The dust drifted around her boots like a phantom snake slithering across the desert sands as glittering shards of fallen tears crystallized by the sun painted mirages in the distance that tempted her hungry eyes. Her skin prickled at the beads of sweat that railed like scorched rivers across her tanned plains, rolling steadily down into tattered clothes that clung to her aching frame, but she carried onward. Vultures lurked in the shadows under the thick heat chocking the air, their beady eyes trailing every stumbling step she took, waiting for her knees to sink into the rusted land beneath her one last time. When one got bold enough to try and encourage her back into the grave she had pulled the knife they had so graciously buried into her back and drove it deep into the screaming birds eye, gouging as far as her own pain ran until it fell limp in the trail of her boot prints. None had bothered since to try and get close again. ...