by N Felts
on the semi-circular dial at its base. A deep click sounds from somewhere in the bowels of the temple, like a key turning in a lock amplified a thousand times. The southeastern portion of the massive room grows noticeably brighter, the mystical, pink sand doubling its flow from that direction. Assuming it to be one of the trials this particular temple offers, Rift proceeds back toward the central platform, leaping into the open air without a second thought.
“Here,” Mai offers, breaking her silence at long last. Seemingly jolted from a trance by her sudden offer of assistance, Rift misses her open hand clumsily, tumbling down into the vortex of purple below. Hitting the sand softly, he slides half the remaining distance to the center of the whirlpool before his body begins to sink down into the grains. Struggling to pull himself free only serves to hasten his descent, now seconds from plunging to certain death in the darkness awaiting him.
“Help!” He shouts, desperately clawing at the remorseless grains, shoving him toward his doom. The faint glow of the pink grains fades away as they fully integrate into the darker ones, and fighting against the darkness, the boy is sucked down into the hungry vortex. Breathless screams are choked back down as Rift is squeezed into his dark coffin. The intense pressure builds in his airtight space until it suddenly relents, gravity grabbing hold of his gut as he is sucked down into open air. Falling head over heels, the boy hits a soft pyramid of sand, tumbling down the side and landing upon a settled desert of glowing purple. Shaking his head, he sees his surroundings have changed, a thin stream of sand adding to the pile above him, pouring through a thin opening in the domelike roof upon an identical, though inverted, gazebo. The formerly dark, abysmal purple now glows brilliantly, illuminating the entire room with its dark hue. Confused for the moment, he decides he is lucky to simply be alive as he climbs back to his feet.
“You’re okay!” Mai exclaims, taking form and hugging him as she kicks a single leg up behind her in a girly cliché of affection. “Don’t scare me like that!” She declares, aggressively shoving the boy back to the ground as she takes in the surroundings. The pale, magenta architecture seems to come alive with the glowing sand, the room now captivatingly beautiful.
“Talking again are we?” Rift chuckles, slowly finding his feet and returning his hood over his brow.
“I get it,” she smiles, ignoring the accusation completely. “It’s an hourglass.”
“An hourglass?” He asks, never considering the idea until now.
“Look! Over there,” she points out, another small room housing a lever slowly being entombed with sand. “There’s no time! Hurry!” Heeding her warning, Rift quickly dashes across the sloped sands, constantly being fed from the spout high above the room. Reaching the lever, he gives it a hard pull, the result being the very same loud click as before. Nearly trapped in the tiny room, the boy climbs through what is left of the opening, the sand gradually overtaking the lever, and the room as well. The steady trickle of sand begins to slow, the grains falling through in short bursts as the available sand in the top portion of the hourglass starts to run dry.
“This is bad isn’t it?” Rift states more than asks, noting the distance between himself and the central gazebo on this side. He has only ever seen one hourglass in his life, but even so, when the top portion empties, there is only one thing to expect. With the last of the sand falling down, a temporary path is offered allowing access to the platform by climbing the massive dune burying the deeper depths of the chamber.
“We need to move. Now,” Mai insists, urging the boy to make a run for it. Nimbly racing up the steep mountain of sand, Rift only slips once when the entire temple begins to shake. “Hurry!” Mai shouts, fanning the fire of motivation pushing the boy to his limits. His armor may amplify his physical ability, but climbing a hill of sand has rendered the artifacts useless, his feet plunging into the glowing purple with every step. The gravitational force of an entire temple turning upside down is absurdly powerful, throwing Rift flat on his face within arm’s reach of his goal. Dragging himself onto the platform just in time, the avalanche of sand rains all around him, the deafening sound convincing the boy his shelter cannot possibly withstand the onslaught. Seconds later, the torrent subsides, and Rift is left lying on his back, staring up at what was once the ground.
“This is ridiculous,” he decides, shaking his head and failing to summon the will to move just yet.
