story idea # 3

"Almost there Katie, almost there", I reassured my little sister. Her face was a soft red beneath her dirty blond plaits as she limped along beside me, her hand in mine.

The red dust beneath our feet rose in clouds and sweat ran down in little rivers on my burnt, bare flesh.

I noticed the pained expression on Katie's face and flung her over my back. The landscape was so bare - just sky, yellow from the sun and sprinkled with thick red dust.

I felt the weight on my back slip as Katie tumbled from her position to the ground.

"No!", I screamed, "Katie! Please Katie, please wake-up!".

I hadn't the strength to cry but I felt my mixed emotions of anger, betrayal and hurt well up inside of me.

I felt a sudden burst of strength and yanked Katie up over my shoulder. Forcing myself onward, I marched through the desert, over the sand dunes until there in the distance, appeared a image of tree.

I lay Katie up against a rock under the limited shade that the burnt, leafless tree provided and collapsed beside her.

More sunspots, I thought to myself, seeing as we had been travelling for so long in the open sun.

But that was the least of our problems... he was after us.