Suddenly, a thin veil of frost bled into his vision. It crawled along the edges of his sight like cracks forming on glass, shimmering faintly as it crept closer and closer. Dumbfounded, Art blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then froze in bewilderment.
The storm was changing.
His gaze flickered, confused, trying to hold onto the writhing sand that had been consuming him only moments ago.
Yet out of his periphery, the familiar maelstrom of grit and wind was bending into something else entirely.
The sandstorm's roar softened, dulled, until the grains of golden dust seemed to twist and shimmer, transforming into countless glittering shards of frozen white.
Snow.
Tiny flecks of frost drifted down at first, harmless as ash. Then they multiplied.
Shards thickened, multiplying with each passing heartbeat, until the storm was no longer sand at all but an entirely different world—a blizzard, wide and swallowing, an endless field of cold.
And it did not behave like any storm should.
