You walk along for several miles in the burning sun, the sand shifting under the hot soles of your shoes, your calves aching from the trek across the uneven surface. Your throat begins to grown dry, then constricts with thirst, and it is only the sparkling vision of water ahead that compels you forward. You imagine it to be a great lake, crystal clear, cold, fresh....
Several hours pass and the mysterious lake or whatever it is seems no closer than it was when you began. Frustrated and tired, you sit on the sand and lick your dry, chapped lips.
"Oh dear. You can't *walk* there, you know. That's not what they designed the Endless Desert for, at any rate. Would be silly if it had an end, wouldn't it?"
You turn around and there, perched comfortably on a lump of sand, is a tiny grey lizard. It is looking up at you with what might have been great sympathy, if such things were ever present in the eyes of lizards.
"Hello!" the lizard blinks as it speaks, though it does not move its mouth. Could you be imagining this? An effect of the heat? "You looked tired then, chap. Is everything alright? Look, you don't really want to get to the Ocean of Endings over there. Why don't you come down below with me, meet the family, have a bite to eat?"
By: Amber