Sandstorm

Where should I start? Some would say at the beginning, but my time is limited, and there is much to tell. Perhaps the most important detail, the one from which all others stem, is that I’m a telepath. The hard part was not reading people. It was shutting them out. I quickly leaped in grades and was learning advanced practices when I was eleven. People didn't trust me not to pry in their mind's when I got close, so despite them being witches and wizards, they avoided me. It was a good thing I would only be there for two years and get my masters in time, illusions, and healing.
People often called me stupid for not focusing on my natural power, but they didn't know I could fully hypnotize adults at age seven. Telepathy was easy for me, and I didn't need to know the technical names for things I had mastered. After school, I immediately got a job at a research laboratory on manipulating time. It was fulfilling until I realized that every breakthrough was given to large corporations to bastardize and sell it for a profit. I quit after I found out eight years later. A position at a startup business that made potions was available. I could speed up the cooking time on everything and was paid handsomely. Over the next 20 years, the company grew to the second largest in the world. I was ready to retire when a kingdom requested my services. They offered 3 times as much as the company, so I had to see what it entailed.
I now regret taking the job. The King started me off small by having me speed up their potion making, but by the end, where I am now, I may as well have been a necromancer. I didn't bring anyone back, mind you, I just violated the law of autonomy. I sped up the lives of hundreds of babies to turn them into soldiers for the king. But I was in the King's good graces, which made me untouchable. I am not so sure where the children came from, actually, but I never questioned them.
15 long years of loyalty to the crown, and I get this for a punishment! To wander this endless desert for the rest of my life. I did everything ever asked of me. I broke the law for every member of the royal family, and they gave me the traitors death. My wrists were branded, which blocked my magic, and I have been forced to find the long lost Temple of Time to retrieve the sun disk in the center. No one has ever returned.
There are 2 ways to find the temple. One is obviously with magic, but without it, you had to fast until you hallucinated the temple. Only then could you find the Temple of Time. Next, you entered a maze full of malevolent creatures meant for defense of the sun disk. If you are able to retrieve the disk and place it in the Temple of Illusions, the Temple of Time will become tangible. It could then be mapped out and eventually plundered.
I was given 3 days' worth of rations and water, but I thankfully made them last for a week. I constantly walked, only taking breaks when the sun went down, and ended up nowhere. Just more sand and a bright sun beating down. I was primed to hallucinate after a few more days with no hydration, and as I topped the dune, my knees gave out, and I fell into the scorching sand and rolled down the other side of the dune.
When I stopped rolling, I was on my back, and there was nothing above me but clear blue sky. The hot sand was only so deep, then it was cool, and I was now partially submerged in it with my head poking out. It took me some effort to climb out of the sand, but I managed in my weakened state. Then I just laid there, on top of the sand. The sun would be setting soon so I decided to stay there for the night.
Despite being dehydrated and starving, I wasn't hallucinating. If I could just reach the temple, I would find food and water, but it seemed I would never find it. There really wasn't a temple, was there? At least, that's what I started to believe. When I tried to continue walking my legs started to cramp and I fell again. This was when my depression hit, and I was convinced I wasn't going to live for much longer.
A few hours turned into a day, and I was still alive. Still starving and even more dehydrated, but alive, so I decided to get back up. I stood as tall as I could and marched on towards nothing but more sand. I was in intense pain from head to toe as my legs propelled me further into the heat of the day. I didn't know where I was going, and my body seemed to be on autopilot. I swear I passed out, and when I woke up, I was still marching in the sand. That's when I realized this was my fate. My life before was the illusion. I was never there. I have always been here, in this endless desert, marching towards nothing, forever. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.