Hot sand burned the soles of my feet as I stumbled up another sand dune. It was the hundredth one I’d climbed and probably wasn’t going to be the last one as there was an entire sea of them as far as the eye could see. Scorching heat seared my face red along with my arms and legs as I tried to swallow with a dry mouth. I still had another full canteen of water from the oasis I literally fell upon, but I couldn’t stay there if I wanted to escape and not go insane. Plus, there wasn’t a lot of food there other than a few unidentifiable fruits that I hope are edible—not that it would matter. It just means a quicker death than burning alive from the sun and dying of thirst. As such, I’ll take my chances with the possibly poisonous fruit.

The sky was completely void of any clouds to block even a tiny bit of the sun’s scorching light. It was mid-afternoon and I could already feel my face blister from second degree burns even with SPF 100, which I’d run out of within first five to six hours of being alone.

I’d lost my way after falling behind my group and have been wandering the desert since this morning when the heat wasn’t nearly as hot as it was now. Though, this morning it was still considerably hot just less so.

The sand is a lot smoother and finer than the crusty sand I remember from vacations at the beach. Unlike the beach sand that stuck to skin and refused to leave once you wash it off, desert sand was powdery and tended to—for the most part—fall off once you cleaned it away.However, both sands were completely fucking annoying in the fact that they get in everywhere. There’s no piece of clothing that doesn’t feel like I have sand in it and I’d long since given up trying to clean out my bra and shorts. Screw it, if I ever get out of this alive, I’m never going to the beach again.

I blinked and tried to rub sand from my eyes as a gust of wind slammed a pile of sand into my face as I reached the top of the dune. All I did was rub more into my eyes and proceeded to curse for a solid five minutes because I refused to waste water.

“Oh, fuck it!” I grabbed what was left of my sweaty, crusty shirt and ripped a piece off to use as a cloth. I carefully spilled as little water on it as I could just to dampen it so I could wash the sand out. “Why do I always have the worse luck?”

My feet continued blister and burn from the hot sun rays. Another note to self: Don’t wear chacos to the desert.