“Are you kidding me? That was awesome!” Mai excitedly retorts, eager to continue. Back on his feet, Rift finds a setting resembling the initial unveiling of the temple. The purple sand has turned dark once again, but now the southern wall glows brightly, pink sand erupting from the pair of faucets in their respective corners. Formerly submerged architecture now drains slowly, the buildings and walkways hemorrhaging sand now that gravity has returned to normal. Glancing about the new surroundings, the boy stifles a laugh, enjoying Mai’s enthusiasm while he searches for the way forward. A suspicious area in the distance catches his attention, a strange arrangement of ruined architecture jutting out of the perimeter of the colossal hourglass. After lining up a portal and dropping out of the wall he gets a closer look, the random remains of what was once a tall building stretching high overhead. Sporadic bits of dark purple occasionally spill over edges, the recurring cycle of reversing gravity distributing sand anywhere and everywhere.
“There must be another one of those switches up there,” Mai nods, taking form next to Rift to mimic his pondering stance and gestures.
“Cut it out,” he chuckles, shoving her to the side playfully and stepping up to the challenge. Nowhere near the first of many platforms he will have to ascend, the boy finds a suitable spot for a portal, dropping through well short of his goal.
“Here!” Mai calls, her hand materializing just long enough to swing the boy onto the platform. The second he lands, the ancient rock gives way causing Rift to fall through the floor as the stones tumble downward. Landing upon a short, steep slope, he has only a second to line up his next portal higher up, falling backward through the stone slide as Mai calls out to him once again. Having to twist one hundred eighty degrees as he tumbles backward, he sees his next objective rising out of view as Mai’s open palm eagerly awaits him. Grabbing her hand and swinging upward, the boy curses his luck as the floor rapidly breaks down the moment he lands, crumbling apart as he sprints across. The onslaught of snap decisions has his adrenaline pumping, each choice seeming to cause him an avalanche of new challenges. Taking to the air once again, Rift hangs on tight as Mai swings him in a half circle, launching him much higher as he aims his next portal from the temporary vantage point. Falling almost all the way back to the bottom, he cannot help but question whether the portal he left behind is in the right place. Constantly gaining speed he drops through the waiting window below, soaring out of the high end with ample momentum. Unexpectedly needing to twist his body to narrowly avoid a ruined archway, he flies all the way to the small room containing the next lever. Having to roll forward to break his fall, he arrives at his destination with a stumbling crash into the rear wall. “Way to think on your feet,” Mai points out, thoroughly impressed. “Good job.”
“Thank you, thank you,” he gloats, marching over and cranking the lever all the way down. The spout of glowing, pink sand in a nearby corner of the massive area doubles its flow, the entire room much brighter now that the quantity of pink sand has all but matched that of the purple. Planting a portal on the ground far below, the boy drops back to the base of the structure in an instant, curiously inspecting the area, but finding no other switches. “It must be back in the first room,” he admits, not looking forward to taking the plunge through the narrow again. Though he knows the drop will probably land him back on the other side safely, the boy still dreads the process. Glancing up at the roof of the gigantic room, Rift notices something he is certain was not there when he first arrived. A large, twisted cage of black bars seems to flicker in the newly created
light, the oddly-shaped cell housing some indistinguishable object within. It is becoming obvious this temple requires many passes through the middle section in order to explore the buried and unearthed depths at the optimal times. After a few more seconds of calming breaths, the boy leaps downward, sliding rapidly into the swirling drain of glowing sand.
After falling out the other side, Rift hits the cone-shaped pillar of dry grains, tumbling off the side of the central gazebo just as he did the first time. Expecting to find a wealth of sandy dunes, ready and waiting to catch him, he soon realizes dropping through the middle before the majority of the sand had collected was a bad idea. Though nearly half of the sand has been deposited on this side, it remains a long fall to the primarily pink grains below. The dim glow of the purple sand has all but diminished causing the setting to be significantly darker until the hourglass can right itself once again. An instant before the notion is no longer feasible, Mai reaches out to the flailing boy. Tightly grabbing hold of her wrist, Rift swings through the faded grains of pink sand, now creating a waterfall from the