The Voice Inside
Maryknoll Convent School (Secondary Section), Rachel Lin, Fiction: Group 3
Water.
I need water.
The sun blazes overhead, and inside, I feel as if I am on fire.
There is no wind. There is no rain. There is only the sand, and the sweltering heat, and the
burning sun.
It is the Gobi Desert, and as I lift my head to squint into the distance, the vast expanse of
sand is all I can see.
It has been too long since I have spoken to another person. I crave human contact, and yet at
the same time, isolation has become me.
When I first started this journey, I was wild with anticipation. A trek across the Gobi Desert! How
exciting! My companions and I were beside ourselves. We thought we, a band of university freshmen
with out the slightest inkling of life in the desert, would be able to conquer this expedition.
How foolish! How naïve!
We started off strong and spry, with canteens of water and buckets of trail mix. We thought
we could actually do it. But then my companions started becoming sick one by one—one due
to dehydration, one due to the raging fever that tore through him, and lastly, one who simply
couldn’t find the strength to go on.
They are gone, and that has broken me beyond words. And now, I feel as if it will not be long
until it is my time as well. There is no more food. I have only one canteen of water left. I have
been wandering across this limitless horizon for what feels like decades, in search of something
that will sustain me and fuel my journey onwards, but my efforts have been in vain, for I
discovered not a single drop of water, nor anything edible.
My legs are numb from the continuous exertion, and my feet have long since lost feeling. My
eyes burn from the sand in my eyes, and the sweat continues to roll from my hairline in bullets.
My back is sore from the backpack I carry, and my head pounds from the sleepless nights I have
endured for so many days now. And still, I go on.
The days are long. The sun relentlessly shines down upon me, and the sand seeps into my
shoes, embedding themselves into the soles of my feet. Every step is agonizing, with my muscles
feeling as if they were being dipped into acid. The constant pain in my limbs becomes nothing,
however, when paired with the clawing at my throat.
My days in the desert have caused quite possibly tonnes of sand to become lodged in my
throat. Every cough feels as if claws are tearing apart my throat, and every time I try to speak,
my voice is little more than a croak.
The days are long. The nights are longer.
Every night, after the sun sets, everything freezes over. The sand, my hands, even time seems
to freeze as soon as the sun leaves the sky for the moon to take over. There is nowhere to take
shelter. There is only the endless sand.
There are sounds in the night, perpetually looming over me. The howls of the coyotes, the
scuffling of other animals in this place, they all compile and leave me quivering in the dark,
fearing for my life. If the days in the desert are numb, then the nights in the desert are when I am
