Mikaél heard a knock so gentle that he doubted his ears for a split second. Now wide awake, he got up from the rags that made up his beddings. The sand underneath his feet shifted a little but not enough to rock him.
Mikaél picked up his water bottle to find that there was barely enough to last through the night...maybe the next day if he sparingly drank.
Mikaél sat back down on his bedding and gradually begun packing his old looking belongings that where as dry as where he sat. He put the small lamp into his backpack, next was a rough looking blanket, and then his toothbrush.
Mikaél was suddenly startled once again after he was interrupted by the calm knock yet again. He quickly rushed to the opening of the tent hoping to find someone but could only see the vastness of what laid ahead of him.
Once atop his ragged beddings, Mikaél continued to pack his belongings into his backpack. A tin plate that previously held dried meat, a shard of glass to help signal for help, and then the small water bottle. He put the small compass in his pocket and stepped out of the tent.
After folding and packing the tent into the bag, Mikaél turned to face the challenge he had faced for 6 days...the cruel desert. He looked up at the stars and then his compass and then back at the stars as he made his way westward.
Mikaél had needed only the second day to realise that traveling at night in the desert was far better than when the sun was up. The desert sun was just on another level to what Mikaél had come to know, it made him drink more, quickly exhausting the 4 bottles he had at the beginning of the journey and the worst thing he learnt about traveling in the desert in the day were the mirages.
Mikaél always viewed himself as a patient person that only took decisions after carefully contemplating it but the mirages he saw on the second day of his journey made him act erratically, running towards the seeming oasis that always turned out false. He had exhausted a lot of energy in those runs which had eventually sipped out a little more of his hope.
As Mikaél moved westward he thought of what he left behind. He used to have a family, a mother, a brother, sisters...a home in Ashkebän. He remembered this mother abruptly waking him up at the dead of night, telling him he had to leave quickly. She had heard the decision the council would take and had arranged safe passage for her calm intelligent son, whose only sin was to stand up in defiance of the ruler’s son’s unrequited approach towards his sister. He might have gone a little too far but it was undeserving of the punishment he would have been handed for accidentally scarring the ruler's son’s eye.
Drinking the last drops of water, Mikaél staggered on slowly. He had left his backpack a few miles before. He was so thirsty that hunger seemed like a distant sensation. Mikaél fell on the sand, surrendering to his fate. Maybe death was his punishment or maybe his reward for defending his Sheáray, his sister. He whispered a prayer for her, for his calm and thoughtful mother, for his family and his consciousness faded.
Mikaél awoke to the feel of water rushing down his body. He was slightly startled to find himself naked. He looked around to see 5 or 6 women standing over him. Looking around, he saw that he was sitting in an old bath in a huge tent.
Mikaél jumped out the bath and grabbed a blanket, while facing a number of women that seemed to have doubled in just a few minutes. That was his first introduction to the Ashayans.
2 weeks passed with Mikaél living with the Ashayans. They lived a nomadic life, mastering the desert which 2 weeks before, Mikaél had thought was unforgiving. They moved flawlessly from one oasis to another never staying one place for long.
“How are you feeling”, Mayama asked as she sat beside Mikaél by the fireplace.
“I'm much better”, was the response she got as Mikaél smiled back at her.
“You have done well the past few days. The tribe leaders have asked you to stay”, Mayama looked at Mikaél with hopeful eyes. “I'm sure the sheep will bleat louder at you”.
“This life you live is a perfection I could never hope to have”, Mikael replied after almost 10 minutes of a silence that was intermittently interrupted by the crackling of burning wood. “I don’t know if I deserve this. I was...”
Mikaél and Mayama were suddenly interrupted by loud startling shouts. The sudden rowdy movement around the camp indicated that something was wrong.
“What is wrong”, Mayama asked one of the men running towards the leaders’ tent.
“Raiders...raiders are upon us”, was the reply she got.