Chapter 1: Not An Island
The sun rose from behind silver-tipped clouds. They soon began to fade, as the glowing sphere of suffocating heat traced an arc across the sky.
There was a desert below the sun- a scorched and starving one, one in which the simple idea of life, the notion, was corrupted and turned to dust. To sand, rather- it was far more than conceivable that the sand had once been life, or alive, but any theories offered up mattered less than the fact it existed.
The desert was empty. Wide breaths of nothing, not even a change in altitude. Except for a tent. The tent was grey, and drab, and small. It could seem to be more of a hastily constructed lean-to than a tent, but a closer inspection would reveal that it was made for that very purpose- the purpose of catching people off guard. That was useless now. Inside of the tent there lay a man. The man's face was weathered and beaten, but how much of that was age and how much of that was the sun was up for debate. He was wearing a bright orange cloak, seemingly made of a patchwork of material. There was a dark purple patch near the bottom. As the sun rose, and shined blinding rays through the minuscule holes in the tent, the man awoke. He reached for the canteen, rusted and green, sitting next to him, to find that it was empty. The man exited the tent by wriggling out from under it.
The man began to walk. He was wearing leather sandals, but the sand still burned his feat. They were too calloused to mind. He strode ahead, cutting through the sand with remarkable fluidity and confidence. He'd walked this path before, many times. After about an hour, the man reached a hole, filled with water. Well, to call it a hole would be a bit of a disservice. It was barely more than three feet across, barely a puddle. But it was good enough for the man, who began to fill up his canteen. Once he had, a flash of light occurred from within the bottle. The water was now the most clean looking water you had ever seen. The man drank the entire canteen, refilled it, and began the long trek back to the tent.
On his way there, the man heard a rustling. He looked around himself. After a moment of silence, he reached into the beaten leather holster at his side, and withdrew a pen. Unlike everything around it, the pen was remarkably shiny, and looked to be new. The man uncapped it, and it transformed in his hand. Where the pen had once stood was a sword, brown in color. The sword was dull, but still significantly better looking than anything around it. The man wielded the sword. He knew how to do this- he'd known how to do this. The man adjusted his shoulders and reached an equilibrium of balance. He was scared, but too tired to care. After a minute of silence, the man recapped the sword. Back it went in the holster.
He arrived back at the tent and sat down inside of it. He pulled a golden plate out of a bag next to him. A shattered golden cup lay next to it. The man gripped the plate, and a large amount of blue pancakes appeared on the plate. The man tore in. After he had eaten, he looked outside. The sun was almost directly overhead. He began to dig into the sand underneath him, for a minute or two, until he pulled out a bottle of fine wine. It was old, ancient even. It had been old when the man bought it, years and years ago. He chuckled to himself, grimly, at the thought. He could barely remember his own mother's face, yet could recall that memory easily. The man opened the bottle. "Happy anniversary, wise girl". He said under his breath. A tear began to trace its way down his face as he opened the locket that hung from his chest, and looked at the picture that lay inside.