An unending summer

The desert heat enveloped me like a thick fog, stifling and relentless, clinging to my skin. We plodded on, each step heavier than the last, my calves burning from the dunes. My shoulders ached and my head was pounding.

I pulled my scarf down away from my mouth, “do you have any water?”

He stopped and unclipped his water bottle from his bag, feeling the weight of it, he gave me a look.

“Shit. Me neither.” I confessed.

I caught a glimpse of my face in his goggles. Blisters had formed across my cheeks, they were burnt and unsalvageable, damaged from the dry conditions and harsh winds that swept the plains every three days. It had been two since the last sandstorm.

We both look ahead. I pulled up the binoculars that were hanging against my chest and scanned the horizon. Desert. Desert for days. The sky was orange, hazy and thick with dust – a suffocating smog. We were surrounded by nothing but golden sand, vast and deadly. There was nothing and no one else for miles. Only us – exhausted, desperate, and with a long way to go.

“Let’s take a break, we need our energy. We can set up down there.” He pointed towards a spot below us that was shaded from one of the bigger dunes. “That should give us some cover for a couple of hours.”

We skidded down the dune, took off our backpacks and collapsed into the sand, my body vibrating and muscles twitching under my clothes. We lay there silent for a couple of minutes, catching our breath before setting up our tents.

I thought about how grateful I’d be for night to fall. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt an evening breeze brush my skin or remember what a sky full of stars looked like. Where we were, night would never come. On Solaris it was always summer, it was blistering heat all day, every day, all year round. Days, months and years were different here too. We were 500,000 light-years from Earth, on the halo of its Milky Way.