When I woke up again, I saw Karim and Okba inside my tent. I tried to sit up and asked them for how long I had been out.

“Two Nights and a whole 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 which 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 was a good lie, and I made a mental note to ask about 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 of Hell.” Sean joked to me, but I knew that the boy must have been worried. He was one of those who didn’t show but cared in heart.

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

“Yeah, even King Yama wouldn’t want you in the underworld.” Sean retorted and got 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 asked 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 who 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 to the desert; however, Okba fell silent  and said that he couldn’t answer that. He pitied how those two siblings, Karim and I were the unfortunate souls who got caught in a vicious net of fate.

 When I pressed him further whether it’s related to other world and moving sea of the desert, he asked me to be quiet and made sure that none was eavesdropping on us outside the tent.

“I’d suggest you not to mention seeing the desert’s spirits to anyone, not even to Irem. These people will not let you go once they learn that you know about this water source.” He warned me before getting up to leave.

Something then clicked in my mind and I asked, “Why did you say not to even tell Irem?”

“Can you truly trust anyone in the desert?” Okba paused to ask me. “That girl isn’t 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 my 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 Yousef 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 which I had sewn in for the travelling. Okba was right. I could not let others find about it, so I slipped it inside my undershirt and hid it on my body.

Later, someone brought me food to eat in the tent, so I didn’t have to go out myself but found out that there’s another team in the camp which had joined us later.

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 when the sound vibrations are produced due to collision of the sand particles and the pressure in the dunes create a drumming sound effect. However, the rumbling sound came again, and I heard someone whisper 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 in the 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 the cold night gave off eerie yet a feeling of tranquility. As I walked closer, I saw a group of people shrouded in black robes and head-covers sitting around fire. 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 down. I trembled in fear and broke into cold sweat but reluctantly sat down with them.

Although their faces were uncovered, and they appeared to be in human form, their eyes and facial expressions distinguished them from the human beings. They all sat in silence, gazing into burning fire as if in deep meditation.

I had sudden heart palpitations due to anxiety and fear and my hands felt clammy, but I dared not utter a single word and observed them quietly. The man whom I had encountered during the sand storm was sitting in the central position, so I reckoned him to be their Chief.

He pulled out something from his cloak and showed it to me which I recognized 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 that the desert ghosts carry water on their back to see the worlds, but here they were sitting around the fire, and there was no source of water nearby. Then, it meant one thing.

“Are you telling me about the water source? Is this where he is?”

 I inquired, but instead of answering, the man gave dagger to me. Then, he stood up followed by the others and walked in a line before disappearing into the desert. I remain seated there for a while in horror and sweating profusely after encountering the ghosts of the desert.

I looked down and saw the dagger that Dylan had entrusted them to give me. If he had gone through such lengths to give it to me, I told myself that I would definitely find him before the others could get to the source of the moving water. I carried the dagger and went back to our campsite under the moonlight.

I quietly slipped inside my tent, making sure that no one had seen me coming back from the desert at this late hour and hid the dagger in the underside of the cot.

The next day, I went to see Zimar and Irem in their tent. Their fever had finally gone down, and the girls had gotten much better after resting. Zimar threw her arms around me in a hug and told me how they feared the worst after seeing me half-buried in the sand. Sean called it my sheer luck, else I would have been dead had Okba and Karim found me a minute later.

When the night came, I woke up to chattering and squeaking noise and saw something sitting outside my tent in the moonlight.

I sat up frightened and my heart skipped a beat, but then I saw a small, fawn coloured fennec fox outside my tent staring back at me.

‘Is it lost?’ I thought to myself as it kept looking at me strangely with its button eyes.

This species of  fox is quite common in the desert. The poor little thing didn’t come inside the tent, but it moved around in circles and pointed with its snout to right as if asking me to come outside and follow it.

“What do you want?” I grew irritated at the sounds it kept making.

 I slid off my cot and followed it outside the camp as it ran on its small feet but a familiar voice suddenly stopped me before I could leave the campsite.

“Where are you going at this late hour?” I turned around to see Joachim standing behind me.

“I saw something moving outside.” I said and looked around the camp for that fox, but it had disappeared from the sight.

 “This is desert and wild animals roam around freely. It’s not safe for you to be walking around the camp at such a late hour.” Joachim told me.

“You should return to your tent to sleep.”

I nodded and went back to my tent to rest. It was not a coincidence that Joachim had caught me slipping out of the camp in the middle of the night and questioned me about it.

The team had had their eyes and ears on me ever since I came into the desert with Irem. I lay down but was unable to sleep for the rest of the night and waited for the dawn to break.

If I wanted to find moving water of the desert, I needed a foolproof plan to escape.

Next morning, I went to see Irem and asked her how she was doing, but the girl did not answer me at first. She was watching something on her tablet and asked me to come closer to her.

“There is something that you need to see.” Irem told me.I looked at Sean and Zimar for some explanation, but the siblings were equally clueless. I walked closer to Irem and looked at the screen.

