Shun

"Anyone got an idea on which way they may have gone?" asked Murucho. I shook my head, taken aback by the endless land that was around us. Dan shrugged and said, "There's no telling where they could have wandered off to. All we can do is try and find them though."

Murucho sighed and pulled out a piece of charred wood that he had taken from the Wastelands. He sat down on the ground, and estimated the location we were at. Then, in his small handwriting, he wrote 'Desert Zone' and folded the map back up.

It wasn't so much a desert, but rather another extreme climate of the Wastelands. What I had assumed was sand, was nothing more than scorched ashes that had turned into another substance due to the intense heat that had beaten down on it.

It still didn't help with the miserable heat though; all it did was make things worse. I was already dripping sweat, and I felt sorry for Feliciana and her people. They were probably twice as miserable as Dan, Murucho, and I. Feliciana was fanning herself with her hand when she said, "Let's start looking for them before this heat gets any worse…..If it can do that."

The sled team that was stuck with us, got on their sleds and started to make their dogs go forward. They glided as easily as they had on snow and ash, but the hot sand seemed to be slowing the dogs down. Obviously, the ground was hotter than we thought.

Feliciana, finally seeing that the dogs' feet were too sensitive to stay on the ground, halted us and pulled out a large piece of cloth from the supplies on a sled. She then tore them into smaller pieces, and wrapped the dogs' feet up so their pads wouldn't be in direct contact of the ground.

Instead of wandering around mindlessly in the Wastelands, we continued in the direction that we had been going last night, hoping to encounter the rest of the group along the way. Our theory was that they just kept on going, missing the sand trap that we fell in.

I did hope we found them soon. We had the supplies; food, snow that was melted in order to have water, and other necessities. Without those things, the rest of the group was at the mercy of the elements. And in this heat, they would surely go downhill fast.

While we walked, I kept scanning the ground for signs that they had traveled this way. Anything would have done; footprints, a shoe, anything. Just something that would show me that they had been this way. Or, that Alice had been this way.

Since I realized that they were wandering around in this desert, I had gotten a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Hello!" I jumped when Dan shouted next to me. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again, his voice echoing back to us.

Murucho looked up at his brunette friend and said, "Dan, I don't think yelling is going to work." I knew what Murucho was trying to tell him. He wasn't saying that trying to find our friends was pointless, but wasting Dan's voice was. There was too much space for his voice to reverberate from, and that muted his shouts.

Even next to him, his voice wasn't as loud as it could be. Dan looked at Murucho and said, "I'm just trying to find them." He didn't shout again. I had sensed a tension floating around Dan since we got out of that sand trap. I finally realized that it was the same tension that was plaguing me.

He wanted to find his friends, but more importantly, the blue-haired girl that he liked so much. Just like how I wanted to find Alice and see that she was still alive. The sled dogs up ahead, were panting to no end, and I swore that if they could sweat like us, they would have looked like they had been soaked with water.

Murucho then stopped walking, and stared blankly in front of him. Dan and I stopped and stared at the short boy, unable to see what he was looking at. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Feliciana and the sled teams were still going. "Hey! Stop for a minute!" I shouted up to them.

They halted the dogs, making sure to use this time to keep the canines hydrated, and turned to face us. "What's going on?" Feliciana shouted back. Dan was snapping his fingers in front of Murucho's face. "Murucho! Wake up, buddy!" The short blonde then smiled and said in a fascinated tone, "Isn't it wonderful?"

Dan and I raised an eyebrow, then exchanged a look at one another. I asked, "What are you talking about, Murucho?" Surely he couldn't have thought the heat was wonderful. Then, he darted off forward, and threw himself into the sand and was pretending to swim.

He was laughing and rolling around in the sand. Dan scratched the back of his head and said, "He's seeing a mirage. Looks like the heat finally got to him." Dan started to walk over to Murucho, and scooped him out of the sand. Murucho groaned, then proceeded to hit Dan in his back and said, "I wasn't done swimming!"

Feliciana then helped to tie Murucho to one of the sleds, and started to give him water in hopes to bring him out of his fantasy image. I prayed that I didn't start to hallucinate from the heat like that. One of the male sled riders, who was called Marcus if I heard Feliciana correctly, looked at Murucho and said, "He was the one who was reading the map, right? How are we going to read it now?"

