New Tales of the Gobi Desert
Diocesan Girls’ School, Chan Hoi Yan, Fiction: Group 3
T
he rock dropped to the bottom of the well and landed with a splash when it hit the water.
It had been the 3rd day already. There were still no signals of the rescue team. The group
of explorers were sent to the Gobi Desert in search of a gene grows in a particular type
of plant, which could cure cancer when inserted into the human body. The kind of plant
was extremely rare which only grows in the hottest place in the desert and will only reproduce
every 9 to 10 years. And this made the journey more difficult than ever.
Unfortunately, the plane carrying the explorers crashed down on the way. They landed in the
desert with only 2 emergency bags from the plane and their backpacks. They had been sending
SOS messages overnight, most of their supplies had been consumed, they had completely no idea
where they were. The water in the well was drying fast, the sun seemed to be shining brighter
than ever. Despair dawned on the explorers,, there was only a small possibility that they could get
out of the desert alive.
“we can’t hold on any longer,” Brendon broke this awful deathly silence. “we are dying if we
aren’t moving, at least, give it a try? Carry hope…” He picked up his backpack . the others had no
choice other than leaving . what else could they do?
They kept walking, days and night, searching for Greenland. The process wasn’t easy at all…
Alex was panting all the way through, he even fainted due to lack of water, the team members
anxiously seek for water around. Harry cut a cactus and gave Alex the water stored inside.
Daniel tripped over something while climbing over some rocks, his ankle was bleeding
profusely. Brendon rummaged through his backpack and found some bandages, he was lucky
really, if not, Daniel would have over-bled and died.
In one early morning, Brendon woke with a start, he was still half-dreaming while he saw
an amazing sight not far away, a Greenland, with trees and fruits dangling on them. He even
saw a river with water as clear as crystal! He shook his group mates awake and pointed to the
piece of ‘wonderland’.
The three others jumped wide awake and lit the fire of courage once again. They walked with
plenty of confidence, brains swarming with the piece of Greenland. However, they over-estimated
the difficulty upon them…
After a whole morning’s travel, the travelers discovered that the image they saw was slowly
fading away in the mid afternoon sun… it dawned on them that the image they saw was only a
mirage. Stunned, they fell on the ground, mouth wide opened, they had walked all this way for no
purpose at all, it’d be better if they stayed behind and that could save most of their energy.
Feeling depressed, their courage, confidence all disappeared in one second, dying is even a
better solution than anything else right now. They never wanted to be tortured by the heat and
coldness of the desert anymore, taking out a knife; they bled themselves to death…
The rescuers arrived two days later, discovering the explorers’ bodies, they sighed, the
Greenland was not even far away, just walk for a few hours and that’s it. Or rather wait for a
few more days, the rescue team would have arrived, but that’s no use now, the explorers allowed
themselves to die, but not even giving themselves a chance to survive.
Hope and trust, is the most important thing of all in this world, without hope, you never reach
