Timeless Sands
Copyright© 2026 by Sonarflash2026
Chapter 2
Awareness shifted. Gradually blinking, coming fully awake, Alisen stared. Above her, a clear sky was filled with myriad stars. They were Set in velvety blackness, only there were far too many. The heavens were filled with brilliant flecks of light, coloured stars, tiny stars, and altogether too many stars. The vista was impossible.
“Too many to be real,” Ali thought.
She scanned the panorama and found a setting new moon wasn’t even showing a crescent sliver. Stars beyond stars came sharply into focus, illumination increasing, light expanding until the desert and cliffs about her were illuminated by soft, silvery brightness.
Reminded of a freshman dabbling with drugs, she momentarily thought the vision an LSD flashback. The sight was more like a vivid LSD hallucination. She couldn’t help but notice the sharp edges of gorge cliffs, then details of brush and rocks. The Toyota was nearby, a dark shape, just as she left it, partially covered with two camouflage tarps.
Alisen became aware of slight discomfort, equally puzzled at cold rocks against what felt like naked flesh.
“I’m not dressed?” she thought, knowing it couldn’t be so. “I’m not even shivering. Must be dreaming. There aren’t that many stars in the universe. Night in the Sahara is frigid. Must be in my sleeping bag, lying on a thick foam mat.”
Close by on her left, a softly melodic, curiously accented voice said gently, “Tom and Momar left several days ago. I am afraid they may be dead. With this war raging, who knows? You aren’t dreaming. You really are naked, lying on rock, outside in the gorge. I carried you out here so you could wake under the stars. The night is beautiful, yes?”
“A voice answering my thoughts?” “ Alisen puzzled, wondering if she was dreaming, dying or dead. “I fell into that sinkhole ... into an underground lake. Did I drown?”
:You did not drown, Alisen Ali Andersen,: a gentle thought replied, followed again by the audible voice.
“You are not dead, Doctor. You are the dream which has become my reality. I have a telepathic mind ... and other gifts. Your thoughts have been open to me from the start. I called and you came. I was in prison and you set me free. dead and you raised me up. I thirsted, and you let me drink. I hungered, and you gave me life. I was lost and alone, and you found me. Now, my hope is that we might become friends.”
“Friends? Prison? Dead? Raised you?” Ali said, “gave you drink? Fed?” Ali caught a breath, hardly daring to move.
The Egyptologist was perplexed by the tenor of unusual inflections. She wasn’t religious, but recognized the paraphrasing of biblical passages. Blinking rapidly, she twitched fingers, feeling nails scratch against rock.
Ali fumbled, touching bare flesh on her flank. Pinching the skin of her thigh, she gasped, saying, “Shit! I’m naked! I really am outside. Bare ass and lying on cold rock!”
“Yes and yes,” a quiet, soothing voice stated in English. “Awake and well, Doctor Andersen. Be at peace, for now there is much for you to learn and understand. You have been sick, burning up with fever, but that is passed. You shall soon start to remember all that happened, and all that is important.”
“Remember? Remember falling? Remember what?”
Ali moved her head slowly, her protesting neck feeling stiff. She looked to her left. A shadowy figure resolved. Despite there only being starlight, a darkly bronze, female form took shape.
With startling speed, details snapped into focus. Completely naked, a petite woman was sitting with legs folded into a lotus, palms turned up on her lap. Spilling over chest and shoulders, a tumble of impossibly red, carmine hair fell to the ground. Narrow, arched brows and long, fluttering lashes held the same bright colour.
Ali’s thoughts protested. “Moon and starlight doesn’t reveal colour, only shades of grey!” She puzzled, eyes widening at the sight. Even more confused, she remembered that the moon was new and almost dark. Nevertheless, beautiful, glittering emerald eyes stared back at her. They were just as strange, with inhuman, vertical slit pupils. The woman had small, conical breasts with strawberry pink nipples. The teardrop aureoles were a darker cinnamon gold. Below a flat belly and deep, oval navel, vivid, darker red curls nested between the juncture of thighs. Her vulva lips were open, revealing intimate details to Ali. The scientist blushed hot, tearing her gaze away, forcing herself to look back at cliffs and stars. The instant she focused on anything, the object resolved sharply. The Toyota’s red colour and mottled browns of the tarps came clear. Myriad stars showed red or yellow hues. A few larger stars were tinted blue. Ali absorbed everything, absently wondering if she was in a coma, or if these sights were a feverish hallucination.
