Violet paused. 

“I wish I knew.”

constellation.

The further we walked, the flatter the dunes seemed to become. Once they were mountains colliding with the stars. Unrelenting tides in a storm—but now the ocean was calming. 

We were still following the same, linear path, the direction in which the moon had set—for miles upon miles upon miles. Though we passed through many ruins, Polaris insisted we continue, despite our protests to stop and look. There was that same edge of urgency in their voice, once more ringing alarm bells in my head, reminding me that Polaris knew something we did not. But the others did not question them, at least not aloud; they accepted their decisions with only a little bit of complaining. 

I could not take my eyes off of Polaris, who had wandered far up ahead, a speck of black against the sand from where I was, lagging behind the rest. They knew something. Of that, I was absolutely certain, no matter what Violet believed. I wanted to trust them. I had to trust them. But something deep within me stirred every time I felt I was getting closer to the truth. 

I looked down at the key, and I started to truly recognize the importance it beheld. Polaris entrusted me to carry the key, putting the weight of the world in my hands. 

The key suddenly felt heavier in my arms. 

But at the same time, it was weightless. 

I then realized that everything I felt, I felt as a phantom sensation. A memory more than anything. An echo, a semblance of some past. I felt aches from traveling, but had no legs to carry me. I felt weariness from being awake, but had almost forgotten how to sleep last night. I felt the coldness of the key and of the air and of the sand, but had no reason to know what cold even felt like. 

I stopped.

Was anything even real?

Were they real?

Was I?

I looked at the key in my hand, then up at the sky. That moon—it was closer than ever, on the verge of collision. “Do we truly exist?” I whispered desperately, and it did not answer me. 

“Charlie! Get your ass up here!” Crow’s voice rang out from atop a dune, and I realized then that I had fallen so far behind, I was completely alone where I stood. “Holy shit, you have to see this!”

I faltered, suddenly overwhelmed with fear. But that fear created determination. I raced up the mound as though my life depended on it. As I reached the top, I looked down and saw a steep drop, falling into a vast stretch of flatlands. 

And just in the distance stood a tower, tall and spindly. 

Not a tower of stone. 

Not a tower of ruins.  

But a tower made of unshattered opal.

monolith.

“Aha! A big fucking door with a big fuckin keyhole! What did I say?” 

Crow gestured grandly at the aforementioned door, standing thrice their size; Sol murmured something about unoriginality, and Violet replied in a sarcastic tone. I had stopped listening; I could only stare in both awe and cowardice. 

This was it. The end of the journey. It had to be. 

Right?

Polaris gently nudged my arm. I looked to them in search of answers, and this time, they allowed me one. I could see it in their eyes, but part of me felt as though I had known all along. “The honor is yours…” they whispered, stepping out of my way.

The others stood back as I lifted the key to the lock and turned.

The mechanisms rattled, then clicked. The door creaked open, just enough for someone to slip through, and a brilliant light poured through the crack. I turned away, squinted in the opposite direction. A voice in my head was screaming “run,” but my body refused to comply. 

“Well,” Sol said, taking the first few steps into the light. “Come on, then.”

The others slowly entered the light, but I lingered in place, paralyzed by the sudden numbness of dread. I feared I knew very well what lay beyond that door, and I feared the truth would hurt more than it could ever heal. 

I tried to step away, but I felt a hand on my shoulder. 

“I’m sorry…” Polaris whispered in my ear.

Then shoved me into the light. 

And everything had become so luminous, I had to shield my eyes. They were burning, I was burning—a blaze brighter and hotter than the fire upon my body. A blaze that burned me into nothing, taking away my body and leaving me just a floating spirit. I could hear the others, screaming, crying, sobbing in sheer pain, and for a while, I was too—but our voices were quickly dampened, and all was quiet. 

“I’m sorry,” echoed the aether as I disappeared into the blinding white void. 

agave americana.

(cw – explicit drug usage)

When I emerged, color blooming in a burst of light, I was staring down a dirty mirror smudged with remnants of fine white salt, and a gaunt, pallid face with wild purple hair, powdered nostrils, and eyes wider than moons was staring right back at me. 

