Colour throne

The Desert

Once dawn came, Antitso's troops escorted us towards the desert. A couple hours after the sun had fully risen, the trees started to get less wild and the air less humid and more dry. If the Mandla wanted to end us, now would be the perfect time to do so. However, the Mandla seemed to have lost interest in us or they were just scared of Antito's troops. Whatever the case, we didn't get attacked once on our trek to the desert. Soon, the trees gave away completely and we found ourselves at the entrance of the desert.

           Miles upon miles were covered in sand. There were cactus and skeletons of creatures that looked like mice covered in sand scattered around the place. Every so often, a gust of wind came and swept up the sand, making the whole place look like it was moving.

      "Well, I guess this is it," Antitso said, clasping my shoulder, "I'll see you on the other side of the desert. Oh ya and the Havoc mountains too, good luck on that!"

     With that, he and his troops turned around and walked back into the jungle. I squinted my eyes to see if I could see a stream or any water source, but all that I could see was sand and cactus.

      With no time to lose, we marched into the sand and the merciless desert.

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     After a couple hours of marching, our water supply was completely out. With the sun beating down at us and the sand clinging onto our boots, we were forced to chug a bit of water every few seconds. Just before the sun went down, the water and supplies that Antitso had supplied us were completely gone.

     Richard got a good idea and cut open the cactus to see if there was any water inside. Lucky for us, a bit of water poured out of the severed plant. Unfortunately, the water wasn't enough for the 20 people that we had left. It just left us with enough for us to want more.

     We tried to cut open more cactus, but we found out that with its tough shell, we would be using more energy trying to cut open the plant than actually gaining from the water inside.

     Eventually, we just gave up on trying to get water from the cactus and decided to just bear the heat and trudge on. Soon, a couple people started to fall down from exhaustion, and we were forced to stop and camp for the night.

     "We can't keep going on like this," Richard said, "We'll run out of soldiers eventually if we don't find a water source soon."

     "Don't worry," I replied, "There has to be a source of water somehwere here. We'll stumble across it sooner or later."

     "The problem is," Richard muttered, "We might not be alive when we find it."

    "Alright," I said, "Let's just not worry about this right now. The whole fate of Gala rests on our shoulders. We need to make it across the desert. Nos will be waiting for us on the other side."

    "You heard him," Hal said, "We'll just keep stumbling along until we make it out of the desert of we find a stream. We have to make it to the other side."

     "We made it this far, Richard," I said, "We can't just lose like this."

     "Fine, fine," Richard snapped, "We're all just a bit tired, so I just want to go to sleep alright?"

     We hastily made up camp and cooked some dinner. After a lot of moans from our soldiers about the water, me, Richard and Hal decided to venture forwards at night to try and find some sort of water stream.

       A couple hours after all of the soldiers were asleep, me, Richard and Hal headed out into the desert in search of some water. At night, the heat wasn't nearly as bad as the day. In fact, it was actually a bit chilly at night.