A wall of sand slid open and Albert saw his parents slowly get suffocated by a tube of sand.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Albert yelled. He made a swiping motion with his hands and the
sand dissipated.
“Impressive. Now prepare to feel the wrath of Khan!” The Sand-Man materialized into a
gigantic form, ready to crush Albert like a bug. Albert tried to evade the hulking behemoth, but
the Sand-Man was too fast. The Sand-Man grabbed him and started to crush the life out of him.
Albert suddenly heard a flowing of water above them. Displacing the sand, a steady stream of
water poured down onto the Sand-Man. Swiftly, Wang jumped out of the ground where he was
kept and threw a staff at the Sand-Man. The Sand-Man easily swatted it away and laughed.
“Old man! You think you can beat me? I’ll crush you as I did on China!” The Sand-Man yelled.
Wang smiled and replied, “Fool. You didn’t conquer all of China, just like you didn’t defeat Albert!”
The Sand-Man’s eyes, the two gaping holes, widened as he muttered, “The weakling boy?”
But as he turned, he saw the staff headed straight for his face. Albert was concentrating on
keeping the Sand-Man’s body together so he couldn’t escape. The Sand-Man exploded with an
agonizing cry of fury. Albert swiped the air and the sand stopped moving. He ran to his parents,
who were unconscious.
Albert smiled as he held his parents in his arms. As if realizing something was amiss, he
turned to Wang.
“The wrath of Khan?”
“It was rumored that the olgoi-khorkhoi guarded Genghis Khan’s grave, which must be
somewhere near the Gobi. The Sand-Man must have been Khan taking over the sand.” Wang replied.
“But how about before that? How about then?
“Before then? Nobody at all.”
“Oh.”
“This will happen again, you know. Desertification increases his strength. The only way to
permanently stop him is to stop humans from causing deforestation and pollution. Tell them.
Spread the word.” Wang said.
Albert, having woken up his parents, replied, “Hey. I just have my parents saved, fought a
Mongolian death worm, fought Genghis Khan himself, and has control over the sand. Raising
awareness will be easy.”
Wang smiled at him kindly. He waved his crooked wooden staff and sent the new hero, Albert
and his parents back home, leaving only a cloud of sand to show they had ever been there.
