As we drove through the red dunes of Erg Chebbi into the stretching sands of Sahara, Okba pulled out his binoculars to scan the terrain and shifting sand dunes of the desert through the car’s window. I had opened my journal to continue writing about the team’s activities in the desert, and my own reflections about it.

Irem had connected her camera to her tablet, and was swiping through our pictures taken at the luxury camp when she became confused and asked me to have a look at the pictures.

“All of your pictures are like this.” She showed me the pictures, and all of mine were blurred. It had got me worried as well. Even the ones taken with Sean, Okba and Zimar, or the group photo with Irem was fuzzy and blur.

“Either it’s due to haze or I was being fidgety”, I was confused myself. It’s indeed strange. Irem was good at the photography; there’s no question about it being a bad lens or focus, and that too solely of my pictures.

“It must be a ghost standing next to you.” Okba had commented, and Zimar chided him for being superstitious.

 “Child, you must believe it when you are in the desert. These things haunt you near in the desert.” He told Zimar.

Okba was an old school. The man had been in antiques’ business for twenty years of his life, and in his line of work, people would believe in all sorts of feudal superstitions after encountering something paranormal they couldn’t explain otherwise with logic. I wouldn’t believe him either had I not seen those things myself.

I swiped through the rest of the pictures, and noticed a tall silhouette behind me on the top of mound. I enlarged the image to have a closer look, and saw a figure shrouded in black from head to toe standing behind me.

The more I looked at it, the more disturbing it felt. Could it be one of those things from that world? I thought about Okba’s words, and suspected it to be such case.

 I deleted the picture before Irem could see it, and handed her tab back to her. Becoming disinterested in writing further after seeing the pictures, I closed the notebook and asked Okba what he had been looking at with his binoculars for the past half an hour.

 “I’m looking for the moving water of the desert”, he spoke not looking up from his binoculars.

“Moving Water?” I became baffled. “Do you mean that water here has changed its course?” I asked in clarification, but Okba shook his head.

“No, the water here moves in the desert.” He told us. “The storm and water are alive in the desert. They have a consciousness of their own.”

“Where did you hear such nonsense?” Zimar scoffed at him, but Irem scolded her for being impudent.

“Oye! Don’t offend the spirits here!” Okba warned her. “The spirits of the desert carry the water on their backs and move through the desert.”

“Why do they carry water?” I asked him in curiosity.

“It’s not the water; it’s their mirror.” Okba explained to us. “They need  it to see this world from theirs to cross.”

 I became silent after hearing Okba’s words. The water in Basilica Cistern’s ceiling had also reflected Dylan’s world in it. The water here, must be a passage to that world, and this team of people was looking for it to enter that place.

The dead fish came back to life at a place where two seas met. The seas could be mirror of two opposite yet inverted worlds acting as entrance at both ends.

“It’s an interesting myth. Amira has once mentioned it too.” Karim said. I looked over at Karim and wondered if he knew about his wife’s true identity.

“You really love your wife.” I made a comment. Then, I asked, “How did you two meet?”

“Amira?” Karim smiled as if reminiscing an old moment. “We studied together in Morocco before she went to Egypt for her post-doctorate and stayed there for five years.” Karim told me.

“She must have changed a lot when she returned.” I said, but he laughed in reply.

“No, she’s still the same Amira”, he answered. “It’s actually her who had brought up the marriage after being in a distant relationship for five years.” His face had lit up when he spoke of his wife and I got conflicted between whether to tell him the truth or not. The girl he had loved went into the desert with her team, but the one who came back wasn’t Amira.

Who were these people? I searched for the answer but the thoughts got interrupted when cars stopped suddenly in the desert, and Joachim’s voice cut through the satellite phone, “We are stopping here.”

 We stepped out of our car, and saw Professor David and his team checking out the magnetic field with their equipment.

“What’s going on?” Karim asked Joachim who told us that the magnetic field here had suddenly become disturbed. All The compasses in the desert weren’t working, and it wasn’t a seismic activity either.

