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Thunder flew back and forth in that empty sand pit, bearing not even a trace of any other life. Everything else had already been eroded into the granular grave of the masses Sebek was now treading upon. No grass had grown here in the past, the current, and the next millennium—it was a sand planet.
“Had it always been like this?” Sebek had asked himself that question numerous times, but alas he couldn’t find any feasible answer…for this arenaceous drought is all he’s ever known, and he’s long lost anyone who could have possibly known more than what this world had already become.
He used to have someone... A companion. Silver. They were followers of two leaders whose names Sebek ached to remember, and at one point, decided to travel together, in order to find a cure for this arenose curse.
But alas—their fates were separated when a sudden sandstorm struck them during one of their travels not so long ago. Sebek had tried to search for his sole ally…he truly did…but then all he could see was sand, and all he could hear was worthless sounds, and…Silver was no more.
“That fool…” Sebek murmured to himself as an arid breeze once again struck his face. He clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. “If you’re still alive…then answer me…”
Perhaps it was a futile effort; to keep persisting amid all this hopelessness. This never-ending desert, this sand planet… It was harsh and hateful and cruel. In the state he was in, it seemed to be Sebek’s destiny to be eventually worn down. Eroded and buried in the sand, just as everyone before him had been…
(And yet, he kept going, because for him…having regrets was far worse than dying.)
There was a myth from eons ago… About a genie residing in a magical lamp, that which was said to be capable of fulfilling any three wishes one might have. Sebek recalled viewing this tale with a starry-eyed gaze before, back when he was still a child—after all, who wouldn’t be entranced by something that could bring life to all your heart’s desires? Who wouldn’t want something that could give you something in this world devoid of almost everything?
One such person existed, apparently.
“…I’ll probably skip on my wish, if I ever find the lamp.” A younger Silver was seated beside Sebek when they were reminiscing that story together. Upon hearing Silver say that…child Sebek gave his peer an incredulous gaze. He couldn’t believe his ears.
Silver chuckled at the smaller child’s reaction. “What are you so shocked about? One of those wishes will be for Father, and for our liege… And the last one will be for you.” He patted Sebek’s head. “…So…I don’t need a wish.”
Sebek groaned as he slapped the older one’s hand away. Seriously, this Silver… He couldn’t bring himself to be selfish even when he lived in a sand planet!
“I understand leaving those two other wishes for our masters, but at least fight me for the last one—”
“Yeah, nope. You might not win, and then you’ll cry.”
“Wh— Did you just imply that I’m weaker than you?!”
“Why are you so mad when I’m just telling the truth?”
Sebek puffed his cheeks, crossed his arms, and turned away from his friend. It was the truth, but that didn’t mean he wanted to admit it. Stupid Silver.
The sulky silence between the two continued from thereon...until, in a moment of self-reflection, and what might have been bravery, Sebek asked his fellow apprentice:
“—Say, if you could have one wish, then what would you ask for?”
Slowly and tentatively, Silver opened his mouth to answer.
(The words he said that day never once left Sebek’s mind.)
The sky is cleaved by a thunderstorm, and yet it doesn’t cry. A rumble echoes. Even as the wind blows as aridly and harshly as it’s always done before, Sebek advances on this sand planet.
Out-of-place artifacts of the Archaeozoic, mentally existent no-entry signs spread everywhere the eyes can perceive… He walks around, a prayer having reached at last—and he sees that it’s right in front of him, the ancient relic he’s searched for such a long time.
The magic lamp. Half of it is buried in the sand.
(The sun’s about to go down… He has to hurry. He has to. He has to—)
Sebek steps towards it, reaches out his hand, escapes just as a strike of lightning abuses the place where he once stood. He falls to the ground, grasps for the only semblance of hope he could find, and breaks into tears.
(In this long-abandoned desert, what else is there to think about?)
“—Say, if you could have one wish, then what would you ask for?”
Slowly and tentatively, Silver opened his mouth to answer.
“I’d wish…for rain,” he replied, aurora eyes looking straight at the younger child beside him, honest and true in all that they perceived. “Even if it lasts for just a mere moment. I’d wish for rain.”
Sebek furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Sometimes, the words that spewed out of Silver’s mouth really didn’t make any sense. “I get why you would wish for rain, but why wish for it to last temporarily?” he quipped. “Why not wish for it to rain forever?”
“You know how genie wishes are. Wishing for that would be taken too literally…and this place would become a water planet instead of a sand planet.”
