[Hippie]

Until the Last Grain

Rocks thudded and clinked against each other as yet another hefty one descended upon the pile, illuminated by the faint blue crackle of Akashic energy. The gentle sun descended behind the horizon, it's last warm trickles of light tracing the shadows of wooden branches hastily tied together to form crosses. Eleven of them were drawn over the cold dim sand. But only ten of them had been piled up with what rocks the Lich could find. Cadaver glances down at his osseous hands, cracked and worn from days and nights of hard work, fizzling with the blue light of his true form. From his dusty old poncho, a fragment of his dark shroud split to fill the bone's wounds, mending it for the time being. And so his broken hand grasped onto the shovel that lay stuck in the sand at his feet to yank out for one more dig.

The man walked far away from the graves with his white-orbed gaze trailing along the holes he had dug out prior. Most of them had been buried to the near brim with sand again, making the Lich lament the long time it had taken him to bury the bodies - perhaps he could have fetched a personal belonging or two to decorate the crosses with. But time was of the essence.

Cadaver came to a sudden halt, grasping at his straw sombrero and throwing it up in the air. The hat lit up in bright Akashic flame that burnt it up entirely before it could even glide it's way down to the ground. He grasped his shovel firmly and struck the sand, throwing a shovelful of it over his shoulder over and over again. His hands threatened to fully break from the labor of restless nights past. But downwards he dug, determined, until he finally hit something solid. He dug some more until the last strike of his shovel shattered glass. Half of a window was now uncovered.

Though a tall creature he was, the Lich had no trouble squeezing his way down through the window. Skeletal feet landed a solid wooden floor as the sand from above sifted through the broken shards of glass still fixed to the frame. A small cloth rip made itself audible as in his landing the poncho had gotten caught up in the broken glass, tearing it some. He looked back at the slight damage the maneuver had caused to his garb. His orbs squinted, but he pressed on forward nonetheless.

Through the darkness, Cadaver found his way around the second floor of the house he had entered and located the stairs, carefully making his down. He shuffled his hand to his old brown duster underneath his poncho, retrieving the lantern he had hooked to one of his ribs. He introduced the tip of his claw into the latern's globe, lighting it up with a touch of his blue flames. The first floor of the house was now revealed before the Lich's eyes. And none to his surprise, he spotted a bearded old man sitting on a rocking chair by a long extinguished fireplace. Dry, wrinkled skin and not even the slightest twitch of a muscle. Their clothes hung from their starved body and a fly had died on their lap. Cadaver continued down the stairs and into the living room to stand before the desiccated man.

"Young Austin?" pleasantly called the Lich.

Only silence filled the room after Cadaver's words. Old Austin's head was resting back against the chair, dry lips hanging open, thin and white beard hairs stretching all the way onto his thin stomach.

Cadaver placed the blue lantern on top of the fireplace and approached the old man, kneeling before them and bringing one of his skeletal hands to gently brush their wrinkly arm.

"Young Austin."

"W-Wha-... wha-..."

Consciousness slipped back into Austin's frail and weakened old body, no doubt starved and dehydrated from the days the house has remained buried under the sand.

"Wa-water... water..."

Obliging, the Lich reached into it's old brown duster's pocket and pulled out a flask. It contained his last few sips of water. It was the only kindness he could do at this height. Curved claws wrapped around the flask's cap and twisted it off, bringing the container to Austin's mouth. Only for them to eagerly gulp down the little water that remained. His peeled, dry lips suckled on the flask's neck, frustrated that there was only so much left.

"Ah... Cadaver... thank you," weakly nodded Austin in kind, finally realizing who had come for him. "It has been a... few days... since you last came... to visit..."

Cadaver rose from his knee and placed the flask by the lantern, cordially bowing his demonic skull and horns in proper greeting.

"It seems like yesterday... when I could still see the other houses from my window. T-The others... how are they?"

"Worry not, young Austin. The rest find themselves rather well. I have already done my rounds and brought them what food and water they needed."

"Ah-... p-perhaps... I should not have drank all of the water... then..."

"I will find more. You need not concern yourself. You should concern yourself with reserving your ener-"

"You tore... Abuela Maria's old poncho, eh?" noted the bearded old man as his eyes drifted towards the tear in the red rag. "Here... let me... I should have something for that..."