“Ali, your eyes now look just like mine, and have the same sharpness, the same night vision,” the woman stated, her tone pleasant, irrevocable, definite. “Your body has been altered, and cooled, the fever of transformation passing. This is no hallucination, nor is this a dream. You are outside the cave where you discovered my tomb. I carried you out into the wadi so that you could wake beneath the stars.”
Gentle fingers stroked her cheek, causing Ali to shiver. The touch was exquisite, feather soft and familiar. She didn’t flinch, rather turned into the caress, meeting those strange, emerald eyes.
“Now, remember,” she stated with an edge of invocation and command. “After climbing from the water, you followed the underground passage, found the carved stairs, passed the warnings and idols, climbing, finding my tomb. Though it should never have happened, you entered my prison, broke the enchanted seals, even opened my sarcophagus and set me free. Do you recall? All that you did? You were sensitive. A resonant soul, otherwise my psychic compulsion would not have worked.”
In an instant, Ali experienced total recollection. She remembered. Part of her was still in denial, but she recalled her plunge into the underground lake. She remembered gradually recovering on a shelf of dry rock. Her backpack had been intact. A filter pump allowed her to fill a canteen. Cool, purified liquid from the underground lake gradually satisfied thirst. With the addition of pouches of electrolytes, she recovered from days of dehydration.
Since almost everything in her backpack had been sealed in zip-lock bags against invasive desert grit, the equipment and food had been dry. All she had to contend with was wet clothing.
Alisen was a survivor. Lessons from her teens had kicked in. Reminded of wilderness camping trips and survival instructions from her father, an ex-soldier, she took stock and quickly dealt with the situation.
Her Beretta FS was still clipped in the holster. After stripping the nine millimetre pistol, wiping, drying and oiling parts, she had used a LED flashlight, exploring the underground cavern. A passage brought her out of the grotto, ending at stairs. Though eroded by ages of moisture, there were Egyptian gods carved into the chalky limestone, along with hieroglyphs warning of evils. Coated with rippled flows of crystalline orange and pink calcite laid down over thousands of years, the stairs had taken her up into another labyrinth, then into a side tunnel, directly to a sealed tomb.
Ali remembered wiping surfaces clean of grime and dust, then her careful translation of hieroglyphics. Still brightly enameled, those characters held dire warnings, telling of mystical consequences, and told of evil concealed within. They were Explicit, intended to dissuade any who discovered the site from proceeding further.
Somehow coming under a compulsion, Ali did not heed the ancient warnings. Even without the siren call, she didn’t believe them. What had been revealed by a LED flashlight beam had only fueled her excitement. This was an undiscovered tomb with an unbroken seal. The discovery drew her like a magnet attracts iron.
Entranced even then, Ali managed to find an exit, working through another passage, out into another cavern. She managed to skirt the sinkhole, getting back to the wadi. Returning to the Toyota, she collected tools, then rearranged and anchored camo tarps. Well back in shade of the crevasse, she drove pitons into fissures, skirting the sinkhole with ropes. Driven by a subtle compulsion, Ali emptied the Toyota. She packed in tools, heavy equipment and more supplies. After a couple hours work, she had everything moved into the tomb antechamber, establishing an underground camp in cool seclusion.
“Somehow, I was driven beyond all reason,” she said, unable to look away from depths of the woman’s black, vertical pupils. “I must have gone crazy. I broke tomb seals. I rigged ropes and used the come-along to pull out the red granite door plug ... Inside, blank walls were devoid of hieroglyphics. The sarcophagus was unusual. Never saw one with settings of precious stones, or engraved with swirling patterns of gold and silver.”
“Yes, scry-patterns,” her strange companion replied, audible voice echoing within Ali’s thoughts. “They gave you pain, but you fought that and managed to break a bitumen seal, then pry off the stone lid. Your touch caused the cedar coffin to crumble, completely releasing me from stasis and all the binding spells.”
You can’t be ... alive!” Ali said quietly.
“Ah, but I am. You lifted out a wrapped mummy and laid me on the floor,” the enigmatic figure stated. “I exist, Ali. We survive. You are awake. Now, the thirst is upon you, my lovely one. You must drink. Here, take from my wrist. Drink of my blood.”