My nose was stuffy, my throat tingling with a salty burn. Even with this body, I felt less human than ever, my sense of reality slowly slipping away. I was a marionette, a puppet on frayed strings, barely held upright. Blurry, delayed, dizzy—my soul was fighting to escape the confines of my skin, but my bones were a prison, holding me in place.  

“Save some k for the rest of us, fucker.” 

That voice—that was Sol, that was most definitely Sol. But when I turned my head towards the source, I did not see that same cloud of fog; no, this person too had flesh and bones, stringy brown hair and bright red zits forming along the ridge of their protruding jaw. Sol, Sol—I desperately strained to speak that name into existence, but my mouth refused to shape the word. 

“Fuck off, I bought it,” tumbled past my lips in an ungraceful slur of mumbled words, barely English. I was not in control of my own body; I was a spectator, completely helpless as someone else piloted my mouth and limbs. 

There was a song playing in the background, dull vibrations emitting from an old stereo. It was not the gentle acoustic tune I remembered—rather, it was a louder, grungier sound. I was entranced by the noise; I felt its pulse deep in my bones. 

Grasping for a sense of consciousness, I opened a little baggie and dumped a rock onto the mirror, then cut it into thick, white lines with a switchblade knife. I then stepped aside as Sol dove headfirst into the powder, smashing their nose against the glass, almost snapping cartilage. 

Sol, Sol—no, no that’s…

“You save some k for the rest of us, Dante.”

Dante…that’s Dante…

Dante who sold ditch weed to freshmen, Dante who never showed up to class, Dante who used to give us rides to football games on Friday nights, Dante who missed our high school graduation because they were too hungover, Dante who once stared at a solar eclipse for five minutes and had to go to the doctor for retinal burns.

I drifted away from the table, opting instead to strew myself across an old, ratty couch. My head was spinning, and I was floating away. 

“I bought the booze,” Dante bit back. “You didn’t bring shit, Ethan, so you can’t say nothin’.”

Ethan.

Crow. 

Ethan.

My brain was throbbing, overwhelmed with too much information.

Ethan crouched down at the foot of the couch, short black hair and dark freckles and ears too big for his head. “You alive, bitch?” they cackled, and with all the strength in my woozy body, I raised a middle finger at him.

Ethan who was the class clown, Ethan who borrowed money and never paid you back, Ethan who stole packs of cigarettes from the gas station during their shifts as a cashier, Ethan who once punched a cop and got away with it, Ethan who had tried to hook up with all of his friends at least once.

Then I heard the creak of door hinges, and a new set of footsteps joining the room.

“Aye, Charlie came through with the cowey,” Crow exclaimed. 

I stirred at the evocation of that name, struggling to sit upright in my seat. Did I? 

“You fuckin’ know it,” someone else announced, dumping another baggie onto the table with a dramatic flourish. Long black hair and deep blue eyes and a soft but gravelly voice that I had come to know so well. 

Violet.

No.

Charlie.

Charlie who I’ve known since childhood, Charlie who used to ride bikes with me during the summer, Charlie who would binge horror movies with me every weekend, Charlie who had never touched a single drug in their life until I bought them a bag of weed and a tab of acid for their fifteenth birthday, Charlie who confessed their feelings for me just last year.

Violet was Charlie. And I was…

“Hey, Eva.” Charlie turned to me. “Come get a rip of this.”

“Give me a sec,” my mouth mumbled.

Eva.

Eva.

Eva. 

Eva who looked forward to every high school football game even though they just smoked cigarettes under the bleachers with their friends, Eva who was almost late to graduation because they too were hungover, Eva who punched Ethan in the nose when they tried to make a pass at them, Eva who dropped out of college after three days but still crashed frat parties, Eva who pushed harder drugs onto their friends, Eva who was in love with Charlie. 

I remembered everything.

Every waking moment of my life.

Twenty-three years.

All at once.

I tumbled off the couch and slugged towards the table, and somehow, I knew. The end of the memory was quickly approaching. I could feel it. 

I ripped a couple lines. 

And then another.

And then another.

I could not stop myself.

The others quickly pounced as well, and within minutes, the mirror was just a mirror, no longer the silver platter from which we were fed. And immediately, something was off. 

Something was so horribly off. 

“Hey…this…this doesn’t feel right.”

