Wavelength

Disclaimer: While real names might be used, none of this is meant to correspond to actual history. Everything is fiction and unresearched.

The piercing sun rained down steadily on the desert sand, the wind stirring up a tempest with hidden horrors. Inside the adobe clay walls of Fort Niagro, the inhabitants waited with bated breath, they knew a storm was coming.

PART ONE: Mirage

The soldier loosened the collar of his red and gold uniform and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He was one of the General's guards, and he had been ordered to keep an eye out for Bluebacks, the zealous invaders from the neighboring land of Jordan. He wiped the sweat on his grey pants, white but stained by day after day of dust, sun, sweat, and grime. He gripped his hand around his pistol and ran his eyes over it- the polished bite of modern weapons was one he savored. He tipped his head to inspect the desert sand again, leaning against the heavy clay doors of the fort. In his mind's eye he felt something. This was the calm before the storm, and the tempest was coming.

The wind picked up and blew forcefully around his ankles. "Cazael nium!" he shouted to his partner in the desert's gutter tongue, and his partner, in a matching red and gold uniform, scurried across the upper walls, unlatching the doors so that the soldier could come inside. They would wait out the storm from inside the city walls.

"Keenala!" He forced out a bitter command and raised his palm to the sky. His partner opened the door cautiously and wondered why his fellow soldier had told him to stop. Wasn't a storm on its way, as he had said?

The first soldier looked out to the desert sand and wondered if what he saw was a mirage. A figure, rippling with the heat, emerged from the dunes. A cloud was cast over the sky and the sun was hidden from view. The soldiers shivered and looked to each other. But they held open the doors for whoever the figure might be.

She appeared to be a mirage, and her figure flickered in the still present heat. The soldiers watched as she pulled her black sari closer to her against the bitter biting wind and walked in stride to their position.

"Who?" the soldier made out before a flash of silver splattered blood upon the shores of desert sand. The other soldier's scream was silenced as his throat was slit. The storm had come, but the walls of Fort Niagro were not sealed. They were not prepared for the tempest.