"Young Austin, please, I may fix it myself. You need to-"

Stubborn as he was, even though his body was in a deplorable state, Old Austin manages to shakily rise from his rocking chair and slowly walk towards the stairs Cadaver had descended from. From a small cabinet underneath it, he recovered and dusted off an old sewing kit which he brought over back towards the living room where Cadaver still stood. The old man beckoned the demon to take a seat on the rocking chair opposite of his own. The Lich obliged.

"You should be more careful, old friend... Abuela Maria would be so angry with you if she knew you tore her favorite carpet...! Ahah..." shakily did Old Austin's hands brings the torn portion of Cadaver's poncho onto his lap. He struggled to pass the red thread through the needlehole, aided by a slender dark tendril emanating from Cadaver's index.

"I would count on it. It is one of the last things I have to remember her by."

"She was such a light on your life, eh?" coughed out Old Austin. Reminiscing about the old times brought some vitality to his voice. "She was such a kind old woman... I still remember the times you and her would visit my parents. She would sit down to talk with my mother, Ryart rest her soul, while you, my brothers and I played lawmen versus bandits out in the street. You were the talk of the kids of my generation, Sundown Showdown. Everyone wanted to be like you, one day."

"Ah, please, young Austin," chuckled the Lich in his ethereal voice. "You have not called me such a childish name since you were just about this tall."

A long silence fell between the two old men. Old Austin's sewing slowed, his expression contorting into a frown. And his voice becoming just a little raspier.

"I miss them, you know?"

"You are right to."

"I knew... I knew what I was signing up for when I told my wife I was staying. She knew, and she didn't want it. We shouted and yelled at each other so loud. She packed up her bags, our kids' bags, and our grandkids' bags. They all left for Oniga years ago. I knew what I was signing up for when the sand began to arrive. That the Old Pueblo would eventually be buried under it. I just couldn't leave it. The house. Everything."

Tears would well up in the old man's eyes, were he not so dehydrated. The Lich's eyes squinted sorrowfully.

"How could I leave this place? My father lived in this house, and so did his father before him, his grandfather, his great-grandfather. We have been here for generations, and... the memories... so many memories..." He paused, coughing. "Of us playing out in the streets, my kids reading my wife and I books by the fireplace, my grandkids playing board games with my kids and my wife before bed. So many laughs and good memories. I just... couldn't just up and abandon it. I simply... wish I had not been so stern about it to my wife. I wish I could have kissed her goodbye, hugged my children. They'll be fine... right?"

"I am sure of it, young Austin. They must be all the way up north in Oniga. Your little daughter, Marie, wanted to be a doctor - or so I heard. I am sure she must be saving many lives by now."

"Hah... y-you always know what to tell this old-" Austin coughed again, a bit more raspy this time now. "... this old man."

Austin's sewing was growing ever closer to completion, the red thread not meshing so well with the darker color of the poncho.

"... why did you... stay, Cadaver?"

"I am oath-bound to the Old Pueblo. I swore to protect it's people until the day they needed me no more."

"You could have... g-gone with the others, you know? To Oniga. To live a better... life."

"I could have. But so long as those like you opted to remain, so would I. I cannot abandon those I have dedicated my long life to protect, come what may."

"She... she t-taught you well, eh? You... sound like her, sometimes..." replied Austin in a near-mutter.

Austin's words imposed silence upon the Lich. The memory of the woman, even years after her passing, still ached so. Austin's once shaky hands had now finished sewing the poncho back together. His hands let go of the red rag, resting without a twitch on his lap.

"T-To live... so long..." the old man's dry lips pressed together. "It must hurt... don't it?"

Cadaver dared not answer the question, for even he feared the answer. The arcane white orbs in his hollow eye sockets extinguishing entirely. Austin's form grew slouched and weary.

"D-Do me a favor... old friend..."

The demonic skull gave a firm nod.

"Don't hurt no more... Sundown... Show-..."

Old Austin slumped on his chair, his breath escaping his lungs. The coyotes out in the sands wailed loudly in the night. Cadaver slowly raised from his rocking chair and paced on over towards the slumped man, wrapping both of his skeletal arms around their weak frame to lift them up. And so the Lich walked back out into the night with the last man in his embrace, laying them on the sand before the eleventh cross.

There he stood for long, his empty gaze turned towards the starry sky. There he stood for long, until the Old Pueblo was buried in gold. There he stood, until the last grain of sand.

And only then did he dare answer when no man could hear.

"It does."