Beneath Quicksand
By chinesefirethorn
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Chapter 1: The Living City
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In the middle of a desert, a city dreamed of life.
The mountainous figure of a cat covered its cracked towers from the sun, curling around the lands of an empire once great, now forgotten. As the sun set to the west, the shadows crawled down the grainy texture of the watchtowers before splashing through the streets until all was dark.
The rasp of sand against sand swept among the empty houses, most of them shapeless. Some were visible only from their roofs until the ledges of their second floors; some were completely buried. But all of them were submerged in the coarse grains.
Soon the night sky filled with lights.
It was past midnight when they arrived. The four of them came in their heavy boots, trudging their filth on the sand and talking in their coarse language. Their movements were muted, compressed in the city air as they walked along the buried avenues lined with gaping windows.
Someone lighted a match with a faint scritch. The walls of buildings glowed in the flame as did the features of the men before dying out as a cooler, lighter wind blew past. They were travellers, their cloaks fluttering in the slight breeze and revealing the thick linen pants they wore. One of them unhooked a hip flask and drank the last dregs of water from it. Light conversation ensued.
They would need to stop at the next oasis, of course. Yes, this place was giving everyone the chills. Does everyone remember the history of this place? Oh, it's nothing really. Just old wives' tales. Nothing to worry about really. But could they setup camp somewhere else? No. There's no better place to avoid the sandstorms. Oh.
For a moment, the only sound was the desert turning in an ever changing flow.
Then slowly, almost as inaudible as the turning of time, the sand began to move. It was a subtle motion at first. Long thin tendrils crawling up the pillars of the buildings that hadn't sunken into the sand while the outer edges of the ruined city caved inwards. It was only when the ground started to shift did the men notice the circular suction- with them as the epicentre.
At that moment, the ground erupted in a wave of sand and engulfed the men on the spot. The city was quickly turning into a quicksand with the men pushed deeper into it. There was a sickly scratching noise before the sand closed over their heads.
In an abandoned place, no one can hear you scream. But people forget to mention the thing that induces the scream in the first place. Under the ruins of the city the consciousness of the last king heard the dying screams of mouths filling with sand.
And deemed it good.
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Lee woke up, groaned, and scratched himself. Soon enough, the exposed flesh was once again assaulted with a wave of bugs.
'I shouldn't have refused the caravan ride.' He thought unhappily. Being one of the best forensic experts in the region didn't always ensure the aesthetics of the city- a nice clean bed, a shower, and most importantly a heavy dose of bug repellent. Sometimes, justice needed such individuals in hot, sandy places like the Suna desert.
Jerking up and dispersing a variety of bugs, some he didn't even know existed, Lee crawled out of his tent and stretched in the moonlight. It seemed like it would be another day- no, night –of sweaty legwork and examination of substances he wouldn't go near to if he wasn't being paid to do so.
"Ah, if I don't find evidence tonight I'll…well, I'll keep searching without rest for another two days!" He declared to himself. "Even if I have to walk under the sun!"
He'd developed that habit as a teenager, mostly under the influence of his professor in legal theories back in the university. Gai-sensei, as he'd come to call since his graduation, was one of the best criminologists in the field. A retired one that is.
Lee had taken a shine to him ever since the man had given a speech on defending the innocent and destroying the malicious plans of the wicked. They were part of the extensive notes he'd taken in that one semester with- in his opinion- the best teacher and current colleague he'd ever have.
Frowning briefly, Lee slipped his hand under the green shirt he wore and took out his wrinkled memo pad from the back pocket of his second-hand linen pants. In it were the current notes he'd taken on the disappearance of a group of travellers who were last seen crossing the desert on their way back home.
The incident was only reported two days ago by the families of the men, wherein Lee was immediately sent out the day after. But the actual time of disappearance…well, Lee had calculated it to be a scale of a week, a week and a half before today.
'The problem with this desert,' Lee mused, 'is that there aren't any villages or cities in it.' On each side of the Suna desert though, was a thriving town, much smaller than the city Lee grew up in of course, but each one was rich in their own trade. Both towns had denied seeing the men during the week of their disappearance, with citizens of both strangely hesitant to answer questions.
It was also strange how the men, Lee had gathered they were about three to five, suddenly disappeared. The last town had seen them heading into the desert the afternoon of the alleged disappearance. Of course, nobody was sure they were really gone. One witness even went so far as to suggest that they were probably looking for gold at the old ruins.
That caught Lee's attention.
Despite the illogical guess, (Lee wondered how people could survive a week of no food and water. Nobody that desperate for gold would try that.) that was the only lead he'd gotten so far.
Shuffling the pages of his notes, Lee reviewed the details of the rumour the witness had given. There was said to be an old ruin of a city somewhere in Suna. It was also called Suna, which was confusing enough without trying to solve the case.
The ruin was said to be a place people avoided since there were supposedly cases of disappearances that also happened in that area. Mostly, those were cases involving looters and merchants.
It explained why the people aside from men's families were apathetic. Lee could only wonder why previous cases weren't reported to the branch of his agency in this part of the country. The local papers in each town didn't help his report either. There were only the obituaries to show that someone died of unknown circumstances.
Although he did find a report on the alleged ruins. The paper was an old one, probably back when the press was still new technology. It was a simple article about the history of a city. It said that some of the citizens of the towns surrounding the desert originated from there.
Lee sighed. Apparently factual journalism wasn't defined well yet at that time. The paper just contained the oral history passed down from interviewees comprising of old men and women. He reread the part about the city being buried by sand because of the last king's refusal to step down from his throne.
The one important sentence in it said, "And since then all outsiders are eaten by the King and reborn as slaves for his life ever living."
It sounded like bullock to him. Specially about the "life ever living part." It didn't make sense although he did get interesting hypotheses from the text. One of which was a secret organization that lives to fulfil the dead king's curse.
Giving one last ineffective swat at the bugs hovering around him, Lee sighed and started to pack up camp. From the directions given to him, he still had tonight to travel before he reached the ruins.
'I hope this won't be a cult killing case.' He thought before setting out again with both hands gripping his backpack straps.
The place where he camped was shifted and scattered until there was no trace of human life left.
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tbc-