Irem played a video for all of us to watch. It was the recording of the storm on her camcorder. The wind had blasted her back, and the camera got knocked out of her hand, falling sideways on the ground; however, the camera was still intact and continued recording the scene.

It’s then the her camera captured the moving shadows in the sandstorm crossing the desert.

I  was taken aback in surprise and looked at Irem’s face whose eyes were fixed on the screen.

“What is this?” Zimar pointed at the screen. The video showed a figure approaching me and pointing in a direction before I passed out in the storm.

“What exactly had happened back then?” Irem turned to ask me, but I was equally surprised as them. I hadn’t expected that her camcorder would record the incident.

“I don’t know either.” I lied.

“Are you still going to keep denying it?” She got up to confront me.

“Please, explain what’s going on here?” Sean asked us, but neither of us answered.

Tension thickened between us as the pregnant silence that followed became uncomfortable, then, she spoke,

“If I have this video, it means that David’s team must also have it.”  

Irem was right. Abigail had instructed her team to record the storm to see the passing ghosts of the desert. The team’s purpose was to locate the moving water of the desert by observing their movement.

“I told you everything about this team, but you still don’t trust me.” Irem gritted her teeth, and I knew I couldn’t hide it from her any longer.

“I did see them.”  I admitted before her. “But, I was too stunned to process anything.”

“Hisam is with the team checking out the videos. Do you think you can fool them?” She was furious.

“I am not hiding anything.” I insisted, defending myself.

“Where is Rhea?” Karim barged inside the tent and asked me to come with him. He told me the team was checking the video recordings and caught something strange on their cameras.

“This entire matter is suspicious. You need to be careful with what you answer.”

 I appreciated him for giving me heads up and went inside the tent with him. Professor David was already inside the tent and was waiting for me with Joachim and Abigail.

“Miss Cordon.” Professor David greeted me. “It’s good to see you being recovered, but I have something to ask you. Did you encounter something strange in the storm?” David asked me, and I grew tensed.

He showed me a video of the figure pointing at something to me on his laptop.

“Can you tell us what happened back then?” He circled around the table and stood opposite to me.

I started breaking into sweat under his scrutiny but couldn’t let him corner me and break me down with his mind games.

 “I thought I was seeing things in the desert.” I told him. “I had passed out due to shock.”

Abigail who was standing next to Joachim gave me an incredulous look, but I remained calm in such situation.

“Can you recall anything else?” The woman asked me. “Any small or insignificant detail will be of great help.” I told her that everything had happened so fast that I had no time to process it.

Then, I pulled the reverse card and asked him, “Why are you asking me about it?” I looked up at David from the screen and said,  “Did something happen?”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Miss Cordon.” He laughed brushing off the entire matter.

 “It’s just that we thought that person might have told you about the oasis.” Fearing I couldn’t escape his questioning, I pretended to feel dizzy and grabbed the edge of the table.

“I think you should rest, Miss Cordon.” David told me, and I nodded. I rushed out of their tent and took a sigh of relief.

However, I did not immediately leave from there and snuck around their tent to hear on their conversation.

“What should we tell him?” I heard Abigail say to David. “Tell him that there’s no rush. Keep an eye on the girl for now.”  He instructed her.

 I hid when Abigail came out of David’s tent and went to talk to the second team. The person they were talking about must have been the true mastermind behind it.

I tried to slip out of the campsite, but Abigail had already sent someone to tail on me. I didn’t venture further into the desert and pulled out my cellphone to snap some pictures.

I felt suffocated being monitored and decided to get out of that place as soon as possible. David had already become suspicious of me and would not let me off his hook that easily.

I took a stroll for a while, collected my thoughts and planned to leave that night for the desert.

When I returned, I saw Okba and Zimar lurking around the campsite. The girl pulled me inside Okba’s tent. Sean was also inside and asked me to tell them the truth.

“What did Abigail tell you about this project?” I asked the siblings. “We are to assist another team in studying thermal radiation and electromagnetic fluctuations in the desert.”

Sean answered but said that that he didn’t know the rest of details of the project. It was with the second team.

“There’s no such project.” I told them.

“The team is here to find an ancient relic and open a portal to another dimension for them to enter”. The siblings faltered back in surprise and asked if there’s some misunderstanding.

“Hisam and Irem know about it.” Sean looked at Okba who also nodded in affirmation. The man was also forced into coming to the desert with the team. Since Okba knew how to locate the moving water, those people threatened him with his family when he refused to take on the job.

“But, this is insane!” Sean commented. “How is it even possible!”

“These people are not normal.” I told them. “What do you mean not normal?”  Zimar became terrified.

I told the siblings how I had accidentally entered another realm and met a person from that world. Later, I met Yousef and Irem in Türkiye who led me to find Hisam and Karim afterwards. In the end, I joined their team and came to the desert under the pretext of writing a new book.

“Irem had told me there’s something wrong with the team that had returned from Egypt.”

“Where’s this relic then?” Sean asked us.

“The relic is with the leader of the second team.” Okba told us. “However, from what I have heard, the piece they have found is not genuine. The real one is missing.”

In an instant, I knew that the other piece was the dagger.