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The Copper King had been gone for months the day the sands shifted.
It was a pleasant day in the desert, as the sun had decided not to be punishingly warm. The people of Pixandria had finally begun to adapt to their ruler's absence. Days went on, a few dedicated citizens tended the Vigil, and acceptance set in: Their king wasn't going to come back, at least not for a very long time. Everything was quiet.
Then the earth trembled.
The streets filled with confusion, most Pixandrians never having experienced an earthquake before. When the shaking died down, the royal advisors sent masons to check for damage to the buildings, muttering amongst themselves. To their knowledge, the beautiful capital wasn't on any fault lines, so what happened? Soon, with the masons having determined that none of the houses, the shops, or the Anthill had been visibly hurt, the advisors told everyone to go back to their lives. Everything was under control, everything was fine. As the people cautiously returned to what they were doing, the sky darkened with a storm. A few faces lit up—were they to get a rare rain today?
Lightning flashed across the sky above the Anthill, rumbling in the distance. A few parents ushered their children inside, as electric storms weren't to be messed with. Another bolt struck the ground this time, followed by a crack that most definitely wasn't thunder. One brave fletcher stepped forward, squinting at the ground that had been hit.
“I don't see—”
The sand fell from underneath his feet, dropping him out of sight. Screams rang out, and everyone who was nearby tensed. No one had ever seen such a sinkhole before. “Uncle Henley?” called a younger boy tentatively. “Are you alright?” They all waited anxiously to hear something, anything, but no answer came.
“Is it done?” asked the boy. “Can we get him out now?”
As if it was taunting them all, the sand started to trickle more quickly, shifting into a stream, then a pour. It took a moment for everyone to process, but they quickly came up with a solution: “Run!”
They raced to the Anthill, the most stable place in Pixandria, minus the Vigil and the strange magic about it. Sand was now swiftly sinking beneath the city, and people left their crumbling homes in a hurry. Even within the walls of the Anthill, the ground seemed to shiver, and the volume of people's voices rose with their fear. The shaking only increased. One girl decided to risk a glance outside, and so she wove her way towards the door. Gasps rang out around her as those nearby saw the precipice that had formed, a drop that had to be at least twenty feet down. Houses lay broken on the ground, plants rested uprooted, paths were merely streaks of browns and reds… The Vigil had remained standing above it all, but its base had small cracks tracing up the sides.
“What are we meant to do?” she asked, running a hand through her hair. “Are we just… trapped here?”
No later than the words left her mouth, the walls of the Anthill began to tremble. Shouts could be heard as people noticed pebbles falling from the ceiling, and the crowd surged towards the door, not knowing of the emptiness beyond. Those at the front tried to brace themselves to stay safe, but still the girl and two others plummeted to the rubble below, screaming as they fell. People quickly realized there was nowhere to go, so they huddled towards the center as bigger and bigger rocks fell from above. Praying, hugging their loved ones close, and hoping this was all just a nightmare, the citizens of Pixandria felt the world cave in around them.
Months later, when the Copper King made it back to see why he’d had visions of the Vigil, he found nothing but a broken monument of Death and traces of red rocks mixed into the sand. He fell to his knees as he realized that everything that he’d built and guarded for centuries was gone, lost beneath the sands that blew in from the west.