It’s getting hazier, and the air had become hot and stifling. Professor David took binoculars from Hisam and looked at a distance before passing it to Abigail.

“Is it?” She gasped after seeing the dust rising on the horizon and turned to ask other team members to quickly get the equipment and set up their cameras for recording. Irem also retrieved her camcorder from the car to record as Zimar went to join her team.

“It’s better to take cover and cover yourself.” Joachim told us. “A sand storm is going to hit us in few minutes.”

“No, matter what happens don’t leave your positions!” Abigail strictly instructed her team.

“Shouldn’t we leave?” I asked Joachim, but the local guide told us that the sandstorm wasn’t going to be dangerous.

We covered our faces and heads, and snapped on desert goggles to fend ourselves against the dust.

“Don’t look or speak if you see something in the storm.” Okba told me. I was about to ask what he had meant when the sand storm hit us, enshrouding us completely in a blast of dust.

I shielded myself against the sand that blinded us and scratched the exposed skin of our hands and forehead, stinging and pricking at the skin like a sandpaper. If we hadn’t covered  our mouths, it would have suffocated us to death within a matter of few minutes. However, the storm had become more intense, and the wind slammed us against the cars with a deadly force. The cameras installed on the ground for recording got blown away as well, but the Abigail’s team kept on recording the storm with the camcorders.

 The visibility had become zero in storm, and I couldn’t see anything around me even at arm’s length. I tried reaching for Irem, but the harsher wind threw me back. I stood up from the ground, and turned around to look for Okba and Irem but didn’t see them beside me.

It’s then I saw some moving apparitions in the storm. Those shrouded figures in black and taller than six feet moved with the sandstorm, and walked past me in a line. I became terrified and turned back to see the others, but realized that I had got separated from them after the storm blasted us away. A tall figure approached near, and I stiffened in fear. I recalled Okba’s words not to speak or look if encountered something in the storm, but fear is a funny thing. The more you’re scared, the less you become reasonable. Frozen in place, I was unable move or to look away as he came near.

The nightmares from my childhood were becoming a morbid reality, and a tear escaped rom my eye. In that moment, I wanted to die before he could come any closer. However, he stood before me and raised his pale hand to point in the direction from where he was coming. He then turned to me, and I passed out from fear in the storm letting the sand bury me to death.

I didn’t know who or how they found me. Perhaps, it’s providence, but when I came to, I was in a tent on a cot. I tried to get up, but a hand gently pushed me down and told me to be careful.

“You are running a high temperature.” It’s Okba’s voice.

He had been doing cold comprehensions on me to keep the fever down. My throat was dry, so I asked him for water. He gave me water in a tin cup, and I chugged it down as if parched for eons. I asked for more, and took my time to drink it slowly before passing out again on the cot.

When I woke up next time, I saw Karim and Okba in the tent. I tried to sit up and asked them for how long I had been out.

“Two Nights and a day.” Okba answered me.

“Where are Irem and Zimar?” I panicked thinking about the girls, but Karim assured me that they were fine and had a mild fever that would get better after some rest. I let out a sigh of relief, and asked them how they had found me.

“It’s Okba who had found you.” Karim spoke sitting on a stool.

 “You tugged at my arm and pulled me in your direction”, said Okba. “When the storm passed, I saw you half-buried in the sand.” It’s a good lie, and I made a mental note to ask the truth about it later.

I saw Hisam and Sean walk inside the tent who had come to see after getting the news that I had woken up.

“You almost went surfboarding with King Yama.” Sean joked, but I knew that the boy must have been worried.

“Well, I’m still alive and kicking.” I shrugged back.

“Yeah, even King Yama wouldn’t want you.” Sean retorted getting an earful from Hisam.

 Abigail had also come to check on me, and told Hisam and Karim that Professor David had been looking for them. Sean let me to have rest, and left with them. When Okba and I were finally alone in the tent, I asked him how he had actually found me in the sand storm because I was separated from the rest of the team.

