Shun

Another day out in the heat, and it wasn't anymore forgiving than the last. But thanks to a couple of low clouds, we were shielded from the sun for most of the day. I didn't want it to be hot, but I didn't want it to be as cold as it was during the night, either.

There wasn't any middle ground for this heat though, and the only thing to do was to suffer through it. I looked down at my arms and saw they were turning red from the sun. I wasn't the only one getting burned. Dan, Murucho, and everyone else were showing signs of the effects of the sun's rays. Murucho wasn't even reading the map anymore.

He was using it as a shield from the sun, occasionally checking it to make sure we were going in the right direction. I didn't see how he could tell. There were more landmarks in the Wastelands than there were in this desert. I was even beginning to wonder if Murucho even knew where we were going now, or if he was just reading the map for looks.

All the time we had been walking that day, we hadn't seen anymore signs that anyone else had been this way, and I was starting to become even more doubtful about finding them. I needed to stay positive. To keep believing that we would find everyone we lost.

But reality was a horrible thing when it started to set in. The odds of us finding anybody, were starting to seem like zero to none. Feliciana stopped the six dog sleds and pulled out the canister that had been filled with snow when we left; and was now water.

The dogs, and all of us, were in need of some water before we dried up. She twisted off the cap on the canister, and turned it upside down. One little, pitiful, drop of water fell out and evaporated before it even hit the ground. She said flatly, "We're out…."

Dan heaved a heavy sigh and said, "Are you serious?" Feliciana nodded her head and threw the canister onto the sandy ground. With no water, our odds diminished even further. We'd probably die before we found anybody, or our next stop on the map.

Suddenly feeling tired, I sat down and leaned against one of the sleds. Feliciana was staring at me quizzically and asked me, "What are you doing? We have to keep moving. Get up." I closed my eyes and said blandly, "What's the point? We probably won't make it much farther anyway."

I could tell she was shaking her head in disappointment in me. I didn't blame her. "That's the desert talking, Shun. Now, get up," she told me. I opened my eyes and groaned. She was right. The heat and doubt was starting to get to me. I had made sure to promise myself that I wouldn't give up till we found Alice and the rest of our people.

I stood up, and something caught my eye's attention. Far out in the desert and through the heat waves coming from the ground, a group of people were walking towards us. Or, at least, I thought there was. I pointed out in the direction of the people and asked, "Am I the only one seeing this?"

They had gotten closer, and I saw that their heads and faces were wrapped up in a shawl to protect them from the sun. Everyone turned to see where I was pointing. Dan squinted his eyes against the sun and said, "I see them too."

A sequence of nods followed as more people saw the people approaching us. There only seemed to be about ten or twelve people in total, and I my first thought was that they may have lived out here. We had been greeting by people from the past two Zones we stopped at, so this was a familiar site.

If they were indeed the people who lived in the Desert Zone, then maybe more of our group had been rescued by them. Out of desperation, we started waving our arms to make sure they saw us. They stopped walking, and I was able to see them lifting something up, but they were much too far for me to see what it was.

Something then shot into the air and flew towards us. I jumped to the side when it landed next to me. It looked like a small pouch, but tied at the top was a fuse. And it was lit. "Get down!" I yelled, not knowing what would happen when it ran out of fuse.

I hit the sand in time to watch the small pouch burst into flames, and set fire to all the supplies on the sleds. The dogs were howling and fighting against their harnesses as they tried to get away from the fire. Feliciana hurried over to them, and set them free.

The dogs took off into the desert in order to get as far away from the burning sleds as they could. The mystery people that shot the pouch, were now running towards us. The nine of us, still being slightly disoriented from the blast, remained on the ground. Now that they were right in front of us, I could see them more clearly.

One of them held a cannon-like contraption, which I figured what was shot the exploding pouch at us. They looked down at us through the opening in their shawls, and the one in the middle removed his. I let out a gasp when I saw the face.

The same Official who had beaten me back in the City, and who had almost killed me back at the lake. The rest of the people behind him removed their facial coverings as well, all of them Officials. The head Official saw me and grinned. "What a coincidence," he said humorlessly to me.

He reached into a bag, and pulled out another of the exploding pouches. Instead of putting it in the cannon, he just held it in his hand and struck a match on his shirt. I watched the small flame come in contact with the fuse just in time for a rock to hit him in the side of his head.

