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Regardless, one night I had found myself alone. I looked around for my friends, but saw a strange figure in the sand instead. It seemed to be some sort of peculiar combination of hare and scorpion—but with wings and antlers… it was so queer that I had to see it closer, so I started toward the creature.

The chimera gave chase and I ran after it for a while… but I had the oddest feeling; the farther I got into the desert the more my head began to feel light… almost like I was dreaming. But I know I wasn’t dreaming, because I heard my friend Usanti call my name, and the feeling went away then. But, alas, I had lost sight of the thing in the sand.

The next day I skipped temple to have more daylight for my explorations, and I had intended on finding that curious animal once again. Yet, indeed, it was not the same chimera in the desert, as I had seen before, which I found now.

This time, I saw before myself a creature with the serpentine form of a snake and the head of an ibis… on either end of its body. The thing shuffled along with both beaks trained forward, leaving behind piles of sand which had been collected by the length of its body and eventually slithered over when it became too much to drag… I was a bit disturbed by this animal, but I was still determined to follow it and shew everyone I wasn’t making this up, nor that it is a contrivance of my thoughts, for the piles of sand remained…

I followed the creature slowly, eventually going past and sliding down a large stone outcropping that the other kids and I usually stayed away from. But when I got to the bottom, I could see something high in the wind-blown sand that flooded the sky, jutting up into the air from the basin I had found myself in. Something none of us had noticed before, to my bewilderment.

Getting closer, it seemed to me that the structure was once a tower, perhaps, or a pillar, partially crumbling and listing northward. From what I know of historical studies I’d place it firmly in the Hetharian age, before the desert even existed… such ancient Dinite work. I was so dazed by the majesty of its height that I lost sight of the animal I was chasing.

I only realized then that I had the same light-headed feeling I had felt the day prior, yet it was so much more intense, now that I was closer to what I presumed to be the source. For, atop that dizzying pillar, there sat what appeared to be a house or hut, precariously positioned so that the only door I could make out was facing into the open air. And from the only window I could see emitted an eerie glow which shewed many colors at once—I thought I might’ve seen another surreptitious creature fly therein, but I couldn’t be sure.

Trying to see through the gusts of sand that blew by and in front of the structure made it hard to determine design, but the house looked as though it had a pointed top and smoothed sides, so that the thing in whole looked almost like a droplet of water.

The only way I could be sure of what I was seeing was, to my nascent and ambitious mind, scaling the tower itself and seeing the house with my very own eyes. So up I went, carefully testing each stone on the erstwhile architecture so as not to fall to my doom on the way to the top.

Most assuredly, once I started to climb past the lip of the basin below, the sand from the desert blew into my face on the gusts of wind. But I was determined to climb ever higher and, indeed, I reached the top, above the current. But it was odd there, the air seemed thin on that height, and below me I could see only shifting sand, as if the entire desert had disappeared and been replaced by a churning storm.

Then, spontaneously, the storm itself began to rise, desperately reaching for the peak of that air-born prison I had found myself atop. I clambered to the house, holding on for dear life as I tried to get into the open window, which was a plain and crudely carved circular port. Stone reliefs of strange and loathsome faces leered at me from the ruined pillar behind and below me, in pockmarked corners where ages past had not worn them away. I felt as if I had ventured into a place entirely alien, where I was unwelcome… Yet bidden, nonetheless.

I did manage to get through and past the window, tumbling inside and onto my rear as I did so, but I accomplished it. And now that I was at a state of relative peace, though still a bit unnerved by the unsettling carvings outside, I could investigate to my liking. It almost seemed as a triumph to have gotten to such a high place, had it not been for the fact that the house was entirely vacant, lacking for a bedroll, clothes, or even any basic offerings for veneration.

The slate-like stone of the foundation was different than that of the ruin outside, and clearly laid quite some time after the original structure had been built, but for what purpose? And how was the whole hut made of it? I was pondering those questions in quiet stoicism when a loud rapping came at the outside of the only door. The very door which gave way only to open air.

I stood for a moment in fear, unsure of whether I should answer the mysterious caller or not. But it seemed I was trapped either way, so I did just that. Though, sandy gusts of wind were not what I was greeted with on the other side of the door, but instead I saw a vast, sprawling body of water, still and calm in the sun. Far off and in the center of the water was a small island, covered completely in foliage and more of the color green than I had ever seen in my life.

The water past the dusty, stone step in front of me was crystalline and solid to the touch, but not necessarily frozen. Just.. solid. So I walked out, reassured by the fact of the surface having been able to hold my full weight when I stopped. Then I tried to stride across the water, toward the island, however it seemed only to become physically closer upon the bending of my mind to its purpose, rather than the efficacy of my gate to find me there.

