The Gobi Desert
American International School, Katie Lam, Fiction: Group 2
C
rash! Blood was splattered everywhere on the exposed, bare rock. Miraculously, three
people survived. It all started when a group of people were flying on a plane from Russia
to Beijing. The plane had suddenly lost control of itself. The three survivors were the
pilot called Sam, a Russian man named David, and a nine year old girl called Katherine.
Fortunately, both David and Sam were slightly injured while Katherine only had a few scratches
and bruises. As they realized what had just happened, they hobbled weakly around each other and
introduced themselves. They also made a promise to find a way to survive and get out of this cold,
dry place together. As night falls when the sky started turning pitch dark, the group desperately
decided to get some needed rest.
The next morning, Katherine woke up first. She walked around, constantly poking at the
golden sand with the tip of her toe. Suddenly, she jumped around exuberantly. She had discovered
a thick book half buried in the sand. As she flipped through the pages, something caught her eye.
It was a reference book about the Gobi desert. While she started glimpsing the chapters, she found
that the Gobi Desert is the fifth largest desert in the world covering approximately 500,000 square
miles. On the back of the book was a map showing that the Gobi covers parts of northwestern
China, and of southern Mongolia. After Katherine studied the surrounding landscapes, she
realized the plane had crashed near the Eastern Gobi desert steppe, the most eastern of the five
Gobi eco-regions. Then, she turned a few pages and made a startled discovery. “Sam! David!”
Katherine called out immediately.
Sam and David stumbled over to her. “What?” they mumbled. “Look what I found!” she yelled
jubilantly. They were glancing at some desert plants. “We can eat those wild onions.” exclaimed
Katherine while pointing at a photo. As the group started their mission to find their only food
source, they discovered Saxaul trees, saltworts, desert shrubbery, and grass. Finally, they found
some wild onions clustered together. Katherine chopped them with a hard blade of grass. While
they were munching on them, various desert animals huddled over. They were black-tailed
gazelles, marbled polecats, snow leopards, golden eagles, brown bears, and wolves. Fearing their
lives, Katherine scooped up her guidebook and ran while David and Sam trailed behind. Shortly
after, a Bactrian camel raced over and threw its head toward them. David immediately knew what
it meant. He hurriedly told everyone to climb on one of the camel’s humps. Once they did, the
camel trotted away gingerly. With each of the careful steps, the camel strode through the powdery
sand; they drifted off to a nice and peaceful sleep…
All of a sudden, a sharp jolt woke them up. The camel had just rose up from its water break.
“Thank you for finding water for us!” Sam said heavenly to the camel. They all climbed off and
gave the camel some grass, along with a nice soothing pat on the neck. The camel gave them a
snort of pleasure, and then galloped away. Sam, David, and Katherine knelt down and scooped
up the fresh water from the oasis with their hands. It was a true delight as they had never drank
water that felt so tasty before. Meanwhile, they walked back to the location where the plane
crashed. They found some plastic bottles inside a survival kit. “We will use them to store water.”
exclaimed David. Gradually, they walked around in the endless desert, trying to find a way out.
They repeated that for months, riding on Bactrian camels, finding water, filling their bottles, and