The Official stumbled back and dropped both the match and pouch to the ground. I looked around, confused as to where the rock came from. I then saw Feliciana standing by one of the still-burning sleds, holding her weapon, and another rock in her hand, ready to be hurled at another Official.

The head Official stumbled up to his feet, and was holding the side of his head where the rock hit him. Blood was seeping out from under his fingers. I thought about how much he deserved that from when he hit me upside my head with the end of a gun. Feliciana hit several more of the Officials with rocks from her weapon.

Soon, smoke from the burning sleds began to surround all of us, making it difficult to see. I was still on the ground when a hand grabbed my arm. At first, I thought it was an Official. But when I looked up, I saw it was Feliciana instead. Her arm was covering her face from the smoke, but I could hear her muffled voice say, "Hurry and get up!"

I did and ran behind her till we were out of the smoke. My eyes were watering from the soot, but I was able to see that the others that had been with us, were already out of the danger zone. But where were we going to hide? There was nowhere to go except sand, sand, and more sand.

And those Officials wouldn't be disoriented for much longer. We were so exposed, and I knew they would catch us. What they did after that, I wasn't so sure about. The best thing we could do, was put as much distance between them as we possibly could.

Murucho slowed down and said, "I don't think they're following us anymore." The rest of us stopped running, and turned around. He was right. As far as we could see, they weren't chasing after us. "Maybe they retreated so they could regroup. Because I'm sure they weren't expecting to be attacked back," said Dan as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

A large cloud of smoke billowed up from the place that we just ran from. That alone would be visible for miles and miles out in this desert. I told them, "I don't care if they are no longer chasing us, we still need to get far away from them." I shuddered at the third close encounter with death I had from the same Official.

Murucho nodded and said, "I agree with Shun." Despite how tired we were, we started to walk through the desert again. I was now positive that we didn't know which way we were headed, seeing that we lost our sense of direction during all the chaos. Dan halted in front of me, causing me and Murucho to bump into him because we weren't paying attention.

Murucho shook his head and asked, "Dan? Why did you stop?" The brunette raised his hand up and pointed. "People," he said. Murucho and I followed where his finger was pointing to, and sure enough, there was a small group of people walking in our direction.

I heard Murucho groan and say, "Please tell me it isn't more Officials." In the setting sun, I caught a quick flash of bright orange, an orange that could only belong to one person. "Alice!" I yelled and ran towards the people.

Alice

I looked around when I heard somebody shout my name. It was hard to pinpoint out in the desert, but I finally saw another group of people in front of us, and one of them was running towards us. When they got closer, I saw that Shun was among them. I felt my eyes widen, and I was unable to believe that they had actually found us.

Out in this huge and endless stretch of land, we found more of our group. But the site of seeing Shun, I couldn't help but run towards him as well. Our arms wrapped around each other and formed a hug. I kept saying, "I can't believe we found you guys!"

Behind him, I saw Murucho, Dan, Feliciana, and the entire dog sled team. Julie's squealed, "Dan! Murucho!" I watched as she ran towards the two boys and wrapped them up in a hug of her own. Dan didn't pay much attention to her, and broke away from her hug. His eyes were searching all around us and he asked, "Is Runo with you guys?"

Julie shook her head and told him, "No, but I'm sure we'll find her eventually. Just like we found you guys!" Dan sighed, and I felt sorry for him. He was just as worried about Runo as I had been about Shun, so I knew what he was going through.

He then pulled something out of his pocket, and handed it to Julie. Dan said, "I found your bracelet." Julie's eyes lit up. "Yay! Thank you!" She took the silver bracelet and put it back on her wrist. Shun turned away from them and asked me, "How did you guys find us?"

I pointed to the smoke off in the distance. "We were follow that, thinking that maybe it was somebody we knew that was trying to signal us." Shun shook his head and told me, "Well, it's not trying to signal anybody. That smoke is from the Officials. They attacked us and set the dog sleds on fire."

I gasped, surprised how close we were to the Officials. Murucho gathered our attentions and said, "We need to find a place for the night before it gets too cold and we freeze." Nobody disagreed with him. Especially not me, Julie, Val, or Marquis.

We had experienced the cold desert nights firsthand, and none of us wanted to go through that again. Before the sun set and took the last of the hot day with it, we set out to find somewhere to rest, and a place that was also safe from the Officials.

gah. would have been done sooner...but i got distracted by spongebob o.o...my bad. lol im still a kid on the inside XP well, read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~