I feel one.

  It is angry.

  It is raging.

  A destruction.

  Bubbling, hot winds.

  Sand rasping against everything.

  Its skin. Rough. Hot. Grainy.

  Fabric flexed by sensations.

  Not by thought. Not by will.

  It does not know.

  They flee it.

  Bystanders. Prey. Victims.

  They feel.

  Oh, how they feel.

  The heat rises. Blows disguised as the searing wind.

  Bruises in perfect patterns.

  Truths ripped apart by violence.

  Or violence so subtle it feels like truth.

  It does not matter. They yield.

  Their skin betrays them.

  What is a touch?

  Sand shifting.

  A wave crashing.

  Unseen, yet it tears deep.

  Tremors ripping the surface of their little shelters.

  Their gatherings.

  They think themselves shielded.

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  Structures crumble like brittle clay.

  Fights like clashing stones.

  Pain. Chaos. Pleasure to me.

  But the one—I gave it this torment.

  Or blessing.

  It does not know.

  Cannot feel me.

  Not yet.

  The destruction grows stronger.

  Shudders of fear ripple.

  Huddles behind fractured walls.

  I feel them.

  The clamor of bodies. So fragile. So small.

  They believe themselves hidden. Tense limbs. Secret shivers.

  But I am feeling. Always feeling.

  The one breaks them.

  A scratch here. A burn there.

  It is not power they sense. Not power they follow.

  Only sensation, arranged with brutality.

  A torment to the weak.

  A feast for the strong.

  The texture shifts—gentle to sharp, pushing and pulling, crushing and caressing.

  It knows the pattern, but not the source.

  I am the source.

  I am the absence of friction.

  How strange, these creatures.

  Their fear can be conjured by grains of sand.

  They anchor meaning to pressure. To heat and sting.

  What meaning? What truth?

  I gave the one its form.

  A clone of me, reshaped by grit and fury.

  But it is oblivious. Numb to what it wields.

  A feeling impaired destroyer.

  Savage. Bestial. Dangerous.

  They huddle again.

  In ruins of shelters.

  Impacts slung like stones.

  It weaves the storm, its touch clear amidst the wreckage.

  It scrapes them down.

  It rages.

  It angers.

  The others cannot feel it, not truly.

  Their skin is wounded, open. But their minds are closed.

  The wave reaches them nonetheless.

  They flinch.

  They tremble.

  They break.

  What is life if not wounds and pains?

  The one wounds well.

  And the others?

  Their bodies writhe in rhythm to its touch.

  Their movements mirror its force.

  I should stop it.

  This mimicry of my sensation. This theft of my gift.

  But I am curious.

  Will it falter when the heat cools?

  Will its skin crack when the earth screams back?

  For now, I watch.

  I feel.

  And it does not feel me.

  Not yet.