The sand was everywhere. In Monte’s hair, in his eyes, in his clothes, in his mouth…

The hot wind threw it around as if enjoying itself, though it was rather violent. He could feel blisters forming on his feet as the hot sand rubbed against them in his shoes.

Monte questioned again why he was even bothering to trudge after this strange girl. He had encountered her a couple times before, and she always struck him as hardheaded and full of herself, but at the same time not the brightest person you could find. She always spoke of non-existent places and objects, none of which were ever proven to be real or true. But it was particularly for this reason Monte decided to ask her for advice. Her peculiarity seemed to match that of the round, glossy object weighing inside Monte’s pocket.

He stuck his hand in his pocket and turned the glassy ball around a couple times. In this heat, Monte would have thought it would at least be warm, but it was cool to the touch.

The girl turned around abruptly to face Monte (Monte was still not sure how, but he kept forgetting her name), and Monte almost bumped into her.

“Can I see that?” Her dark hair was being whipped around her face and her eyes were stern. Monte was surprised at how wide she kept them; Monte was struggling to see, squinting, the hot sand making his eyes water.

“No.” Monte tried to look stern as well, but it was hard when he couldn’t even open his eyes all the way.

She glared at him and and swiftly turned and continued walking forward into the sandy winds.

Finally Monte spotted old ruins up ahead. Sudden excitement bloomed through him. But it died as soon as they entered the broken building, though the break from the sandy winds was a relief.

The girl’s face lit up when she set eyes on the interior of the ruins, though Monte could not tell why: the walls were crumbling and there were piles of sand blown in through the holes and gaps of the building. The girl set off through the ruins, poking around with enthusiasm.

Monte shook off what sand he could and glanced around.

“Hey,” Monte called for the girl, (he still couldn’t remember her name) “I don’t think there’s anything in here.”

“Well how do you know that untill you looked around?” Her voice came from somewhere nearby. “You’re just standing there.”

Monte picked his way over to her. She was inspecting a mound of sand.

“I can just tell.” He said.

She looked at him and rolled her eyes. Then her face became serious again.

“You _do _have that creepy eyeball right?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Monte said, exasperated.

“I’m just making sure, since you seem like the type of person to forget something important.”

Monte paused. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, you did forget my name.”

Monte stared at her blankly. He didn’t know what to say. He _did _forget her name.

Monte was surprised to see the girl was looking pleased with herself.

“What are you looking pleased for?”

“Oh, nothing.” She smiled sweetly, and continued examining the mound of sand.

Monte scowled.

Suddenly, he felt a hot burning pain on his thigh.

“Gaahhh!” Monte flung the now burning eyeball out of his pocket. It was glowing fiery red.

“What’s wrong?” The girl turned around, looking excited.

“That eyeball burned my pants!”

As soon as the girl spotted the glowing yellow eyeball on the ground, she gasped and froze, staring wide-eyed at it with her hand hovering close to her mouth.

Then, breaking the girl’s silent astonishment, the sand pile she was examining only a few minutes ago suddenly erupted like a bomb.

Monte was blasted off his feet and was suddenly on his back, momentarily stunned.

When he sat up, he was met with a surprise: there was another person, stooping down to pick up Monte’s glass eyeball. It was a beautiful woman, her hair silky and dark, her skin healthy and perfect.

Though there was one unmistakable flaw in her features: in the spot where there should have been a match to her bright green right eye, there was an empty eye socket.

“Hey, that’s mine.” Monte hastily got to his feet.

The girl who had brought him there was suddenly in front of him, and her foot met his chest and she kicked him back down. Monte felt a stinging on his shoulder and now he couldn’t get back up. He was paralyzed.

The woman standing a few feet away had just pushed Monte’s glowing eyeball into her empty eye socket. Now she had one green, and one fiery eye. When she spoke, her voice was low and smooth: “Come now, Samena. You did good.”

And Samena, the girl who kicked and paralyzed and _used _Monte, turned and followed the glowing-eyed woman out of the ruins, leaving Monte lying helpless in the middle of the desert, sand slowly gathering on his clothes and face.