Feliciana gave Murucho another drink of water and said, "The hallucinations should stop soon. When they do, he'll be back to normal. But for now, we just need to keep moving." And we did. I made the point that we needed to cover Murucho up, or else he would cook under the sun even faster than if he were walking.

Marcus pulled out a blanket and covered our friend up; it kind of looked like we were carrying around a dead body. After a while, all of us were panting like the sled dogs, and I wished that we had gone back to the Snow Zone because I would much rather freeze than bake to death.

Dan abruptly stopped, almost making me run into him. First, I thought he was starting to lose it like Murucho had. But when he knelt down and lifted something from the sand, I realized he was still sane. He held a small bracelet in his thumb and index finger and said, "This is Julie's. I remember when Runo got it for her birthday."

Dan stood up and held the bracelet in the palm of his hand. I looked at the silver piece of jewelry and said, "That means they had to of come this way, right?" Dan stuck the bracelet away in his pocket and said, "Either that, or just Julie."

I knew both of us were hoping it was more than just Julie. We wanted it to be the whole group of refugees we brought with us, Alice and Runo included. All my wishes of the temperature, came true, but I started to wish they hadn't. I didn't think nighttime in the desert was so cold, but it was.

Our group of nine people, made camp in the middle of the giant sandbox. Thankfully, there were more than plenty of blankets to go around, and Feliciana was able to find enough material to build a fire. Behind us, where the sleds were, we heard Murucho shout, "Hey! What's going on here! Let me go!"

Under the blanket we placed over him, I could see him flailing around as he tried to break free. He must have loosened a rope, because he then tumbled off the sled and landed on the sandy ground. All of us began to laugh at his expense. It felt nice to have some humor thrown into the mix.

Murucho then scrambled over to our fire when he realized how cold it was. We laughed and joked about what he had done during his mirage moment. When all the fun was over, one by one, we started to fall asleep. I was the only one still awake out of our small group.

I was laying on my back, the blanket covering my front, and stared up at the night sky. In all my life, I had never spent any time to look up and see the night sky. It was full of stars and the dark silhouettes of clouds that were drifting by. The world above me, was more vast than the Wastelands.

At least our barren land had an end; I wasn't sure if the sky did. I turned my head to the side and stared out at where the sky met the desert. They could be anywhere, I thought silently to myself, fighting back a yawn. I pulled my blanket up to my shoulders, and closed my eyes.

Alice

I rubbed my arms to try and warm myself up. One moment, it was hotter than fire. Now, it felt like we were back in that snowstorm. I huddled closer to the group of people that I woke up next to; Marquis, Val, and Julie. It was all we could do in order to stay warm that night since we had lost the supplies in the dark last night. After we heard those people scream, it seemed like all chaos broke out of Pandora's Box.

People were freaking out, not knowing what was going on and why others were shouting. So apparently, the whole group of people broke off and wandered away from each other. I woke up that morning with Marquis, Val, and Julie laying beside me. To much of our surprise, we were laying in sand, and that the heat was rising quickly.

Val had suffered from a mirage on more than one occasion, and Julie passed out once from the heat. Which, Marquis carried her until she woke up. All while we wandered around the desert, not knowing where we were going or where anyone else may have been, I couldn't help but wonder if Shun was alright.

Maybe if he was lucky enough, he had found somewhere safe from the heat. But I knew he wouldn't stay there. He would be too occupied in trying to find me. I moved closer to Marquis for more warmth, trying to deal with the smell of old fish and sweat.

I gagged, but held down the empty contents of my stomach. Holding my breath from the stench, I looked up at the sky. All the stars were twinkling, and without the moon, they were brighter against their black backdrop. I didn't understand how such a wonderful site could be there, when everything below it was anything but.

I began to weigh our chances. We had no food, no water, and no map. At that moment, if it hadn't been clear yet, we were out of luck. There were no lakes for Marquis and Val to fish in, so their gathering skills were worthless, and Julie and I knew nothing that could help us.

I let my long-held breath out, and decided to deal with Marquis's smell. I didn't know if I was getting sleepy, or if it was Marquis that was making me drowsy. Either way, I gave into my body's whims and started to drift off, hoping to find anybody we knew in the morning.

finished kinda early in my opinion. :) i feels accomplished again. well, read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~