The sandstorm went on for hours longer.

Or at least it seemed like that. 

The sun is beginning to set by the time it finally subsides.

I get up and stretch, cracking a few bones in my neck to get rid of the ache. Already, it’s beginning to get kind of cold. The temperature’s dropping by the minute. It’s honestly a relief. I think I’d rather be cold than burning alive. It drops so quickly, that, I didn’t think it was possible, but I can now rub some sand on my neck to cool off. 

But it’s cold comfort. Literally and figuratively. I can’t survive another day like this without some water. I can feel my blood thickening, struggling to flow. I walked practically all day, and who’s to say tomorrow will be any different? 

Okay, now it’s getting so cold I can see my breath and my hands are beginning to feel blue. I put my hands into my smelly shirt, and I get my beret out of my pocket and stick it not just back on my head but stuff my ears into it. 

Maybe it’s best I just go to sleep. Take off my clothes so the cold will get to me faster. Then again, maybe it’s not cold enough for that.

I look up at the stars. Not really a bad night to look out at. 

I wish I could share this with Carmelita.

Carmelita…

Wait. I see something. In the distance. The stars are illuminating what looks, in the far distance, like a town. In fact, I see a few familiar shapes. They must be pyramids. The sandstorm prevented me from seeing the town. It looks about a mile or two away. 

I take a step forward, and it’s a struggle. It would be harder if the sun was scorching me again, but it’s still done its damage.

As I get closer, I see a fair bit of mansions. Guess it’s a fair neighbourhood. I’m kind of reminded of Arabia with Salim, but it’s a tad not quite as colourful. Then again, things always look more black and white and colourless in the night, especially when there are very few artificial lights on.

I hope humongously there’s a river or well somewhere, but as I get closer and closer to the town, I don’t really see anything of the sort. But I also see these houses are fairly well-attained, and any luxurious house has a water supply.

Out of desperation for a drink I go for the first rundown house I see. Actually, these houses are made primarily of mudbrick. And I think Papyrus. The only reason I might know that is an ancestor of mine once lived in one of these, according to the Thievius Raccoonus. 

I peek inside and let my night vision adjust. Every animal has a little bit in their eyes that once adjusted to the dark, allows them to see in what minutes ago was completely unreadable pitch black. I see the house is pretty much a bare room with a few desks, food, and...I see bottles of some kind of liquid. I think it’s clear. I need it so much more than these three mongooses sleeping are. Uh, do I call that mongi?

I, as quietly as I can, sneak through the glassless window. I barely stifle a cough. I’m so dehydrated I can barely function right now. My priority is the jars of liquid. 

The mongi sleeping look pretty filthy and weedy. They’re also snoring completely peacefully. There’s two small ones and a bigger one, who’s either the oldest sibling or parent. I can’t tell a thing about them right now when it’s too dark.

I feel my senses going to the jars like tunnel vision, and I know I have to snap out of it or else I’ll make a mistake. Then the thought of making a mistake really freaks me out, and I need to pause. Why am I so agitated? I’m not usually like this in a simple heist. I’m not usually second-guessing my moves. Is it my dehydration? Or do I feel...insecure without Bentley or Murray or anyone else by my side?

I carefully grab the jar lowest to me and make an effort to pick it up rather than slide it off the shelf, and deciding that should be enough until I can find a more reliable source, I stuff it behind my neck with my scarf and creep back to the window. I then notice a sheet of paper open on the desk, and its drawn lines, squares and texts have me stopping to see what it exactly is. I gently grab it, and from what little light there is, I’m pretty sure, 90% sure, it’s a map.

I roll it up and keep it held as I get out the window, robbery successful.

I only walk past two more mudbrick houses before I surrender the temptation and sit down to open the jar. The mongi didn’t secure it too tight, so I’m able to open it. I take a quick sniff, smell nothing, and take a sip. Then, nothing stops me from taking the next. I feel like a raging fire was just put out in my body. It’s far from cold water, but it ain’t piping hot either. 

I’m still starving. My legs still feel wobbly. But the dry salty taste of sand is finally out of my mouth, and my head, while still aching, is not fogged up anymore. I can think and feel straight agai-

“Hey!” I yelp and look back. Rookie move. It’s the oldest of the mongi. Or, mother of. That was definitely an adult female voice. “What are you doing with our-?”

I run. I sprint. If it wasn’t for the water, I don’t think it would’ve been possible.

“Get back here! Thief!”

I refrain from looking back, but I hear her running for me and I also sense stirring among the others in this sleeping neighborhood. 

I turn to what looks like a closed marketplace and I find one of the roofs of the stands to jump on. Landing behind the stalls, hopefully that stalls anyone who saw me come this way as they figure out the best way to squeeze around. 

