The red waste lay before me, if you could say lay, the word lay sounds too passive, it did not just lie, it lay is wait. The wind would whip the coarse sand into a towering cloud of sandpaper, then blow it straight towards you. Your skin would dry out and crack, with chapped lips and hard hands, your hair would turn to straw, stiff with dust and grit. The world is always red to me now, red and dry. The outlaws of the world, those who run, never stay for long, we move constantly, I haven't seen many faces in the past years, however many years it's been I can't say, the days blend together, it could have been three years, it could have been thirteen, who knows.
I stand on the edge of a dune, the wind blowing my coarse hair behind me, the sand stinging my skin through my ripped trousers, my ray gun hanging in its leather holder, a constant reminder hanging at my hip. My heavy backpack rubs callouses into my shoulder blades, the heavy weight of the pack making my back ache. I drop the backpack and push it down the dune, it rolls down with ease, and I follow it, skidding on the incline, until I'm deep inside the dip of the two dunes. I set up my rudimental tent in a matter of minutes, the basic green canvas stretched over the main horizontal pole, and then hammered deep into the unstable ground.
I head inside and pull out my sleeping bag, gulp some water and plonk my head down, the sand hard and compressed under my head, I've slept in worse places. Sleep, the goal I now seek, will be hard to find, the wind howls outside of the tent, the sand ripping at the sides of the tent. I close my eyes, wiggle down in my sleeping bag and pull the hood over my head. I lie awake most of the night, the night sky dimming, and the glow of the city only a few miles away rising, blocking out my view of the stars.
Then I hear it, a thump, and then a dragging sound, and then nothing. Cautiously I step outside the tent, my feet freezing in the cold sand. A dark figure lies face down in the sand, skid marks in the sand, merely a silhouette in the dark. I pull my ray gun out and approach slowly, picking my feet up too avoid noise, I pull the catch of off the gun and point it at the looming figure. I squat when I reach the fallen man. He appears to be unconscious, I check his pulse, which although slightly higher than usual, is still clear and relatively normal. In the glow of the faraway city, I can see his hair is red, and his face is dirty, his lips are cracked and dry, the white skin of his neck is marred by a long, thin, bloody wound, red and oozing, dusted in a light layer of sand. His nose is long and pointed, and his closed eyes are screwed up in pain. I see a ray gun at his hip, pressing into his leg, and come to the conclusion that this man is not an enemy, but a rebel, just like me, and in times of need, one outlaw to another, I should do what I can to help him. I drag him to my tent, his feet dragging in the sand.