The hot sun bore down without mercy on a twelve year old girl as she battled her way through a sea of stinging sand. Painful eyes had grown red and swollen, blurring vision so she could see nothing but the ever-moving shadows around her. A once beautiful brow was charred and bleeding, tender lips dried and cracked. Frantically she tore at her clothing, hoping to feel a cool breeze against her parched skin. Nothing touched it, however, but the deadly rays of the cruel sun, and a blistering wind.

Forcing her to change her heat-dulled mind, the beastly orb drove the girl to snatch the shards of clothing back around her frantically. She could almost hear her tender skin sizzling through ears dampened by the unyielding arid wind. She smelled death all about.

"What happened?" she cried out as she fell to her knees, the ground burning her exposed skin like coals. "Where are my friends?"

A whistling wind replied, piercing her heart like a blistering poker.

"They have deserted you," it sneered, tickling her ears with the hint of false companionship. "Just like you always knew they would. They weren't true friends; they just used you until they got the fame they craved, and then they left you here where no one can find you, and where rescue will not arrive."

"No," the girl choked out, a parched tongue sticking to the roof of her raw and swollen mouth. "They are true friends, and they would never abandon me."

"It seems they have," it laughed cruelly; "perhaps you should have picked your friends more wisely."

The girl grabbed a handful of dry sand and flung it at the offending wind, her anger giving rise to inhuman strength. Defiantly, she rose to her feet, bending her head against immediate retaliation.

"My friends would die for me," she roared, her thunderous voice rising above the ineffective gust of desert ire.

For what seemed an eternity, the sound of her cry reverberated throughout the barren wasteland. It whistled with the wind, bounced off dunes, permeated the very air she breathed. And then new sounds arose; new beautiful sounds that she had yearned to hear for countless desperate hours. The howling of wolves, the flapping of wings, the realization that she was not alone, pierced through the horror of the day.

"And I would die for them," she added as a cool blanket was placed around her shoulders, and a sip of water to her lips, "but not today. Today I live to fight on."

Just as the girl lifted her arms in silent victory, an insistent buzz caught her attention. The sound repeated louder and louder until the horrid desert scene faded and warm covers and a cool air conditioner replaced it. Along with the morning came the blessed realization that the experience was just another cruel nightmare. Nancy Jordan wondered if the dreams would ever stop.