... slow. Contrary to the optimistic outlook the grinner, whose name I found out was Carl, had about his leg, he couldn’t move it properly and was limping badly, making me think he had lied about the extent of the injury, which now appeared a lot more serious than he was letting on. He was leaning on me heavily but at least the wound had stopped bleeding, Carl reported, and was quite happy about it. We talked about his health a bit but not for too long ‘cause Carl pointed out that we needed to conserve our energies, so consequently idle chit chat was off the cards. Truth be told I didn’t feel like talking anyway, though after forty-five days in solitary, one would have thought I’d be up for it. But we were exhausted, hungry and thirsty. The thirst was the worst thing. By my estimates it had been a day now since we’d had anything to drink. My head was beginning to spin but I decided not to dwell on it since it would only sap me further. Instead, I resolved to think positive. Who knows? I thought to myself; with a bit of luck we could find some water tomorrow.

When day broke, we were still walking. Just. Carl was in pain and I felt I didn’t have it in me to support him for much longer. But at least now that the sun was rising, we could finally see and take stock. The desert was unchanged, a lot of sand and patches of stony ground here and there, but finally we spotted a clump of bushes up ahead and decided to take a break over there. We reached the spot eventually and sat down in the shade to gather our thoughts. Carl spoke up first.

‘We have a problem,’ he said.

I felt like laughing, despite the situation. ‘Really?’ I responded somewhat sarcastically but the look Carl gave me stopped me from saying more.

‘Listen, shithead, now is not the time. I’ve lost blood. We’re dehydrated. We need to drink now or we’re going to be in serious trouble.’

I knew he was right. We needed water now. But I didn’t know where to get it, and said so. Carl looked at me like he had an idea, then told me we’d have to drink our urine. Except he didn’t say urine; he said piss. ‘Course, nothing about the idea was appetizing, conceded Carl, but it really it was the only choice we had.

So we did it. We drank our own piss. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong it certainly wasn’t good but it helped ease the thirst, somewhat. Of course, we knew this was only a temporary measure as our supply was bound to dry up; what we had consumed wasn’t enough to keep us going for long. Anyway, we sat there, having drunk our own piss, feeling kind of sick and very exhausted. We decided to go to sleep.

Hey, Handsome, I’ve missed you... She stood in front of me wearing nothing but a veil. Her hair was out, pouring over her breasts and down her back like liquid gold and she looked like an angel, all innocent and beautiful. She smiled and I melted. Come find me, she whispered and was gone.

I knew I was dreaming and of course I didn’t want to wake up but I didn’t have a choice. Carl tugged at my wrist and said it was time.

‘Time for what?’ I said, feeling disappointed, really frustrated and wishing I could have stayed with my girl in my Planet of Dreams.

‘Time to find water and food,’ Carl replied. He got up and pulled at the chain to make me move. I opened my eyes and it was then the idea came to me; I realized what we’ve been doing wrong.

‘I think we should go west,’ I said. I was sitting up now and quite alert. ‘Let’s go west.’

‘Why?’ Carl asked. He looked at me closely, looked at me with a what I thought was quite a penetrating stare as if he were worried about my state of mind. ‘Why west? Why not just follow the hills? We’re bound to find more vegetation there.’

I didn’t think this was a good plan; the hills looked like barren sand dunes, even from here. I doubted there was more vegetation than we’d already seen. I told Carl but he wasn’t convinced. He thought there might be a chance of finding trees or water behind the hills. So I decided to come clean.

‘I saw something in the dungeon that might be useful.’

‘You did,’ Carl grinned at me in his sloppy way. He clearly thought I was joking.

‘Yes, I did,’ I said. I was dead serious.

Carl stared at me and eventually stopped grimacing. ‘You saw something in the dungeon that might be useful to us now?’

‘Yes. There was a message. It said to go west. It was carved into the floor. It said planet of dreams go west.’

I could tell I took him by surprise so I quickly revealed the whole story, how I always saw this when they served me food.

‘You sure you didn’t dream it?’ Carl asked. I could tell he was doubtful. ‘In my dungeon there was nothing. Not a thing to be seen. Or heard. The silence did my head in. I was hallucinating half the time. You sure you saw this message?’

‘Positive, man. I saw it, day after day when they served me food. I swear.’

Carl went quiet for a bit. It was clear to me that he was thinking things over.

‘Why do you think it applies to us? Here, in this place?’ he finally asked me.

‘I think maybe it’s the direction we should take to get somewhere. I think maybe someone else knew that we were going to be taken out of the dungeon and this was his way of warning us. This was his way of telling us what to do, you know, to save ourselves.’

‘I didn’t think anyone ever got out of the dungeon,’ Carl said, weighing up my answer. ‘It’s just odd to think someone might have.’

‘It is odd. But I know what I saw. And I saw the message every time there was light,’ I said.

‘Well, I saw nothing, the whole time I was there. I thought I was gonna die in that dungeon,’ Carl replied. ‘In all my years inside I’d never known anyone who’d come out of the dungeon alive.’

‘Me neither. I thought I was done for,’ I said. ‘But we’re out now. And we have nothing to lose by going west.’

We looked at each other and grasped that something good just happened. We both realized that we might have found a solution to our situation, and we grinned at each other, relieved.

‘All right then,’ Carl said, grinning at me slack-jawed. ‘We have nothing to lose. Let’s go west.’

We set off in the westerly direction. It was about four in the afternoon and the sun was beating down without mercy but at least there were more trees and bushes in our direction so we comforted ourselves with the thought of getting some shade along the way.