“It’s the desert spirit that told me about you.” He told me. “She pointed in your direction and asked me to save you.”

 I begged Okba if he could be honest with me and tell me the truth about those people’s real purpose of coming into the desert; however, Okba fell silent, and said that he couldn’t answer that. He pitied how those two siblings, Karim and I were unfortunate souls caught in a vicious net of fate.

 When I pressed him further about if it’s related to that world and moving sea of the desert, he immediately asked me to be quiet, and made sure that no one was listening in on us outside the tent.

“I’d suggest you not to mention seeing the desert’s spirit to anyone, even to Irem. These people won’t let you go once they learn that you know about the water source.” He warned me before he got up to leave. Something then clicked in my mind and I asked, “Why did you say not to even tell Irem?”

“Can you really trust her in the desert?”, he paused to ask me. “That girl is not simple.” His expressions had changed into contempt. “The thing in your hand has brought you to the desert. Even with God on your side, you are less likely to survive here.”

 He headed out of the tent, and left me to contemplate about the matter in his absence. Was something wrong with Irem? She’s the one who had warned me about Josef and Karim.

I got up from the cot, and checked my luggage to find the hairpin. It’s still there hidden inside the secret pocket I had sewn in for travelling. Okba was right, I couldn’t let others find it, so I slipped it inside my undershirt and hid it on my body.

Later, someone brought me food to eat in the tent, and I didn’t leave the tent myself.

I had a restless night, and got up to the singing sound outside the tent. I went outside to check who it was at such late hour of night, but saw no one. Thinking that I was being paranoid after what Okba had told me earlier, I decided to go back inside and sleep for good.

 Such phenomenon is common in the desert where sound vibrations are produced due to collision of sand particles and pressure in the dunes creating a drumming sound effect. However, the rumbling sound came again, and I heard someone call my name. This time, I followed the sound in the dead silence of the night, and came out of our campsite.

 There’s glowing fire at some distance, and I started walking in that direction. The moonlight had brightened the entire desert in a pool of silver, illuminating the path for the travelers to see at night. The still air of night gave off eerie yet a feeling of tranquility. As I walked closer, I saw a group of people sitting around fire dressed in black robes and head covers. I thought they might be Bedouins crossing the desert, and headed over there to talk to them.

However, my heart skipped a beat when I found those people familiar.

They were the passing ghosts of the desert.

 I decided to retreat from there, but a woman among them gestured me to sit. I trembled in fear as I reluctantly sat down with them.

Their faces wer uncovered this, and appeared as a normal human being, but their eyes and expressions marked them different from humans. They all sat in silence, gazing into fire, and I dared not speak a word  lest I offended anyone of them.

 The man, whom I had encountered in the desert, was sitting in the chief position, and I reckoned him being their lord.

He pulled out something from his cloak and showed it to me. I  recognized it right away.

It’s the dagger of Dylan.

“Did he give it you?” I asked him, and the man nodded. He then turned to point something at distance and I followed the stretch of his hand to see in the dark, but there’s nothing.

Okba had told us hat ghosts of the desert carry water on their back to see the worlds, but here they were sitting around the fire, and there’s no source of water nearby. Then, it meant one thing.

“Are you telling me about the water source? Is this where he is?” The man nodded again, and gave the dagger to me.

He stood up followed by the others and walked in a line before disappearing into the desert. I remain seated there for a while, both in surprise and horror after encountering the ghosts in the desert.

 I looked down to see the dagger that Dylan had entrusted them to give to me. If he had gone through such lengths to contact me, I told myself that I’d definitely find him first before the others could get to that water source. I took the dagger with me and went back to our campsite in the  moonlight. I quietly slipped inside the tent, making sure that no one noticed me coming from the desert and hid the dagger in the underside of the bed.

I lay down unable to sleep, and waited for dawn to come again. I needed a  plan to escape.