All that remained of the world was the hissing of sand.

It spread to the horizon in every direction. It sparkled in the light as one walked, almost as brilliantly as fresh snow. It piled and shifted against rocks and cliffs and ridges, and even the occasional broken form of a building. There were no footprints, no indications that anyone had ever been there. 

A place between sleep and wakefulness.

Emily stood alone on the ridge again. The deep existed here, still, but its mass no longer took interest in her, instead choosing to explore the landscape. It was a strange object, that was sometimes larger than the sky and dark, but sometimes a small, transparent orb, and everything in between. It did not seem to shift between these states. It was one thing and then was something else.

It babbled to itself as a child did when playing with toys. Its language was more instinct than words, a string of association and tactile response. It knew what was in the air she breathed. It knew what her organs were doing. It inspected each process inside her as a completely novel experience and she could hear its investigation as a string of intrusive, alien thought.

The constant string of thought wasn’t bothering her as much as it should have. Not because it had become less intrusive, rather it was becoming normal. They told her it was too late to do anything about it. She believed them. She knew how deep it was burrowed into her, better than any scan could say.

Without a sun, without people, with only the wind spurring movement in the white stretch of desert and rocks and dust, it was impossible to know how long she was there. As in a normal dream, she felt strangely disconnected from time, safe from it.

A second person was standing with her. She didn’t turn to look, didn’t need to, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledgment. 

“What does it do?” she kept her eyes firmly on the horizon, directly at the spherical mass of the deep.  

“You should know that already,” Wraith responded, condescending. “That’s the problem with your species. You always see things so narrowly. Never thinking on a large enough scale.”

He thought she was stupid. Ungrateful. Ignorant. Emily hadn’t been able to summon any rage anymore for the infection, but she did feel it kindle anew now for the twisted old saurian. There was no surprise in a tormentor gloating, but it still got the better of her. The deep must have felt the sudden emotional shift, because its representation on the horizon stopped its careful prodding and exploration of the space, instead hovering above the landscape in frozen confusion.

“I’m going to kill you,” she said. Later, she would be honest with herself and recognize that it only played into his perception of her as a base, impulsive, and simple creature. Of course her reaction was to violence, Wraith would tell himself, she knows no other means of improving her situation.

“You wouldn’t be the first to try,” his smile was so smug it could be heard. “You wouldn’t even be the first to succeed.”

He vanished from the space before she could say anything else. All that was left behind was her, the rocks, the deep, and the long white desert of white, sparkling sand.