“Fuck, Charlie, where did you get this shit?”

“My usual guy…” Charlie muttered.

 They were slipping, barely conscious. The light behind their eyes was flickering, slowly dimming; their head lolled, their body swayed, they were disappearing before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to save them. 

In truth, we all were. I could feel it, my soul slipping through. That body of fire returning once more. After losing consciousness, we would remain alive for a while, but we would be dead on the inside. Just husks, shallow bodies with souls already passing on, floating off into the desert. 

Only a fraction of my soul remained, too small to feel, but large enough to realize the gravity of everything. The song started playing, the one from my memory—a gentle little tune, too calm for the situation. But I relaxed into it, letting the soft chords soothe my soul. I turned to Violet, who was actually Charlie.

With a gentle smile, they brushed a strand of violet hair from my face before their hand fell limp, and their eyes fluttered shut. Not yet dead. Just resting for now.  

“Charlie…” I croaked, breathing my last conscious breath before falling into nothingness. 

aether. 

The light faded as we awoke outside of the tower, staring up at the moon as though nothing had changed. 

But everything had changed. Everything and everyone, all in one instant.

I stood and found myself in the embrace of Violet, folding into each others’ arms like two found puzzle pieces connecting for the first time in eons. “You…you’re…” I tried to cry, but couldn’t find the strength to speak.

“Yes…” they whispered. “Oh, Eva…”

We remained this way for as long as we could, not daring to move.

“So we are dead…” Crow croaked out, an unexpected devastation darkening their eyes. 

“Wait…there were only four…” Sol pointed out. “Polaris wasn’t there.”

I pulled away, and we all turned to look at the figure in question, who had been standing before us in quiet patience, awaiting our reactions—only to be met with more silence. “Polaris,” Violet said, at long last. “What do you know?” 

“What is there to know?” they posed. 

“Everything…” I said, and Polaris stared right through me. I met their gaze, never once backing down. “It was always you. You led us here. You were our guide. You…you…”

“Say it,” Polaris urged gently. “Please.”

“Desert Moon, it’s…you.”

With a gentle laugh, Polaris pulled back their hood, and the opaque shadow dissipated. The head of a vulture was unveiled, black feathers and white eyes, now brighter than the moon. 

“Fuck,” whispered Crow. “I was…not expecting that.”

“Truly? I was worried I was too predictable.”

“So what is this place?” Violet demanded. 

“This place is…indescribable. It is a place that walks the line of physical and metaphysical. Life and death. What can be known and what cannot. This place is close to what you might think of as purgatory. You are here in spirit while we wait for your mortal bodies to die. Though two days have passed here, only minutes have passed in your mortal realm. In seconds or minutes or even hours, your bodies will perish. Allowing you to truly sleep at long last.”

We sat with this information for what felt like eternity.

“Then…what happens now?” Sol finally dared to ask. “What is next?”

“I cannot say,” lamented Polaris. “I cannot know.”

“That…is okay,” Violet decided, though their voice shook. “We…did not know what we were getting into when we first arrived here, right? We were lost, confused—but we found each other, and everything was okay. We can brave through the darkness again.” They took my hand and squeezed it gently. “Together?”

I squeezed back and smiled. 

“Together.”

echo. 

The Desert Moon traveled back to the center of the desert. A cold, lonesome journey, but they had grown accustomed to the feeling. Besides, they had the feeling of accomplishment to keep them warm. They celebrated the fact that this round of souls had been successful in their pilgrimage—the last few groups had not been so lucky. 

Sometimes, they are a little slow-paced. A little rowdy. A little hard to manage. Other times, their mortal bodies just perished a little too quickly. But all end up with the same fate, forever doomed to watch others succeed where they failed. 

It was not a fate that the Desert Moon cursed them with. That just happened to be the way this plane of existence functioned. The Desert Moon did not make the rules; they just followed them. 

Upon arrival, the Desert Moon took a moment to decide upon a new name. 

Maia. Now that was a name they had not tried. Maia. Yes, that would work just fine.

In the distance, a pair of blinding white eyes frantically scanned the horizon. 

Looking for a sign of life. 

Looking for a sign of hope.

With a small grin, Maia pulled their hood over their head and waved them over.