Upon my eventual first contact, though, I noticed that there were no familiar animals which walked on the land here, nor flew in the air or swam in the ocean. Upon this alien firmament there were creatures which seemed to me as a jumbling mix of other, regular animals. Just like the ones I had seen in the desert before. Only this time they filled the trees and skies and water. Lions with the trunks of elephants and large, colorful birds with the heads of jackals.

The only form I knew with any certainty was that of a man; and indeed, tucked into a corner of the island where a red clay deposit had emerged through the earth, sat a very seemingly human man, sculpting with the wet substance before him. He was clearly aged quite a bit, and his hands moved with the grace of a master artist, but his affect was young and jovial. In fact, he seemed positively delighted to see me. It was only after the man took notice of and started toward me that his flesh and body began to de-age in a sense, or otherwise became young looking.

Now, only a boy of about my age or a bit older stood in front of me. His eyes were phosphorescent, glowing that same esoteric emanation of rainbowed colors that had emitted from the window of the hut, as if they were motes of twinkling stars upon his face. He apologized for his lack of initial salutation, as he said he knew that I was there but was too hard at work to ‘answer the door,’ whatever that meant to him. I then proceeded to ask him what exactly the work he had left behind entailed, to which he responded that he preferred to shew me.

The boy bounded back to the clay deposit, immediately beginning to excitedly mold the stuff to magnificent shapes in a blur of craftsmanship. Each new shape he formed seemed to tear itself away from the clay and come to life immediately, as if a menagerie of chimeric creatures lay just underneath the surface…

Needless to say, I was astonished by the event unfolding before me. But I knew, then, who this lad must be. Creating, acting as only a God could before my very eyes, was the figure of Osyf-Agnin, wielding the primordial clay of existence.

Awestruck, I was, yes, but still determined yet to find what I sought. So, selfishly, I asked a God directly for a trouble. Something, anything that might prove what I’ve seen on this day. Osyf-Agnin did not seem indisposed nor displeased with my request, but instead curious. He seemed puzzled, frankly. Ruminating on machinations far above the understanding of my own.

This God rolled my thought around in his hands briefly, so that I could almost see the line of inquiry itself to his unknowable mind, like unto some spiritual string connecting us to one another. Then he came to a conclusion in his own head, privy to myself only when I pressed, again, the issue. Though, my insistence came well after he had already started trudging into the forest at full speed with me in tow. His hand on my wrist felt like a wreath of flame, as if it had been somehow tempered as to not burn my flesh.

We came to another hut, much like the one built out on the water from whence I had come. The interior of this abode, however, was not empty, instead being filled with a plentitude of clay pots, stacked about and lining the walls in droves. Tall, short, and medium sized pots overwhelmed the room, and stood together as, what I had believed to be, categories or denominations. And from one of the groups of pots the God of Nature plucked a vessel large enough for me indeed, but not so large that I could not carry it, being lighter than I had initially imagined.

Etched onto the sides of the pot were animals of various different compositions, along with an incantation in what I knew to be ancient Dinite above them, but unfortunately couldn’t read.

Inside the pot was filled to the brim with red clay, which gave off a sweet aroma that I couldn’t quite place. Regardless, it was then that the air grew very still, and Osyf-Agnin watched over me with what I could only describe as anticipation once I took the pot, as if not even he knew what would become of it, or myself.

Then, after I had settled for a moment, but before I could ask what to do with my gift, the God ushered me out quickly and led me to the edge of the island. He told me to run swiftly and not to look back, but said so with such a look of genuine serenity and gentleness that the urgency in his statement only registered after I was already turning away.

Then I broke out into a run, fully pelting myself through the door of the house, and landing inside its dark and sand swept interior. Sitting upright straight away, I checked the vase to see if it had been cracked or broken in the process. But it had not, and I was so relieved that I fully leaned back, entirely forgetting that the door behind me actually opened out into nothing, and the subsequent terrible fall made me lose my long-term memory of the events prior…

When I finally awoke after the descent I found my friends, Usanti and Tema, dragging me back to my home as I instinctively clutched the pot of clay in my arms like some kind of protective talisman, still unbroken. They asked me where I had gotten it, but the mumbled and half remembered answer confused them. They teased me and told me there were no strange towers or huts, nor any chimeric animals or Gods to be found, just that I may have tumbled down the rocks too hard and hit my head.

I might’ve been tempted, at that point, to call what I had experienced a dream, if not for the pot of clay which still sits hidden in a place that I had chosen when I was young, that only I could find again, and which has caused me, in my adult life, to remember the events of that day so vividly.