“Drink? Blood? Lovely one?” Alisen said aloud, starting to shake her head in protest. Before she could think, cool flesh pressed against her lips. A slender, small wrist filled her open mouth. Lips slid over warm, satiny flesh. Without volition, her tongue darted, now oddly sensitive, different, thin and feline, rough and rasping dry, tasting and discovering a warm pulse point.
Ali involuntarily clamped her mouth on the woman’s offering. Colours flickered and splashed as other images flooded her mind. Primal instincts took hold. Light flared red against a white mist at the back of sight. Almost painful, electric sensations jolted down along both sides of her nose. Ali bit down. Her canines seemed to dart through flesh, deflecting off bone, opening the woman’s artery. She flinched but held still. Hot blood began spurting into Ali’s mouth. Instead of revulsion, she swallowed, then swallowed again and again. Thick and rich, the taste of blood was sweet, not metallic or coppery, rather oddly delicious and succulent like a fine, sweet wine. Thirst becoming fierce, a new and consuming passion, Ali drank and drank.
Belly clenching, surprise and alarm mingling with astonishment, Alisen felt a surging rush of intense, erotic pleasure. With the blood, delicious, living fire seemed to course down from stomach to belly and lower. Building with each mouthful she swallowed. Waves of sensations took hold, rippling through her belly, swiftly rising to a crescendo, tipping over into a dazzling, delicious orgasm.
Alisen panted. Slowly fading contractions followed each swallow. That same liquid heat kept pulsing through her loins. The climax surged, built and seemed to go on and on.
Breasts tingling, nipples erect and aching, she felt hips thrust, her thighs clench. Her back arched involuntarily. She moaned, squirming, drinking, revelling in the blood offering as it slid past her tongue.
Pulse throbbing in her ears, breathing rapid, Alisen was forced to draw night air deeply through nostrils. A multitude of new smells assaulted her. First, she identified the scent of blood. Then, a spicy, oestrous musk reached her from the woman. Flinty, sulphurous rock was overlaid by desert alkali. Faint traces of ammonia from bat guano mingled with night dampness. Perfumes of delicate blossoms formed a contrasting backdrop to the pungent smell from a nest of concealed serpents. With uncharacteristic clarity, she identified the rank odour of entangled rock cobras. Other scents came, stimulating tastes, fragrances unconsciously sifted, as quickly identified by a new, uncanny wealth of ancient knowledge.
“Lillith!” Ali thought, sighing through nostrils, remembering details, moments of discovery flashing back.
“Lillith,” she murmured. “Out of legend?”
First, there was the undiscovered, sealed tomb. She had madly photographed everything. Then later, the big stone sarcophagus. Ali remembered being excited, somehow beyond restraint. The engraved, tangled patterns and symbols had really started giving her an intense migraine. Without hesitation, she had broken pitch and bitumen seals by driving in steel wedges. Using ropes, pitons and the come-along, she had removed the ponderous stone lid. After tipping over and falling to the chamber floor, the lid fractured. In that instant, Ali’s unusual migraine evaporated.
Within the stone sarcophagus had been a cedar coffin. There were more engravings, more swirls of gold and silver, innumerable crystals and precious cut gems at points of the compass or the start and ending of mystical patterns. The whole assaulted her senses. They repelled Ali’s mind, but she was a fighter. She reacted in anger, punching down with fists. Desiccated cedar panels shattered and crumbled to dusty fragments and splintered wood. Gemstones broke loose, tinkling as they fell against one another. In that instant of anger, the psychic assault on Ali’s senses ended. That energy had been replaced by waves of soothing gratitude and relief.
Even then, Ali had sensed that forces beyond her ken were at work. Without understanding why, against all her training, she lifted out the small, light mummy. Stiff as a board, the wrapped body was encased in petrified, resin-soaked linen bands. Still gripped by compulsion, Ali laid the petite figure on the chamber floor. With the small blade of a Swiss army knife, she cut and split open strips of hardened linen. Impregnated and stiff with coatings of resin, portions of the wrapping lifted away like an insect carapace. When face and chest were exposed, she beheld the shrunken, desiccated features of an impossibly preserved, lovely woman. Then, impossibly, the woman’s eyelids fluttered open.
