17 The Desert

Getting out of the tunnels was more trouble than they thought, digging their way out starting from that small crack in the wall was hard, the walls were absurdly tough. Most of the digging done by Curtis, which surprised the two as he still had that feeble look on him. Their questioning looks just ignored by Curtis as he can't really explain how he suddenly is able to be that strong, a topic he really didn't want to go over right now. Ignoring the suspicious look of Millie he just dug faster and faster until.

"Okay, we're out!" he announced, stepping back from the collapsing wall. Seeing where they were after getting out though brought out another surprise for them.

Looking around from where they just dug themselves out of, what they could see is just a vast barren land, a place that can give you hallucinations, show you things that may or may not be real, give you glimpses of stuff you can only dream of, but also take away every piece of hope you have. The Desert.

Taking stock of what they're carrying right now, their supplies might only last them a day or two, three if they ration well. And that worried Curtis, from his knowledge there are two deserts near their territory. First the Black Spot that contains pools of black viscous liquid from which he understands should be oil, that should be north of their city of Shesari. And the other which is the one they call "Disyerto ng Kawalan" or Desert of Nothing, which literally has nothing in it, and from what he could gather this should be where they are at.

"Esbern, why are we in the Desert?" Curtis asked, and taking a look at the confused look of Esbern things were not looking good.

"We should have arrived at a town by the sea, not the desert. At least from what Miss Sherry told me." Esbern answered trying to remember her instructions. "We followed the route she gave me, there weren't a lot of turns so I clearly remember the path she told me about."

Looking at his expression Curtis could tell he wasn't lying, from the looks of things they should be somewhere in the middle of the desert, to get to the sea they would need to head east.

"Let's just head east, we should get out of the desert as fast as possible, we might be safe from those people, but the desert is just as worse." he decided, as he couldn't help but feel that they should not be here and heading east would be their best bet.

"Millie let's go, we can't stay here." Curtis called out to her, still sitting inside the tunnel. "But it's the desert, and we don't know where we are." She complained. "Better get to the sea than stay here." Curtis reasoned and just started walking east, looking at the sinking sun, he decided it's better to start walking now that the heat isn't that bad.

Millie and Esbern just looked at each other and sighed at the same time, relieved that at least their master still has his head right.

...

After walking for a few hours Curtis decided that it's time to rest for the night so they laid out some cloth for some makeshift beds and started to sleep, looking out the stars brightly lighting up the sky at night, no pollution from cars and factories that will ruin his view of the sky.

Thinking back to his life before, he loved looking at the sky, the clouds rolling by, the stars, the moon. He wanted the feeling of being able to be free, to be up so high that he would be unbound from the world. When he had money the first thing he did for himself was learn how to fly. He loved the feeling of being in control, just flying with the birds, and surfing through the clouds. It was too bad that in this world there weren't any planes to fly around.

He missed his old world that was true especially the few friends he had there, no doubt they were true friends to him. But, that was all over, he needed to focus on the life he has now, and do his best so that this life will not go to waste. In this world he had a lot of people to care about, parents that let him experience the care he didn't get, people that protected him, sacrificed their life for him, people that he will do anything to protect. And maybe sometime in the future, someone to spend the rest of his life with.

...

Opening his eyes Curtis was expecting to see the blue sky void of any clouds as he was in a desert, but what he is seeing is the same white space from before. Curtis was looking around trying to see why he is here now when he heard a voice.

"Listen closely child."