[Nell]: 226.Stories.Survival

We meet the young woman of our story in the middle of a desert. She has a mother and a father, and was living with them for a time, but they aren't with her right now. On a wall at home, she has a certificate stating she's achieved a bachelor's degree in science, but obviously that isn't with her either. In her right hand, she holds a plastic water bottle of the kind you might find expensive filtered water in. This is her tale:

The young woman didn't know which was worse, the shifting, stinging sands, the sizzling hot days, the unbearably frigid nights, or the terrible pounding in her head. She knew which was affecting her body the most, but on a pain scale of one-to-ten they were all rating too high for there to be much difference between them.

She dropped to her knees in exhaustion, and unscrewed the lid of her water bottle. A single globule of water rolled around the bottom. Desperately she lifted the bottle to her parched lips and let the last drop of moisture trickle down her throat, more exasperating than relieving.

She was thirsty and starving; her pain-filled gut felt as though it were eating itself in hunger. So empty, like the hateful desert around her, and now bare like her water bottle. She had been proud of herself for saving it so long; taking only a sip or two every couple of hours. But it hadn't been enough, not to last three whole days.

For three days, or really three nights, she had been heading in a northeasterly direction, using the stars as her guide. She could tell by the type of sand that she was somewhere in Egypt. If her calculations were correct, and she instinctively knew they were, she was heading in a direction that would bring her to the nearest town.

She didn't know how or why she was in Egypt without proper gear, or in fact who she was, but she suspected that this had something to do with the blood-encrusted lump on her head.

When she had regained consciousness from whatever had caused the head injury, she'd found herself half buried in sand, under a glaring sun, with a bottle of water hung on cord around her neck. After getting shakily to her feet, she looked around at an endless sea of dunes. Immediately she knew that she was in trouble, and had to get out of the sun fast. She found the lowest dip in the area, took off one of her sandals, and began digging a hole to hide in. It was hard work, with the winds constantly refilling it and the sun already high in the sky.

When the hole was made, she took off the wind jacket she was wearing to use as tent for her face so she could breathe. When cool evening came, she clambered out of her burrow, shaking off the sand that plastered her body and had gotten into her closely cropped blond hair. She travelled by night, mostly to keep warm in the freezing temperatures, but also because she knew she could best plot her position by the stars. She kept going for as long as possible, into early morning, until she was forced to stop and dig again to avoid the searing sun.

But this morning, the woman knew that she didn't have the energy to dig, so she kept staggering on. The sun was at its peak now, beating down on her bare shoulders, legs, and face. Despite her attempts to protect herself, the rising and setting sun had already turned her once fair skin a violent burnt red, that was beginning to peel away in great chunks. Now she felt the true heat of the day and wished she could shelter herself under the wind jacket, but to wear it was like wrapping a vat of boiling oil around her.

The sand hadn't helped; it shredded her damaged flesh, and got into every cut and scrape she invariably received in the unsure footing. The sand bit at her face and got into her noise and mouth, until they were full of the awful stuff. She knew that the sand, combined with the broiling, raging sun above her, would kill her through dehydration, heat stroke, and starvation.

Who was she kidding? She might as well be proclaimed dead right now! She still wasn't in sight of civilization, and the effects of heat stroke were so dazzling her poor brain that she was getting quite loopy. She had deduced this after her obviously scientific mind had decided that it couldn't stand the thought of being an unknown, unnamed entity, and had begun to call herself Aquarius, after the name on the water bottle.

And now the water was gone. Without her precious supply of liquids, she had nothing to keep her hopes up, or indeed her body up. Whilst the water had lasted, she had been marginally hopeful that she might survive to make it back. But back to what? How had she ended up in the middle of this horrible arid desert with only shorts, a windbreaker, sandals, and a water bottle to her name? A name she that couldn't even remember!

Now that she was sitting on the scorching sands, the woman discovered, as she thought she might, that she couldn't force herself up again. There was nothing left for her, she might as well lay down and die. Her blond head dropped between her knees, and she covered it with her blistered arms. She might have cried, but there simply wasn't the moisture left in her body.

Her skull was pounding like a million drums from the heat and the infected wound. Maybe if she just closed her eyes for a moment, then it would all go away; the sand, the sun, the drums. She knew they wouldn't, but squeezed her eyelids shut anyways, and tried to picture something cool and wet. An oasis; no not quite satisfying. The Pacific ocean; a vast body of water surrounding her on all sides, far larger than any mere desert. No, that wasn't enough; salt water wasn't refreshing. The Arctic; blizzards of cold, white snow, that melted on your tongue into fresh, icy water.

It still wasn't enough. She couldn't block out reality, she couldn't block out where she was. Things, thoughts and emotions, kept slipping away from her, getting lost amid the drums, but not the dessert. Not the bloody desert. The hopelessness of her situation finally hit her frazzled brain. Dry, dry sobs racked her body, and she fell into a fit of coughing. It did not subside, and she stared down in horror at the blood dribbling from between her cracked and gasping lips onto the sand. The bloody desert, she smiled with delirious sarcasm, and it hurt too much.

Collapsing onto her side, the drums still pounding, the young woman faded into unconsciousness. Her last thoughts were: damn it, I'm dying…I wish mom and dad were here…they always knew what to do…

This, my dear reader, is where you might wish to imagine a shadow falling across her and someone, perhaps a parent or a future lover, finding her and taking her to safety. You might wish to imagine that she wakes up in a cool hospital room, in a nice bed, with lots of water nearby, and someone very kind to talk to. But this did not happen. Cassidy Jones, for that was her real name, died in that desert. Her body was buried and unburied by the shifting sands, and her parents never found out what happened to her. She was never able to tell anyone the dreadful, scientific secret that she had discovered: the secret that had led to her being dumped in the middle of that desert by some particularly horrible people.

By coincidence, the jeep carrying those nasty individuals sprung a leak, and they ran out of fuel before they got back to town. Instead of being smart, sensible people and waiting by the car, which is far more likely to be spotted by possible rescuers, the three thugs tried to walk back. They got hopelessly lost, and should soon be experiencing something like what Cassidy just went through, only they will remember their names and also the names of all the people they've hit across the head and left in the desert to die, with only a single water bottle as a cruel joke.

Therefore, I hope we have all learned something from this; it doesn't matter if you're the good guys or the bad, the desert will always win. So take a lot of water, a lot of sunscreen, and preferably someone who knows how to survive in it. And at all costs, do try to avoid learning any dreadful, scientific secrets.