“Lillith!” Ali said again. “Your name is Lillith. A name and legend from antiquity!”
:Yes, Ali, my name is Lillith,: the telepathic voice answered.
Other thoughts like a breath of wind brushed her mind with a caress. The climax faded, feathery, rippling contractions shivering through Alisen’s middle until only, sweet echoes of the orgasm remained. Her belly relaxed. Going limp from the unexpected sexual eruption, Ali caught a few breaths.
She recovered, gaining a slight measure of equilibrium. She also blushed. Her thirst slackened. The bizarre lust for blood had been satiated. Thoughts clearing, she was alarmed to discover that the act of biting and drinking blood satisfied some primal element of a totally new, blossoming nature.
Ali’s lips were tight about the small, slender wrist, still suckling. The blood had thickened, the flow almost stopped. Her exquisitely sensitive tongue explored Lilleth’s wounds, then she tongued her own fangs, the irrevocable proof of a radically altered physiology.
:Yes, force your fangs to retract,: the inner voice directed.
Almost involuntarily, Ali flexed her will. Her sinuses jolted. She almost sneezed. Odd sensations shivered up through her nostrils. The tip of her tongue followed slender, retreating fangs until only small, needle tips protruded. Unlike her original canines, they were another mystery, closer together and tiny. She continued licking Lillith’s wrist. Blood flow became a trickle. Finally, there were only sticky blood clots on the surface of satiny skin.
“I drank your blood!” she said, trying to work up revulsion, though the taste might as well have been that of aged, high quality port wine. The effect was deeply sensual, hardly seeming disagreeable.
‘‘ve done this before,’ she thought with dawning realization and lingering horror.
:Yes, before, drinking of my life force, becoming one with me,: the silent, telepathic voice answered Ali’s unspoken thoughts.:You drank from me several times over the past few days.”
“I’m ... a vampire?” Ali thought, not quiet able to voice the thought.
:Not undead, nor a monster,: Lillith replied in mind and voice. “Of necessity, my nanites altered your body. But, now that you are fully conscious, you will recover swiftly, and remember everything that transpired. When you freed me, there were no alternatives. I was in need of your blood. I drank of your life force. To save you, I released my venom which has altered you. Now, you must adapt to your altered state, and to your altered body. Already you have found senses enhanced. Your sight. Hearing and smell. Our telepathic link is much stronger.:
“How? What have you done to me?” Alisen complained, absorbing the import, digesting the ramifications of shared thoughts. After only a moment, she could not deny the changes. Along with sorting a multitude of distinct smells, other senses and recognition of normally imperceptible sounds came to her.
“Please understand. I have cocooned your mind to protect you,” Lillith informed her.
Floating in a languid afterglow, somehow not in the least worried, the practical Egyptologist identified the ultrasonic squeaks of flitting bats, the crackle of high-flying jet fighters, burr and clicks of insects, then distant bursts of automatic gunfire. She even felt slight trembles shiver through the rock before air thundered with a flurry of exploding mortar and artillery shells. Though distinct, she knew the blasts were far across the desert, several dozen kilometres from the wadi.
“What’s happening to me?” she wondered, swallowing, licking the satin flesh of Lillith’s wrist before her distinctly altered, rough, thin tongue wandered back to small, sharp canines. All of her old teeth were gone. There was a hint of newly erupting molars and teeth along sensitive gums.
“My sweetness, you have been transformed,” Lillith said quietly. “Your physiology has been altered. Your old teeth fell out and are being replaced. All part of the transformation. Now, you can let go of my wrist.”
Lillith’s hand caressed Alisen’s cheek, moving down, stroking her throat with a gentle brush before moving to the generous swell of one soft breast.
Recalled to her nakedness, Ali tensed. Momentarily feeling vulnerable, she brought up an arm, trying to cover her chest. Her right hand swiftly covered her pubic mound.
“No need for modesty,” Lillith said, chuckling. She pushed aside Ali’s arm and traced around the curve of a breast. Still limp from the prolonged, intense climax, Ali couldn’t find the will to muster a protest.
“Sweet Ali, we have shared blood and memories. I hope we will share other pleasures,” Lillith murmured, lightly cupping her breast, thumb feathering touches over a nipple that was already rigid and definitely aroused. The touch was delicious and erotic.
