A sea of dunes stretched out to the far horizons. Heat came off of the land in searing waves. Few things could survive in this forsaken wasteland. There were a few houses scattered about the vast desert, though they were all abandoned years ago. Their empty husks now stand as a testament to the brutal nature of the land.

The traveler gazed up at the sun. He guessed the time to be a few hours after mid-day. He stopped and sat down on the shaded side of a dune. His water supply was down to about half. About 3 or 4 more days and he would need to find more. Water was very scarce but not impossible to find. The traveler took a small sip from one of the water-skins and quickly put it away before the sun could get to it.

The traveler's thoughts wandered back to when he had decided to enter this land. The reason for doing so was something he could not quite grasp, but he knew that he had to come here. He had left from the only known city, Celzack. About 20,000 people lived that at any given time. Trade was all but non-existent since, as far as people knew, there were no other cities and there was little of value that could not be gotten around the city. Celzack lay at the edge of the wasteland, some said that years ago the area was a fertile land full of trees and food was more abundant. No one living could prove the story.

The traveler finally stood up, deciding that he could still go a few more miles before he would have to stop. After a mile he noticed something at the tip of the horizon. At first he couldn't make out what it was, but as he got closer he realized that it was house. Strange, he though, that a house would be so far out here. The last house he had passed had been at least 25 miles back. The traveler would not have to sleep outside in the cold this night.

The house appeared to be in relatively good shape. There were no holes in any of the walls and the construction seemed to be very sturdy. There was no sign that anyone he been here in years. The inside contained to small rooms. The first room had a small table with two chairs sitting at each side. A few cabinets lined the walls, but they were all empty except for a few pieces of crockery. The other room had a very small bed and a dresser. The dresser contained a few bits of cloth that might at one time have been clothing. There was nothing of value to the traveler, but a comfortable place to sleep easily made up for that.

The traveler sat in of the chairs as he ate a few small pieces of the dried bread he had brought with him. His food supply was still good, but there was no sense it wasting it when he might need it later. He washed the bread down with a little water. He brushed the dusty shades away from the curtain and looked out the window. The window was facing toward the west; the sun was just beginning to set. The glow turned everything a dark shade of red. He sat for a while watching the sun go down. It was a sight he had seen many times since starting on his journey. He let the drapes fall back in front of the window. Something was out there that he had to find, but how would he know when he found it? Perhaps he would pass it by not knowing its importance and be left wandering the desert till he ran out of water.

His sleep that night was troubled. The dreams seemed strange like perhaps memories. He was in a town, one that he did not recognize. People were running everywhere and screaming; something bad must be happening. There was a gun in his hand. It was his gun that was now sitting on the table close to where he slept. He could see people lying on the ground. Someone was coming out of the building to his left. The man had a shiny badge on the left side of his shirt. He was yelling something strange, something unrecognizable, and yet, the traveler knew that the man was yelling his name.

"Telzig," the sheriff yelled, "what are you doing?!"

Telzig could see the gun in his hand rise. The looks on the sheriff's face went from confusion to horror. The hammer of the gun moved slowly back, and then suddenly jerked forward. Telzig yelled out as he came awake. He glanced around; he was still in the little hut in the desert. The dream had seemed so real. Perhaps it was more than a dream, perhaps it was a vision of something yet to come or a memory long forgotten.

Telzig recalled the first thing he could remember. His first memory was of arriving in Celzack about 5 years ago. He estimated that he was in his mid-twenties at the time. He could remember nothing of his life before that, so it was very possible that the dream was a part of his past that he could not remember. Telzig got up and looked out the window. The sun was just about to climb above the horizon. He decided that going back to sleep would serve little purpose so he began to gather up what little belonging he had brought with him and prepared to continue on his journey.

He stood in the open doorway at the back of house and gazed off into the desert. It stretched on forever, an endless ocean of sand. He knew there was something out there that he had to find, but he had no idea what it was or whether he was even going in the right direction. Somehow he knew that when he found it he'd know. A destination, a town maybe, or a relic, something abandoned many years ago when the world was different. It was a link to his past he knew that as surely as he knew that he was standing in the middle of an unforgiving land. He hoped that after he found it he'd be able to reconcile himself with that past, but if it meant his death he would go willingly anyway.

It was better to know the truth and to die because of it than to not know the truth and live as a shell of a man wandering from place to place with no purpose in life. Maybe that was what he was traveling towards: His purpose in life. It made as much sense as anything else. He quietly shut the door behind him and once again began his trek through the foreboding land, confident in the knowledge that there was something out there for him. The traveler kept walking despite the oppressive heat, because he knew exactly where he was going.