Direction

You stand there pondering for a time. And then you notice it, the tiny prick in the pit of your stomach. It slowly intensifies becoming a powerful burning sensation. The pain grows and grows, a dangerous pressure expanding in your throat. You try to hold it back, but it feels as though you are burning up from the inside. You fall to your knees, sweat beading on your forehead, pain arcing like electricity up and down your spine. You open your mouth to scream but instead a gout of fire shoots into the sky. Shadows flee from it as the pillar ascends, just to swoop back in as it dissipates. You shudder and another blast of fire leaps from your mouth spreading out over the ground. Your eyes screw shut with pain as you let loose another torrent of flame. Finally the fit subsides, you lay gasping, hardly able to move. The smell of burnt flesh overwhelms your nose and its taste fills your mouth. Every inch of your body hurts, but slowly you begin to recover. You can almost feel the burnt flesh repairing itself, shedding charred and blistered skin. before long you can stand, and you do, looking around you see a plain of sand stretching off to infinite in every direction. The grains are warm beneath your feet and glow a bright white. The darkness hovers above as though repelled by the light, a sky of endless shadow. A warm wind blows across the sands as you consider what you should do.