"After about an hour of running all around, he finally just collapsed from exhaustion. The dust devil came at him, and started pulling him in. He said he heard it calling his name, and decided he didn't want to go. He grabbed a tree branch and held on with all his might. Eventually he heard Sgt. Green's voice, yelling something about burning and being on fire, and the dust devil momentarily let him go. He took off towards the base, and managed to make his way back. By this time, the devil had disappeared, and the dust had settled down quite a bit."

"So you're saying you're being trapped by an evil dust devil?"

"Well, from what we can figure, it's not just a dust devil, but something that controls the dust. At least, that's what the TV stone says."

"It tells you stuff?"

"Yeah, they release reports about what will happen in the future, and so far, everyone of them has been right. It started being a daily thing just after we decided that we couldn't leave. After a while, we decided just to stay and guard it, since we didn't have anything else to do."

I walked over to the stone and pressed where someone had drawn a button. All at once, an image popped up on the screen of an orange giraffe marching with a victorious look on its face, against a backdrop of an explosion and a few tanks and soldiers. Military music was playing, and the words REPORT COMING SOON!! blinked on the bottom of the screen.

"It's about that time," he said, pointing to a clock which looked very dusty, but apparently still ran. At the stroke of noon a sound of bells, three notes in fact, sounded from the stone and an image focused into view of an anchor at a news desk.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the hotdog server, smiling the slug smile, and holding a stack of paper in its hands like it was a news anchor.

"Good afternoon friends. Please turn your attention to the man in front of you. If you wish to see your future, you'll have to ask him to leave. He's interfering with the reception."

As if to punctuate this, the screen rolled for a second as if it really was losing reception from its nonexistant broadcast. She winked at me, and I turned to see the troops all stand up and come towards me.

"You heard her, let's go man. If you don't leave, we'll never know how to get away from here."

"But where will I go?"

"Take the road south. The devil won't be after you, because it wasn't earlier, that's how you got here."

He ushered me to the gate of the compound and shoved me towards the road. As I looked at the group of them, I saw a few that seemed to be missing limbs, something I hadn't noticed. One man seemed to be drinking from his canteen, but rather than liquid, he was drinking dirt and dust. A few others seemed to slowly have bits of them drifting into the wind. All at once, I could tell what was happening. They were trapped here, to become the very dust they feared. Born from it, they'd return to it before long. And that stone and that wretched server would be keeping them from trying to escape, with lies of rescue.