The party marched listlessly across undulating hills in the chill desert night. The wheels of the cart sunk into the rocky sand and often became stuck on jagged rocks. Everyone’s best effort was required to push the cart through the sand. Dew forced himself to walk at the fastest pace he could manage despite the burning of his leg.

Torchlight illuminated dreary dark eyes and pale ghostly skin. Wheels skidded more often than they rolled. Josh cursed when the cart threatened to roll over himself and Darrell. Sometimes it wouldn’t move, then it would suddenly burst forward and catch their legs. One time it rolled out of control and almost rolled over Darrell before Josh and Nadia worked together to stop it. Dew reminded them to course correct many times because the cart wanted to follow the flow of the land.

The moonlit desert offered silent resistance. The ground fought for the cart, the rocky terrain lined with crags and canyons ate sound. The silence muffled their own sounds. A ringing in their ears slowly replaced what they lost as exhaustion grew. And then, rocks, bumpy sharp jagged rocks bordered by winding escarpments that sent them out of the way of the straightest path. Dew held a map by moon and torch light. They made barely a kilometer’s progress within the last hour, only to reach a long embankment they would need to climb.

“According to the map we can climb this, going around would not be wise.”

Darrell let go of the handle and sunk to his knees into the cold sand, his voice was hoarse, “Enough! It’s a full moon! We’re not going anywhere! I can’t take this anymore. I don’t exist for the sole purpose of this cart! I want to go home!”

Dew checked the map again, this time with the aid of a flashlight that quickly dimmed, producing an ever-reduced circle of fading light.

“Because of your constant drifting we still have twenty kilometers ahead of us, which could become more if we keep going off course. We either push on, or we die here.”

“Shut up!” Darrell yelled as he picked up a sword from the cart and slid it out of its sheath, “If you’re so great why don’t you pull the cart? All you care about is impressing your fake girlfriend who isn’t even a woman! He-she has you eating out of the palm of its hand. I don’t want to be a part of it. Open a portal and send me home right now or I swear you’re all going to regret it.”

Dew limped forward reaching out to him, “Enough! This is getting us nowhere! Darrell, put the weapon down. We didn’t bring those to use on each other.”

Nadia let go the cart. It rolled forward slightly. A snap from the left wheel was muffled by the silent desert as she stopped. She trudged over to Darrell, felt his cheek, which was clammy and sweaty. She slapped the sword out of his hand.

“What right do you have to demand that I do anything!? You’re nothing! Do you hear me? Nothing! What have you done to help anyone! You know what you’ve done! Nothing but get in the way!”

Darrell jumped over Nadia and pushed her in the sand, “What have I done? You’re the one forcing us all to suffer for your mistakes!”

“Stop it!” Josh yelled, “None of this is any good.”

Nadia jumped up and punched so hard that Darrell spun against the cart.

“You dirty,” Darrell wiped some red spit from his lips, “You ungrateful dirty.”

They grappled each other shoulders and fell to roll about the sand. Nadia slapped at Darrell while he tried to push her away. Dew took hold Nadia from behind and Josh pulled Darrell away. He kicked to run after her while Nadia pulled herself from Dew’s struggling grasp. Awlena moved to brace her brother and keep him from being knocked backwards. He felt clammy. Everyone was coated in a feverish sweat. Vestor hid in the cart.

“What are you doing, why are you all acting like this?”

“Because she’s the reason we’re all going to die!” Darrell yelled.

“You want to die? I’ll show you once and for all how strong you really are! You can’t even use magic. You’re inferior to me in every way! Let’s go!”

“I’m inferior to a fake?! Bring it on. No cheating with magic this time!”

“I’m done!” Josh growled.

A hand pushed down on Darrell’s shoulder and swung him around into a punch that sent him out cold sprawled over the sand. Josh stood looking at his fist as clammy sweat beaded across his forehead and heavy breathing hissed.

“Why did you do that?!”

“If everyone wants to be violent, I can offer my services. Who wants to go next?”

Nadia slumped forward from Dew’s grasp on their hands and knees and buried her head in her hands and leaned into the sand. The exhaustion felt so deep and her mind felt like hot static. The clammy sweat wouldn’t stop forming on her forehead. Words wouldn’t come. She sobbed. It felt completely humiliating. Now she was on her knees sobbing in front of everyone. Dew rested an unsteady hand on her shoulder. Vestor hopped out of the cart took her into a hug as he glared at Josh.

“Nobody wants your services. Nobody wants friends to hurt each other. Say that you're sorry!”

Josh turned to look at Darrell sprawled across the sand under the flickering light of their torches. The moon laughed upon them. Josh took a deep breath as Awlena knelt beside Darrell to check on him as he snapped to consciousness.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit him that hard.”

“It felt like you meant it to me!”

