Chapter Two

The map wasn't helpful at all. Stella stood for more than an hour trying to figure out what all the lines and circles and ragged scratches were. She was utterly alone in the desert, and every time she looked up from the map, she felt more utterly lost and devastated.

The dunes of sand were endless to her weak-from-sunlight eyes. She could already imagine her corpse laying on the still sands.

Her mouth was dry and every time she swallowed a million tiny, dry spikes went through her throat. Her lips were cracked and there was dried blood crusted on them making it look almost as if she were wearing lipstick.

The man had disappeared after only a few steps were taken and the silence became more unbearable by the second. Being utterly tired of the restless, eerie sound of nothing she screamed. Or attempted to, that is. Her dry throat wouldn't let her get passed the first few notes and she crumbled to the ground. Her will to live crumbling along with her body.

She would've cried but there was no water in her body to spare. At that moment, death sounded like a good thing. Escaping from the parching heat.

She couldn't remember anything from her past, so what was the point to live? She had no family that she could remember, she had no friends other than the sand that wasn't being all that much help. What was the point of living if nobody in the world cared about you?

Then it hit her, what if someone did? What if her past family and friends were in danger? What if her memory was erased and she was dumped in this desert? It was ridiculous to think so, but what if they were depending her to get home and save them?

At that moment, her resolution to die evaporated like the water in her body. Fierce determination awakened her body and she stood up and threw the map on the golden sand. She would return to them - whoever 'them' is - and save them!

* * * * * * * * *

It had been hours of walking on the burning sand, her tennis shoes were holed and darkness had fallen upon the desert. Unfamiliar animals started to come out from under the sand, some would follow her.

She didn't let fear take her though, she clung to the image of a little girl -- possibly a little sister -- waiting for her to get home and save them. The creatures with gleaming eyes would not interrupt her from her journey.

With no weapon except for a meager stick she had found rotting on the sand, she didn't really know why she was so confident. Was she this courageous in the past life?

It was probably midnight now. Seven moons hung in the sky and one of them was blood red. Her body started to tilt and turn and soon she was staggering like a drunk, her foot steps scattered across the smooth sand. Her body was so tired it could barely support her own weight.

That's when she saw it. It was a gleaming light, and her memory immediately connected it to "A city".

She ran to the gleaming lights, her throat already burning with the desire of water. A city meant water didn't it? A city meant rest! All her energy wound up inside of her at the idea of a streaming water.

But when she arrived at the city gates, she knew her memory had never seen a city like that.

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Chapter by @IonaBaird123; I have received her permission to copy it here.

"My name is Iona. I am a writer (this is the part where you go, "Now really, Iona?"). I am the writer of Willow's Legend which is in the long process of being published right at this moment (may take a while , though, publishing a novel is like saying a joke and having to wait two years before knowing whether it was funny or not). Um, that's about it, hope you enjoyed this chapter :)"