It started as the feeling of a gust of wind blowing the sand surrounding him and brushing it against the bare skin of his arms. Barely able to crack his eyes open, he was greeted the blinding light of the hot sun that caused him to close them again before it ended up searing his retina. But what he felt next caused him to pop them wide open.
Pain.
Stabbing the inside of his chest it took him a second to realise that he wasn't breathing. Desperately drawing in a raspy breath and then coughing violently, he turned over onto his hands and knees in an attempt to stop himself. Catching his breath back, he looked around and took in his surroundings. All around him, all he could see were hills of sand and in one direction, what looked to be some mountains. Finally sinking in, the reality of the situation hit him. He was stranded in the desert.
“Oh no... no no no no”, he quietly whispered.
Panic began to set in and threatened to overwhelm him as he scrambled to his feet and fearfully looked around once more and he started to breath rapidly. While he had received some desert survival training, it still wasn't enough to fully overcome the fear that he now felt.
Between the airport close to his home and the lab that he worked in was a desert expanse that went on for miles. Because of how him and most of the others that worked at the base had to travel via a helicopter, everyone was required to undertake annual survival training should they crash land and became stranded somehow.
“The helicopter!”
Ignoring the intense heat that the desert floor and sun were assaulting him with, he quickly began to scramble up to the top of one of the nearby dunes to see if he could find any wreckage or survivors. Perhaps he could find one of the pilots or even a radio to call for help. As it stood he was ill equipped for a survival situation as all he had strapped to him was a small survival kit, and a Leatherman. Even if one of the larger survival kits stowed away on the craft survived the crash, then it would greatly increase his chances of living long enough to be rescued. Reaching the top of the dune however his hopes were quickly dashed as all he could see was more sand stretching on for miles.
“But... that doesn’t make sense”, he quietly said to himself.
Feeling the fear starting to rise up once again he desperately tried to think of what he should do next.
Although he'd never been in this kind of situation before, he would now have to rely on the training he had gone through to get himself out of this life threatening situation. Remembering the mantra that his instructor taught him, ‘Protection, Rescue, Water, Food’, he realised that he should find some shelter as soon as possible before the desert heat took its toll on him. From his new vantage point he peered out around him to see if there was anything that would provide some cover and protect him from the sun. However, there was nothing close by however and no signs of life to be seen anywhere. The only thing that stood out in the miles of the barren wasteland were the mountains he saw earlier.
Getting the small compass from the kit strapped to his leg, he found that it was to the north of his position and stretched out towards the east before it curved towards south, forming a wall that would be too perilous for him to climb over. To the west of the range however, there seemed to be a gap between it and another mountain that he could just spot from where he was. Finding no other better options and seeing that he couldn’t stay out in the open, he decided that he should head towards them.
Drawing a large arrow in the sand using his foot which pointed towards the range, he took his shirt off and wrapped around his head to make a crude Arabic headdress to protect him from the sun and began his slow and arduous walk towards the rocky peaks. It only then occurred to him that there were no mountain peaks that came anywhere near the route his aerial transport normally took. In fact nothing he saw around him reminded him of the desert that he flew over day after day.There were no dead dried up shrubs or trees, no small rock formations, or no salt flats. It looked more like he was in a desert from Egypt or perhaps the Middle East.
Where am I?