“It’s okay Nadia, he didn’t mean it, and you didn’t mean it and Darrell didn’t mean it, nobody meant anything. We’re just all so tired we don’t know what we’re saying. This place is making us crazy. Please, no more fighting. If we keep fighting like this we’ll never escape.”

“The boy is right,” Dew said, “This place has us going in circles. We’ve been awake almost three full days now. The inability to sleep is clouding our minds. My eyes are so heavy I can barely see. It won’t be long before hallucinations set in, if they haven’t already.”

The atmosphere calmed. Darrell got to his feet without speaking or attacking anyone. Josh took a step back. Nadia slowly got her sobbing under control. All were clammy, oscillating between cold and hot, but they weren’t arguing or fighting.

“And now the wheels on the cart snapped,” Vestor cried, “We don’t have enough parts to fix it.”

“We’ll have to leave it here,” Dew filled his canteen, “Everyone should fill their canteens. We’ll divide the remaining water evenly between the two skins; we’ll shift the burden between Josh, Darrell, and myself.”

“Wait a second,” Nadia stood while wiping her eyes repeatedly, “I can help.”

“You’ll carry the remaining food supply, that’ll be more than enough of a task.”

Carefully, they divided the water between two skins. Josh and Darrell agreed to carry them first, with Nadia agreeing to help whoever got tired first. They would leave the weapons behind. Each of them strapped a forty-liter skin to their backs. A canvas bag filled with raisins, dried apricots, cashews, peanuts, and a small amount of rice was given to Nadia. Awlena strapped a bag with the supplies for on tent across her back.

“That’s it?” Nadia asked.

“We can’t afford to weigh ourselves down,” Dew said, “If we are slow, we die. Let’s move.”

“We’re taking all the water?” Nadia asked, “Isn’t that really heavy.”

“Trust me,” Dew said, “It won’t weigh us down for long. The number one rule of our trek is no arguments. If you have issue with someone else for any reason, save it for after we’ve gotten through this desert.”

Everyone nodded.

They kept a silent steady pace. Darrell and Josh refused to look at each other. Nadia aided Dew as he hobbled along, yet they led the way at a forced pace. Vestor drug his arms as the small pack chaffed at his back. By dawn they had gone ten kilometers.

With no sleep, they pushed themselves forward and used more water than normal. The water skins dissipated fast as the sun came at them with ever greater fury. By noon their eyes stung from sand and sun. Underneath their protective garb their skin had gone pale. Nadia applied some balm to cracked lips so dry and sun worn they bled. The palm passed to Awlena, who assisted the others in applying it. Their collective baked filth stewed under their robes. Underneath their white garb, clothes were damp, socks were squishy, and the inside of their shoes felt like a stale pond.

As the late afternoon came, Vestor collapsed. The whisperings of the desert assailed them, but Dew turned and tapped his staff with a firm and solid eye undimmed by exhaustion. Anyone who thought of starting another argument put their heads down.

 Nadia knelt beside the boy and felt his forehead. He was overheating, so she splashed some water on his head before checking his canteen. It was empty, so she gave him some of her own water. The others waited without complaint, knowing if they said anything it would only be to the detriment of the situation. Still, the boy didn’t come around.

“There is no sleep here,” Dew warned, “only death.”

Nadia slapped Vestor, again and again, until he roused, “You stay awake at all cost! Don’t give up! Come on, I’ll carry you.”

She lifted him onto her back and they continued forward. It was useless to ask Dew to plot the map, all he wanted to do was plod ahead. Nadia wondered if Dew had lost his ability to navigate, but realized she wasn’t doing much better. There was sand in her shoes. Wet with perspiration, sand stuck between the crevices of the socks and ground the flesh between her toes. The canteens were filled one last time and the empty skins were abandoned. As dusk approached the pace of the group reduced to a desperate crawl. At the very least, they were too tired to fight.

Nadia limped; her legs threatened to discontinue assisting her body. For a moment, she knelt, allowing the others to halt as well. There was a sip of warm putrid water in her canteen. She gave it to Vestor, who drank greedily. She smiled before lifting him to her back and continuing for another ten minutes.

Eyes went blank. She stumbled to her knees. Her body stiffened before her face planted against the sand. Vestor tumbled off her back, he rolled a bit before crawling back over and pushing on her neck. The boy coughed a few times before passing out himself. Dew went on his knees and heaved. Josh looked around and found everything blurred; the world swirled about him so quickly he could barely keep himself on two feet. Darrell ran ahead, but only gained two meters when he sat down, put his head between his legs, and started laughing.

“What are the odds,” Josh knelt beside Dew, “that we’d all go down at the same time. Gotta hand it to you Dew, you kept me together, at least. This is how it all ends, six skeletons in the desert. At least I got to die with friends.”

Josh breathed heavily as the air grew colder with the encroaching desert night. After resisting the inevitable as long as possible, he lost consciousness. The last thing he heard was Awlena pleading with them to wake up.