Snippet #2473798

Mak was standing straight. For a mile in each direction, he was the only irregularity rising above the flatness of pale yellow desert. Far ahead, was a group of three moderately sized phyn. Blucky ones, heavily armoured in mild beige gray bone plates, standing on four feet. They were idly sunbathing.
Mak reckoned they were around 40 feet in height, but over such far distance, and having nothing to compare their size too, his gaze could hardly generate accurate values.
Mak was standing idle too. The phyn lost his attention and he tilted his head skyward and sniffed repeatedly, smelling for scents.
The sky was relentlessly blue the clouds nonexistent, the sun intensely radiant. The scent he had picked up on this morning was now more distinct. A carcass. He continued his march, lead by his nose. Sand was slipping into his boots, how annoying.

Mak hadn’t eaten in 9 days. This had him starving, but thats not right. He should’ve be more than starving, he should’ve been collapsed in hunger, being a former biologist Mak knew this. On top of the hunger abnormality, he had not drank anything for two days. In the scorching deserts he’d treated, that shoud be enough to kill a man, but Mak was merely extremely thirsty.
Something was obviously up.
Consume the brains of beasts to absorb their traits. What's up with this…
Ever since waking up in the desert nine days ago, this thought had been haunting Mak. It had come from nowhere and, despite Mak being a justly sceptical person, he could not question it. Somehow, he just knew it to be true. This along with the thirst and hunger, What's up with this… But where had this thought come from? Not knowing annoyed him.

Mak was the lone figure treading the desert plane. Wearing a circular black hat, with a moderately flat tip and a broad disc, and ragged dark gray brown trenchcoat that had a high collar and was from under the hip half missing, torn off in a halfoval shape. The shape of a jaw.
It troubled him, the coat. Should he really wear it? It shielded him from the suns rays, but it was damn hot and sweaty.
What ever. It’s an heirloom.

He was getting closer to the Phyn. The closer he got, the more he realized how wrong his estimation of their size had been. From this distance they looked more 70 feet then 40. A quite common size, nothing to behold. Perhaps he should change his course not to cross them in his path? Nah not necessary yet.
A slight gust. The sweat on his face blown upon by the gust generated a cooling sensation, pleasurable enough to make Mak abruptly stop in his track and be amazed. Some of the wind found it’s way into his coat and clothes, it was refreshing fresh.

Too bad it didn’t last. A subsequent gust of wind lashed out powerfully, casting sand into Maks face. Some of it stuck onto the sweaty skin, some found it’s way into his mouth, some into his nose and some poured down in under his clothes.
FUCK! Was Maks immediate reaction.
The winds gradually picked up in speed. The little gust, had been the periphery of a tornado, a very broad and massive, landscape spanning tornado. As soon as he saw the things bulkier, visible sand carrying winds rise above the horizon he began looking for someplace to shelter himself. But it was useless, the plane was dead flat.
Soon the phyn up ahead were no longer visible, swallowed by the incoming sandstorm. But they were fine, mere winds would mean nothing to them. Mak on the other hand…
But there was nowhere to run, and the tornado was closing in fast, raging across the plain.
He was going to have to sit this one out it seemed. Mak grabbed his hat, tilted it forward and buttoned the collar of his trenchcoat. His face was now more or less protected.

In came the sand carrying winds. The initial contact almost blew Mak off his feet, but he managed to brace himself and adjust position to stabilize. Sand was being flung at him in enormous amounts, weighing down his clothes, scraping and cutting into any exposed skin. Everything in sight was yellow and grey.
Except for a split second. When the winds were at their strongest and Mak was positioned right next to the very centre of the tornado, in the corner of his eye, he saw a huge, no, an absolutely enormous, black silhouette. Aside from the violent noise of the wind, he could hear thumps followed by the sound of swelling and scraping of sand, as though huge amounts of sand, like avalanches, was being shifted. The thumps had a set rhythm to them, they sounded like some sort of... footsteps?!
But the black silhouet was gone in the blink of an eye, and the sounds were soon indistinguishable in the noise of the wind.

Eventually the tornado had passed and Mak was left standing. His clothes were stuffed with sand, his hands burning from being razed and cut, but all this was rather insignificant in comparison to the sight that was before him. The three phyn that had been swallowed by their sandstorm, where on the ground bleeding from their necks. Because they were missing their heads.

Mak had seen something in the storm, heard something in the storm, but damn.
He turned and gazed at the passed sandstorm. It was landscape encompassing, and moving away at an astonishing speed. In a storm of that size, what was it he had seen?
Winds didn’t do this to the phyn, something is following that sandstorm...no... no perhaps that’s not it. That sandstorm, it’s following something?