“OMG!” Alisen said, gasping, voice becoming a squeak. “Oh my!”. Her flesh had somehow become unbelievably sensitive. The contact was exquisite, waves of intense sensation igniting desire in ways she had never before experienced.
“Much better, yes?” Lillith said, voice quietly teasing. “Your entire physiology has been altered. Now, you are like me. You can see in the dark. Your senses are enhanced. You have grown retractable fangs. Any hurt or fever is past. Any healing will be extremely fast, and, you will no longer age.”
I won’t age?” Momentarily overwhelmed, Alisen sucked a breath and closed her eyes, senses and thoughts drifting while delicate fingers made a delicious, distracting exploration of a breast, arousing her anew, tracing the contours of one peak, then another.
“Are ... you like me? A lesbian?”
“Bisexual, as I understand the term, and that you have been thus?” Lillith replied, bending forward, nuzzling her cheek, cool lips skimming over to her lips, leaving a feathery kiss.
“I guess,” Ali replied, mind tussling with reactions and sensations. “Mostly lesbian though.” She puzzled. “How is it you think and speak English?”
“I have a gift for learning tongues, and of course, there’s my telepathy,” Lillith said.
Sighing, Ali surrendered to the woman’s advances, enjoying intimate delights, thoughts distractedly puzzling, recalling her initial discovery. “Those hieroglyphics. I could read the warnings, but, they seemed so ridiculous.”
“Yes, ridiculous,” Lillith answered. “Warnings to frighten fools.” Glittering, emerald eyes caught and held her focus. “These past days and nights, when it was possible, I have been sifting your memories, learning from your mind, studying your language. I even learned to use your lap-top computer. Your satellite phone gave me access to the internet. Google has been very informative. YouTube has also been useful. I have learned much of this present age.”
“Present age? Google!” A laugh burbled up and escaped Ali’s lips. She slowly shook her head. “An ancient mummy comes to life and uses my computer? Uses Google? My satellite link? OMG, my cell phone bill is going to be horrendous! And ... you’re a ... vampire too?”
Lillith joined in with a harmonious chuckle, saying, “after a fashion, though not an undead revenant like so many of the vampire tales. I need blood to continue. Blood is the fuel which gives me immortality. Without it, there is pain.”
“Pain?”
“The nanites which infected you, and now sustain us, require blood as fuel. They keep us alive, young, and healthy, but there is a cost. We must drink living human blood to maintain existence. Once I was freed from the stasis, I required blood. Your blood.”
“What do we do now?” Ali prompted.
“There is gold, and the gems they used to ensorcel my coffin and sarcophagus. Anyway, the legends and myths are distortions of truth, facts twisted over time by male dominated religions.” A subtle tone of entreaty begging understanding, she said earnestly, “Ali, I needed you, and now, we are linked. I am not a demonic spirit, no monster, and not a Hollywood vampire. I won’t burn up in sunlight. Only circumstances make me a creature of the night, since I must hunt for blood. I do prefer the peace of night and stars, but our kind must drink living blood to survive, to digest or metabolize food and drink. There is a life force in the blood that we need.”
“But, Lillith, you couldn’t still be alive,” Alisen said, her protest feeble. “Things like this are ... impossible. You were ... are only a myth.”
Cupping Ali’s breast, Lillith squeezed hard, evoking a squeak of protest. “Did that feel like imagination or myth?” She asked, arching her back, releasing Ali, running fingers of both hands through her long hair. She gave her head a toss, giving a shrug... “I am no myth. The evidence is here,” she said with quiet sincerity. “You know that my tomb was ancient, the Egyptian writing authentic. You alone fought the spells, broke the seals and destroyed the scry patterns which held me in thrall. I was in stasis, so I live, and that because you, my beautiful saviour, delivered me from enchantments. You broke the seals, opened my sarcophagus. You shattered my coffin. You broke the enchantment. You cut me free of the hardened linen wrappings.”
“Ali flushed. “I really didn’t know what I was doing. That had to be your influence.”
“Only in part,” Lillith said. “That is the wonder. You are a sensitive. You were receptive to my awakening spirit, to my urgings, and I am glad for what you did. The hand cupping a breast slid down to her belly and back up Ali’s other side. Warmth surged through the Egyptologist. She shivered with delight, unable to find the will to protest. Unable to argue against the reality, she tried to comprehend and believe the words. “You weren’t actually dead?”?”