“That’s just ridiculous,” Sebek sighed. He nudged the older apprentice with his shoulder before continuing. “…But you have a deeper reason why you want it to rain, right? Even though you know how impossible it is to have such weather because of the Melt sensation…”
“Yeah. I do… I just…” Silver’s eyes slowly fluttered shut. Unwittingly, he began to lean his head against Sebek’s, drifting off to a sudden sleep, but sleep-talking, nonetheless. “The arid air…is always so suffocating…”
“H-hey, Silver! Why are you suddenly leaning against me—” Face flushed red, Sebek turned to look at the boy beside him…but stopped abruptly when he saw a tear trace itself down Silver’s sleeping face.
“…It’s so suffocating that…I sometimes wonder if…everything would be better if it rained…for just a moment…” Silver whimpered, letting out all the emotions he’d kept inside after years and years of living in hateful, heated days. “Even if it’s just temporary…I…I want everything…to be okay…”
“Heeey. Are you okay?”
Sebek’s chartreuse eyes fluttered open as he eventually came to his senses. He rose from the sand where he lay asleep before, and—in a panicked state—shifted his gaze around him. It was suspicious how there were no dust storms in sight, despite how this sand planet had an overabundance of them, but…Sebek found it more suspicious how someone he’d never seen before was with him right now.
Choppy white hair tucked in by a dark red, bejeweled headdress. Garnet red eyes that looked as sparkly as the golden jewelry and articles of clothing that he wore. Umber skin that complemented his already charming features. He looked ethereal, especially with the way his smile was so blinding, it rivaled even the sun.
“Oh, I’m glad that you’re alright!” the mysterious stranger exclaimed, clapping his hands together. He looked genuinely relieved that no harm had been done. “I was so worried that you wouldn’t wake up anymore… You’re the first to awaken me since, like, two millenia ago, you know?”
Sebek hadn’t seen any other lifeform for the entire time he traversed in this area, so, as he gaped at him, he was almost sure that this person wasn’t human. The words the stranger said just confirmed his suspicion even further.
“You… Could you be…the genie? Of the lamp?!”
“Yes! And my name is Kalim! The one and only!” the genie proudly announced, later backtracking on his words. “…No, actually, not the one and only…but you get the point!”
His resolve steels all on its own. With a sharp, desperate look in his eyes, Sebek decided to get straight to the point. He’d been waiting for this moment forever! “Then…! Could you please fulfill my first wish?!”
“You don’t have to get all loud like that, but yeah! What do you want? Riches, or a parade of peacocks, or—” Kalim then coiled his arm around Sebek’s, whispering, “Uh, by the way, I can’t force anyone to fall in love with you or bring back the dead. Basic genie rules.”
Sebek vigorously shook his head. “No. I don’t want anything like that.”
“Really?”
“I just want…”
“Even if it lasts for just a mere moment…
I’d wish for rain.”
The chartreuse-eyed traveler fell into a deep silence. It took him a moment before he could continue what he was about to say.
“…I just want a bit of rain, please. It doesn’t have to last forever,” Sebek murmured, every word that he uttered striking a pang at his heart. Kalim noticed this, and his gaze softened as he looked at him. “I just want to know how it feels like…”
What exactly did Silver want to experience? It was too late, but he wanted to understand… He wanted to know—
“—I want to witness what he never got to see.”
Kalim stared at Sebek quietly as he waited for him to finish. A melancholic smile etched itself onto his face before he nodded.
“Your wish is my command.”
A genie’s magic isn’t as unbelievable as fairy tales made them out to be. Kalim’s magic, for instance, occurred so naturally… The sky wasn’t even cleaved by a thunderstorm, and yet it began to cry as if it’s always done that before.
Thousands and millions of raindrops fell from the cloudy gray high above, plummeting to the parched sands like Icarus to the sea. Sebek looked up, and he felt the cold droplets hit against his face, so unlike the arid and harsh breezes he had become accustomed to, so unlike anything he’d ever known before.
“It’s so suffocating… I sometimes wonder
if everything would be better
if it rained…”
He felt his tears threatening to spill; he lets them, and he can only hope that the genie—that Kalim wouldn’t notice.
“Even if it’s just temporary…
I want everything to be okay…”
Indeed. It felt easier to breathe, what with this sweet scent that the earth exuded after the first few kisses from the rain…
But Silver…I don’t feel okay at all.
Kalim hugs Sebek, a poignant and sad smile still tugging at his lips. He musters for the tears to not fall from his face, too, and he tightens the way he had wrapped his arms around the weary traveler, earnest in giving him even the slightest hint of comfort.
“I…don’t know what exactly you’ve been through,” he says softly, caressing his new friend’s back. “But I just want you to know that everything will be okay soon… Everything will be okay…”
The sky has since cleared, but the air was no longer as arid and suffocating as it was before. There were no more dust storms, no more lightning, no more thunder.
All that was left was petrichor.