about the substance he was lying on that he grabbed a handful of it, which then slipped through
his grip. ‘It feels like sand, but…,’ he uttered to himself, as the substance sparkled like crystals. ’Is
it not grey?’
I must be in a desert, he thought.
‘Yes, you are in the Gobi Desert,’ the same mysterious, yet graceful voice replied.
Frightened, the General examined his surroundings, like a suspicious meerkat, as he
continued walking. Strange, no one’s here, he thought.
Thump! The General stepped on something sticky, and he couldn’t lift his leg. He looked down
at his grey boots. They were stuck in wet sand, and slowly sinking.
‘Oh no! It can’t be…it can’t be quicksand!’ But it was too late, he could no longer take control of
his legs, which disappeared swiftly in the dark pit. In no time, his abdomen, his hands, his head, his
whole body was engulfed in darkness, leaving a few grey ‘leaves’ on the surface of the quicksand.
Everything became black. For the second time on one single day, everything became black again.
‘Wake up!’ someone said, poking the General. ‘Wake up!’
‘This voice is different from previous ones,’ thought General Veltal, who then managed to
open his eyes again. There, he saw a strange, non-grey creature with four legs, which reminded
him of a creature from a childhood fairy tale. ‘A deer?’ the General murmured to himself. ‘This
must be a dream.’
‘I’ve never seen you here before, nor your kind. Are you new?’ the deer continued to poke the
General’s head with her hoof. She stared at the grey, withered ‘leaves’ over the General’s body. ‘
What are you? You don’t seem delicious though…’
The General felt the pain on his head, and realized it was not a dream.
‘I’m General Nesofy Veltal,’ he said, still not believing he was talking to a mythical creature.
‘What do you mean by you are “general?” Are you teasing me?’ the ill-tempered deer
barked angrily.
‘What’s wrong, Deer?’ cried a firm voice from above.
The General looked up and saw a flying vulture, which immediately took a glance at the leafy
creature. ‘A newcomer? We must take him to Bookworm for registration.’
The General, who found it difficult to catch what this strange creature was talking about,
was pushed by Deer’s horns along a road. The General, with nowhere to go, was forced to follow
the creature.
At this point, the General finally had time to take a look around. He seemed to be within a
mixture of forest and meadow, which appeared quite odd to him as he had never seen such a large
number of flora in his life. Not only flora, but also fauna. There were thousands of strange and
mythical creatures all around him: moles, dodos, deer, unicorns, tigers, nymphs, sparrows, crows,
eagles, vultures and many more which he couldn’t name. However, they all had one thing in
common: they were all non-grey.
As he looked up to see the birds, he was surprised that there wasn’t sky: it was an enormous
ceiling of sand above him, which reminded him of falling into the quicksand pit previously. ‘I
must be under the Gobi Desert,’ he thought, not realizing he was speaking at the same time. ‘But
why is there light?’
‘These are little bugs called “vol-corona” on the sand ceiling. They emit light, heat and oxygen
as they feed on sand,’ said Deer. ‘They have always been the embodiment of the sun, saving other
creatures in blizzards or sandstorms, even before entering this refuge.’