Lillith shook her head, tossing long hair. “Not dead, nor un-dead. There is a condition ... stasis ... what you might as well call magic. Even now, I see and hear the doubts in your scientific thoughts. Like you, I was arrogant. I thought myself invulnerable. A cabal of Egyptian priests were jealous. I was careless. They used others to drug me insensible. They used what limited magic they understood, binding me in those linen wrappings. The tomb and coffin had been secretly prepared months earlier. Fortunately, because of their superstitions and religion, they dared not attempt that which would most certainly have destroyed me. Something of my powers kept them from burning my body, cutting off my head or carving out my heart. Instead, they invoked powerful enchantments. Sliding off the sarcophagus lid, shattering the coffin, you released me from mystic spells. Even before that, your entering the tomb drew my spirit from the beyond into your present. You freed me and then fed me.”,
Ali’s eyes went wide. She once more remembered inexplicable compulsions. She saw herself lifting out the stiffly encased mummy. She cut through resin-hard linen wrappings, lifting them off, freeing a tiny, perfectly preserved though shrunken female with fiery red hair.
Desiccated arms lifted. Ali had been paralyzed when shrunken hands grasped her forearm, dragging flesh down to lips that opened and fastened tight. She hadn’t been able to resist when fangs sank painfully into her flesh.
Shivering, she asked, “you drank, but didn’t kill me.”
Once again, Lillith tittered softly, then chuckled. “After awakening, and seeing you, and reading your thoughts? How could I do that? Destroy you? I was in your debt. We shared a mystical resonance of mind. You listened. You set me free!”
“No credit to me,” Ali said.
“Every credit to you,” Lillith said quietly. A fingertip stroked down Alisen’s arm. She circled the archeologist’s left wrist. “I drank from here. I took enough blood to start my restoration, Then, I left you and sought others. There were many groups of soldiers in the desert. I fed and returned, giving you back what you had provided me. Night after night, I ventured out into various battlefields. I drank and drank, restoring my withered body ... also providing you with nutrition.” Her finger moved to Ali’s throat, stroking, a feathery touch that made Alisen tremble, also making her aware of two itchy spots below her left ear.
Lillith lifted her hand, touching the spot, reading her mind. “The next time, I drank from here,” she said, stroking the small bumps. “That was more satisfying. So very intimate and much more pleasurable. When you are ready ... and willing, I want to drink more, and make love to you Alisen.”
Ali experienced another shiver of desire. “I ... I remember. Is it like that every time? That orgasm was incredible.”
“It can be, and better, if you wish it so,” Lillith said, nose crinkling with her smile.” She bent, nuzzling Alisen’s throat. “Especially if we feed from each other at the same time.”
A kiss and rasping lick made the Egyptologist shudder, belly flaring with a renewal of heated, sexual anticipation. “And, yes, you are now like me, a vampire, a transformed being, but to answer unspoken fears, you did not die. You are not undead. You are not a soulless creature. If I had killed you, we would not be having this conversation. I did take you near death three times, and injected my venom each time. I gave back as much of my own life-force and blood as I could manage. Your vampire myths have a little of that aspect correct, but little else. As I said, sunlight will not harm us. We must drink water, eat, and even sleep. We can even enjoy wine or strong drink, but After that first time, after I fed from you, I drank all the water in your canteen. It wasn’t enough. I saw the underground lake in your memory, went down there and drank. After a few days, my withered flesh was completely restored.”
“But, why make me like you?” Alisen protested. “There are men fighting out there in the desert. Couldn’t you just ... take blood from them?”
Lillith gave her a thoughtful look. Nodding, cocking her head, she answered quietly, saying, “that does not have a simple answer Ali. Yes, there are scattered groups of men all around us, and from that first day, they have been providing the blood and life force I needed ... that we both needed. I drank their blood to fully recover, and too nurture the change in your body. I went out each night, hunting as is my way. Only, the victims could not be left to reveal my secret. I sought those worthy of death. Religious fanatics. Terrorists. Vile, abusive men. Men with hateful, murderous thoughts. I drained them to death. I killed. You, on the other hand, are a quite different matter. I loved you.”
“Loved? Different?” Alisen said, voice almost a squeak as she whispered in response.