Softly, I can feel Lian shaking me awake. “Anne… Anne….” He says, and I can tell he’s leaning over me. He’s never woken me up before, so I can’t help but foggily protest. I must’ve said something intelligent, along the lines of-

“Nooooooo I don wanna” because he shook me a bit harder.

“Anne I think you’re gonna want to get up for this.” He says, eventually stopping shaking me. There’s absolutely no way I’m going to want to see whatever this is. We’re surrounded by empty. I swear if he’s found a pretty swirl in the dust I’m gonna lose my shit. I sit up, and I hear his jacket rustle as he scrambles to stop leaning over me. Rubbing my eyes violently, I glare at him once I can manage to open them.

“This better be good, because I’m mad at you.” I get up, and he’s already several feet away. Trudging after him slowly, I shake my head at his enthusiasm. Suddenly I realize his eyes are focused on a particular spot. It’s hard to do that out here, where every spot is the same as the next. And then I start to see it too. It’s a familiar sight, but one that fills me with excitement. It’s a road. And it’s not our road. It’s a separate road, yards and yards away. And the best part, is that if I look the way we’ve been going, the road seems to get closer.

This road is going the same way ours is. Surely, that can’t be a coincidence. This must mean that finally, finally we’re getting somewhere. This was worth waking up for. For the first time, I tear my eyes away from the new road. We’re beaming at each other, and I can’t believe our walking might be almost over. It’s an exciting and new possibility, that we might not have to walk forever.

I glance back at our road, and we haven’t left anything behind, so we keep moving forward. I’m tempted to run, I can tell we both are. We walk like we’re late for something, and maybe we are. The only reason I don’t break out into a full sprint is because although we can see the two roads coming together, there isn’t anything visible where they seem to meet up. I’m sure we’ll get there eventually, but for today the road is enough. For now we’ll keep walking. For now we’ll find hope in that.