I woke, feeling slightly better, but still very weak. Jill was still asleep next to me. After a couple seconds, I felt water around my waist. Looking at my feet, I saw that the tide had risen. Shaking Jill weakly, I tried to speak and could barely manage it.
"Jill." I croaked, "Jill, wake up."
She stirred slightly, but didn't wake. I tried to shake her harder.
"Jill."
Finally, her eyelids fluttered open. I pointed to the water, unable to speak again. We began to slowly and weakly pull ourselves up the beach, pausing quite often to catch our breath. After what seemed like ages, we made it far enough to be out of the water. I looked around, but couldn't see any distinctions in the land around us. And I was thirsty... so thirsty...

The next time I woke, it was with a strangled yelp and my hand burning. Jill stirred, startled. She put her hand down on the sand and gave a pained shout as well. The sand was burning hot from the sun that was beating down on our backs. Weakly, we stumbled to our feet, leaning on each other so we wouldn't touch the sand again. I looked at the land around us again, this time taking in a few more details. Unfortunately, there weren't very many details to take in at all. We had the ocean on one side and on the other there was sand... sand for miles. Very, very far off, I could barely see clouds which I hoped defined something, anything besides sand. Maybe, if we were very lucky, they even held rain and would reach us eventually.
"Aand... it's flat."
"Very."
Jill's shoulders slumped. I stood there for a minute, then put my arm around her shoulder.
"Hey, we've always wanted an adventure, right? At least we're together."
She looked at me with tears in her eyes and smiled, squeezing my hand. "Yeah."
"Well, we've got one: no food or water, we're exhausted, starving, and parched and we have to cross a desert."
Jill wiped away the tears and looked at me with a fierce kind of determination that I've never seen in anyone else.
"Let's go."

We walked... and walked... and walked... Hours dragged by and the sun beat down hotter than I had ever felt.

I stumbled as my foot hit a rock. Jill caught my arm and steadied me. I looked up and smiled, my lips cracking and blood beading on them. I was too weak to say anything. I had no idea how long we had been walking. I rubbed my eyes, clearing away all the sand crusted there. Our skin was sunburnt and our thirst would soon drive us insane. And it was hot... so hot.

The sun gradually sank toward the horizon. As if we weren't uncomfortable enough, the setting sun was shining almost head-on in our eyes. I gazed out across the sand, looking for anything that was different from the monotonous line of the horizon. Eventually, I looked up and noticed that the sun was gone. We still stumbled along, barely conscious, not able to sleep because the sand was still burning. Finally, the sand was cool enough for us to not get burnt and we collapsed. The pounding in my head was becoming unbearable. I felt like I was going to die.

I was home in bed, sleeping in on a Saturday morning. What a strange dream that had been. I would have to remember to tell Jill about it. Why was my head hurting so bad and where did my blankets go? And why was I so thirsty? As I opened my eyes, the horrible realization that it hadn't been a dream crashed into me with full force. For a few minutes, I was beaten down by pain and disappointment. I rolled over to go back to sleep, to forget it all, but the sand was burning hot again. Unable to touch the sand, we had no option but to be on our way, moving slowly and using one another for support.

I decided that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad to drown at sea. At least it would have been a fast death compared to this. However, it was a little better than the first day. Or maybe we had been walking for many days and I couldn't remember.
"Sue, what is that?!"
Jill's whisper drew me out of my thoughts and I looked up to where she was pointing. About a score of yards from us, the strangest creature I had ever seen was bent over another creature. This second one was dead, and as we watched, the first one dug its teeth into it, ripping away the skin, flesh, and muscle. My terrified whisper was dry and raspy.
"I have no idea, but I don't want to meet it. Let's go!"
Its head snapped around. We froze as it turned all the way toward us, looking at us hungrily. Our jaws dropped as we realized what it was. Standing before us was dinosaur; alive and breathing. Clutching Jill's arm, my mind went back to Jurassic Park: the only time that I was aware of where dinosaurs and humans had had any type of contact. I swallowed... that wasn't very encouraging.