Earth's Revolution

~8~

The taxi dropped us off next to a forest, saying the way was between the trees on a little path. He couldn't go there by car as it was too overgrown. Apparently, people no longer came to this forest because a newer and better park opened up nearby and local officials closed off this area for "natural habitat healing".
"Be careful, the forest is large," he had said, before taking off with his taxi to take care of more hassled and panicked people.
"Well, this is it," I said, and we trekked off through the trees.

Hours later and we still hadn't reached the lake. The sun was high in the sky and I felt weak, hungry. My stomach rumbled loudly.
"Dang, we're going to have to stop soon and eat," Maria remarked, slightly out of breath from hiking in the heat.
"Yeah, we should look for a spot to sit down," and right as I said that, we reached a clearing. Not just any clearing though, as I looked around I realised this was the clearing. The one I had seen in my dreams.
"Hey!" Maria exclaimed in recognition.
We both stopped and contemplated what to do.
"Well, this is the spot from our dreams so we can't be very far now," I remarked.
"True, should we just continue?"
"I mean, sure, it's likely close by, but we won't get very far like this anyway so I think we should stop and regain our energy."
"Yes and besides, we don't know if the lake is far or not in the end."
We sat down on the mossy ground and pulled out our sandwiches that we had prepared the night before. One challenge we had faced was to find food that would not expire fast and could last a long time outside of a fridge. Mostly crackers, nuts, cereal bars. We also had oats, honey and pasta because who knows what we would need during the solar storms.
"Do you have enough water to last the day?" I asked Maria, noticing how low my supply was getting.
"I think so, it's less than half full but the bottle is big and I think we're almost there then."
"We'd better be careful with our supplies, I don't think hiking with no water in this heat is a very good idea."
"Yes, we can be smart about it. Not drink too much too fast."
I eyed my bottle; I had drank just about half. I wondered how it would work if we had to go out during the storms, would we carry two bottles? Was it even possible to go out during the storm? I guess we would find out soon.
"Let's go, we can't afford to waste any more time."
"There are two paths branching off from here!" exclaimed Maria, "Which one is the right one? I can't distinguish between two different sets of trees!"
Glancing to my right, I recognised the boulder I had hid behind several times in my own sleep. Behind it, I could almost see the silhouette of the person as if he was still there, lingering. "It's this way. This is the path he was on."
And we headed off into the trees, our energy regained.

We had gone only a few minutes when I saw a glimpse of blue in between the boulders and branches.
"It's here! We're here!"