When you look out over the desert, the sand lifts from the parched earth. Gently spinning in tiny cyclones, before settling again, as if the heat is too much for even the dried particles to have the energy to keep going. The wind is hot, blowing from the south-west, and as you keep your gaze on the shimmering desert, it shows mirages. Keep looking. Step out onto the sand, from your wooden porch. The wood creaks softly, relieved of your weight. Walk out. The sun beats on the top of your head, and the sand lifts in little whirls around your footsteps. Look around. Your house is still there, on the outskirts, a last stand of civilisation against the dusty wilderness. The road stretches away on the other side, winding into oblivion, the heat haze above it making it difficult to see where it goes.
Now you stand in the desert, looking away from civilisation. Nothing but sand, stretching miles away from you. Miles below you. How much has it swallowed over the millenia? Cars, sandblasted clean of paint, scarred hulks sunk deeply. Houses, like yours, live down there, preserved eternally in the sand. Silent, still, untouchable. Cities, once bustling and full of life. Now full of sand, that gently scoured them clean of life, and then engulfed them. The sand swallows everything it touches, eventually. It is just hubris that makes us think we can barricade it out.
Look around again. Did you keep walking? The heat shimmer has swallowed your house. Your refuge. The desert has swallowed it. Now it will swallow you.
The sand swirls softly, raising up into little cyclones that spin before settling, exhausted. The mirages surround you, the dancing figures given life by the shimmer of heat. They hold out their hands to you, if they have them. They promise you water. Trees. Safety. A city. Walk towards the city. Sink down, down into the sand.
Slowly, slowly, entombed in eternal stillness, a city lives as the travellers come home.
Credit To: Anne
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This reminds me very strongly of “Beachworld” by Stephen King. Nummers.
This is more like what someone would write for a poetry class.
I enjoyed this…the questions, why the sand was there and so on made it creepy for me.
Woah, the sand swallows things quick!
Thanks for the critiques!
Quick note on civilisation/civilization – I’m on the other side of the Atlantic, and it’s a more commonly used variant here.
Fair point on the second person perspective – it was an experiment and I fully accept the mild pretentiousness of it!
I was more aiming for atmospheric creepiness than ..hrm..open creepiness, so to speak, so creepiness is in the eye of the beholder and all that. But thanks and points noted for my first effort!
how is this scary? i mean its good but still not creepypasta.
Why can’t anybody on this site ever spell civilization properly? Other than that, pretty good, maybe a bit too descriptive. 7/10.
God damn it! I ordered pasta and the waiter just simply puked on me!
This made me think of both Ozymandias, and The Drifting Classroom.
To repeat what others have said, this isn’t exactly creepy, but beautiful and tragic.
I think it might have had more of a creep factor if we got the sense of a civilization *as* it was being consumed by the sand. That it was a frightening process for the people who could not stop it. As it is, we seem to have come at the end of the story, and there’s nothing at stake.
That said, I think this deserves a higher score simply because it’s such a wonderful read.
But who was sand?
Take this to the poetry slam at your coffee house, not a scary story website.
Alt end: welcome… To Fallout 4
WAR NEVER CHANGES, YOU GUYS
I thought it was beautifully written, even if if is not rigidly “creepy”. I took an apocalyptic stance while reading it and the city living as more of the travelers are pulled into it through the sand makes me think of tons of things that could be going on there.
How is this a creepypasta..?
This seems more like a potential subject for a poem than a pasta. Has some interesting ideas buried under the wordiness. Second person makes it insufferable imo.
Keep trying.
Pasta’s sauce tastes like chili.
not exactly creepy, but beautifully written
This is pretty and melancholy, but not at all creepy. I don’t dislike it, but I wouldn’t call it Creepypasta.
I don’t get how this is creepy but it’s interesting