The desert is empty, save for the old bodies strewn across the sand. Wind skims the voids of the distant hills and canyons, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed—or, say, a severed leg.
It is your fourteenth day in Purgatory, and as with all thirteen preceding it, you feel restless in a way you were well accustomed to back in your prison days. This restlessness is not new, but it has grown unfamiliar over the years, stifling, like a shirt that you’ve grown out of. You’ve settled into it regardless, and it’s begun stretching to fit you once again.
The crimson light of the sky welcomes you into its fold. A singular eye stares down at you where the sun once was. You feel contempt in its gaze, alongside a morbid curiosity. It makes you want to slink back indoors, but your feet remain where you have planted them firmly in the sand.
You can still taste blood between your teeth.
You have the feeling it’s going to be a long day.