Improvising, I tiptoe to a random building I end up near, and for extra measure, I crouch down and look for anywhere I can crawl under. There ends up being a small space. I begin going under, and have to stop when it ends up a dead end. My tail’s still visible, sticking out of the hole, but I don’t think it makes a difference. I hear her from afar growl in anger as she accepts I got away.

As I wipe the dirt and sand off me, having left the hole but staying behind the building, I think about what I should do next. This is out of my comfort zone. I guess my two best options would be to look for a place to get more food and water, now that I’m slightly revitalized, or find some sort of safe house for the time being. I’ve pretty much never been in a situation, thanks to Murray, where we were low on delicacies, and finding a safe house has always been simple. I mean, there was the time we had to stow away on that battery, which was both strange and took a lot of effort to make even possible, but Bentley has never let me down on picking the best place to sort up shop. All of my efforts have been on looting, but right now I feel like I’m just chasing my tail.

Remembering in the moment I still have that map, I unfold it and do my best to read it without going blind. 

There’s a circle drawn over one of the small squares in what looks like pen, so I guess that’s the house I just escaped from. I notice the marketplace and where I am currently easily after realizing that. It’s what my present time would call a satellite view. 

If this map is accurate, and it looks that way because it’s made from fabric, not papyrus, then a little farther north are where more of the higher-ups live. I see palaces, pyramids, and apparently that’s the Sphinx itself I see at the very middle top.

What grabs my attention most are what look like drawings of rivers and a small bit of trees and wildlife. That’s probably the best place to lay low. 

I don’t have a watch on or anything I can use to check the time, and even if I did, unless it was, say, a time machine, it probably wouldn’t be reliable. I really don’t know if it’s late into the cold night or still early. Either way, I’m getting very tired, more than I am hungry, so I decide to go to where this map says the small forest is. 

Along the way, I pass by some of the palaces, and they’re all very opulent. Most of them have a stone portrait of a cat sitting on a throne with those of various shapes and sizes bowing down to her. The phrase “MAY SHE FOREVER LOVE YOU” is carved into one of them. I bet there would be loads of places I could hide there. I put the possibility in my mind, in case I can’t find anywhere else less...intrusive.

I stop when I walk by what looks like a vegetable patch. For some reason I see someone, maybe a baboon, walking around, clearly guarding it. So when I jump the fence, I go for the closest thing I can pull out - beets - and then leap back over. 

As I sneak away from there, my stomach growls as if in protest. It’s asking me why I didn’t just knock out that guard and take more. I guess...I’m scared. Without Bentley and Murray...I feel a bit like a shell of myself. 

Maybe I’ll feel better after I eat. I inspect the beets. They’re very dirty. So I head to what the map showed to be a river. When I arrive, I have to double check the map, hoping I took a wrong turn. But I see the sphinx and two palaces between it that are completely right on the map. This is it, and the river is almost all dried out. A lot of the forest seems dried out too. There’s a pipe that’s dripping a little bit of water, and I go to it to wash the beets, and it takes a very long time for them to get clean and my hands to get clean when I’m done scrubbing. I then finally take my first bite of a beet, and almost spit it out because the water used to rinse it tastes very questionable. 

I still munch on. I’ve never had beets raw before, and they don’t taste too bad, when I get rid of the skin. I’m still starving when I finish them, even though I purposefully ate slowly, and now I have to ask myself what my next plan is. It’s still the middle of the night, but the sky’s starting to turn a little blue. It would probably be best to find a good place to sleep, preferably with shade. Proper sleep’s the next thing I need. But I think I begin to hear light rumbling, and I hear it from the pipe that’s dripping water. I step a little further back from it, wondering if it’s that baboon or someone related to the mongi trying to sneak up on me. Then the dripping gets a little faster. It’s no more than a few seconds later before it begins pouring out like a faucet, and a few gasping fish plop down.

Flabbergasted but excited, I scoop up three of the fish, then all escape my grasp but flop on the land. Deciding to put them out of their misery, because I couldn’t keep them alive if I tried, I decapitate them each with my cane. They stop flapping instantly. I bend down to pick them up, then I hear the rumbling intensify. I look up, just as the pipe sprays out a torrent of water. I scoop up my fish hastily and nearly slip three times as I jump out of the water before it can get any more violent.

I don’t know what just happened, but this is really gonna help me. It’ll probably be nothing compared to Rioichi’s sushi, but I still think I’ll like it. Besides, Salim once told me sand can be an interesting spice.

I go, to see if I can find any wood. I notice the new run of water gets a lot deeper than I thought it could in this timeframe, then I just grin again and put it out of my mind.