The dry desert wind lashed against her face, the air thick with dust and something unfamiliar—a rough, stinging scent that scraped her throat as she breathed.
Ga-eun slowly opened her eyes, dazed, feeling grains of sand clinging to her skin. The sky, painted in deep orange mixed with the black of night, signaled that the sun was about to die on the horizon, giving its final rays of light before disappearing completely.

“Where… am I?” she murmured, looking around.

Golden dunes stretched endlessly in every direction. Beside her lay several things from her restaurant—a frying pan, a couple of knives, bottles of oil, even an open bag of flour that the wind was scattering across the sand. It was as if Ga-eun’s entire kitchen studio had vanished, leaving behind only a few fragments as memories of her old workspace.

A few steps away, the Djinn Zafir stretched lazily, looking quite pleased with himself, as though he had just finished a long day of work.

“Ahh… nothing like a good first wish to clear the mind and the heart,” he sighed with satisfaction.

Ga-eun stood up angrily, brushing sand off her uniform.
“Clear the mind?! This is your idea of happiness?! A desert full of sand and nothing else!”

Zafir looked at her, amused.
“You wished to find happiness. You didn’t specify where.”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t ask for this.”

“People tend not to see beyond their own noses,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not entirely sure why we ended up here, but maybe your happiness lies somewhere in this place. Who knows.”

Ga-eun pointed at him with the frying pan she had picked up, trying to steady her breathing.
“Either way, I’m not staying in this desert another second. My second wish is to take me back to—”

But Zafir raised his hand.
“Ah, ah. Not so fast. After granting a wish, I need to rest. Magic is more complicated than you can imagine, you know?”

And without further explanation, he turned into a blue flash and vanished into the ring. Ga-eun completely lost her patience.

“Get out of there right now, Zafir!” she shouted, shaking the ring. “Don’t you dare fall asleep, you magical idiot!”
The wind carried her scream away, losing it among the dunes.

Zafir didn’t respond. The gem of the ring flickered briefly, then went silent.
Ga-eun sighed in defeat, sitting down on the sand.

“Great… stranded in a desert with a frying pan and a useless Djinn.”

She looked around. In the distance, a faint light flickered—it was a campfire.
She sighed and stood up. If there was one thing she’d learned in the kitchen, it was that standing still never solved anything.
She checked her phone—no signal. She slipped the ring into her pocket, gathered the utensils she could carry, and began walking toward the light.
A few minutes later, the sun disappeared completely, leaving Ga-eun wrapped in the darkness of the desert. Only that fire served as her beacon through the endless night.

Eventually, she reached the source of the light. The campfire was surrounded by five figures covered in old blankets—mostly elderly men or middle-aged travelers, except for one lying down, his face barely visible. The air was heavy with smoke and dust.
One of the men looked up as she approached, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and suspicion.

“Who goes there?”

The flicker of the fire cast long shadows over their faces, making them look harsher, more worn out.

“I mean no harm,” Ga-eun said, raising her hands. “I just need a bit of help.”

The men exchanged glances. One of them nodded, gesturing for her to come closer.
Beside them, a young man lay on a blanket, pale, covered with a thin piece of cloth. He was sleeping—or so it seemed. When the firelight revealed Ga-eun’s face, the men began murmuring among themselves, clearly surprised.

“You’re a foreigner, aren’t you? What are you doing in the middle of the desert?”

“My companion left me stranded,” she sighed. “Can you tell me where I am?” Ga-eun asked as she sat near the fire, setting down the cooking utensils she had gathered.

“So far from your homeland, and you don’t even know where you are,” one of the men replied. His accent was strange, but understandable. “This is the Ajtenur Desert—about a few hours north of the city.”

“My homeland?” she repeated, glancing at their faces. None of them looked Korean, and yet they spoke fluent Korean.

“Yes, the lands of the East. People with eyes like yours come from there. An old merchant friend once told me about your kind.”

“She’s probably some runaway slave,” another muttered.

Where exactly am I supposed to be? Ga-eun thought, shaking her head.
“You mentioned a city—where is it? I can pay you if you help me get there,” she said, pulling a few bills from her pocket.

The men exchanged looks, and suddenly one of them let out a dry laugh.
“With that, you couldn’t even buy a sip of water here, foreigner.”

Without warning, he tossed the bills into the fire. The flames flared briefly, glowing softly.
Ga-eun stared, unable to believe what she had just seen.

“Well, at least it’ll help keep us warm a little longer.”

They don’t even take Korean money? Ga-eun thought, half shocked, half annoyed.

“Besides, we’d be arrested if we entered the city now,” another man said with a shrug. “The gates of Ajtenur close when the sun sets. No one enters, no one leaves. Not even royalty. It’s all by Prince Marid’s decree.”

“What if we go tomorrow at dawn?”

“If we survive the night, that is.”

Ga-eun frowned.
The fire crackled, devouring the last scraps of the burned bills. She looked around again, but still couldn’t see beyond the vast dunes and rocky hills that stretched like an endless sea of sand.
And the feeling of being lost in a place that didn’t belong to her sank deeper than ever.