We weren’t going back to the excavation camp. Was there even still a camp after the storm raged all over it like a distraught monster, crushing electricity poles and throwing cars around like Ping-Pong balls? I dreaded to ask Dad about the fate of his grand dig project. He’d worked so hard to secure the funds, to liaise with partner universities and sponsors, and now it all could be ruined.
But I knew I had bigger problems. At some point, I’d have to talk to Dad—and probably the authorities—to answer questions about what had happened to us in the desert. Should I tell Dad about the oasis? But how would I even begin to explain its mysterious appearance and then its convenient disappearance?
I wanted to confer with my fellow survivors first. We needed to get our stories straight. I urged myself to calm down, to take deep breaths. There was no reason to be scared. We weren’t on trial here. Or were we? We were just a bunch of exhausted, malnourished kids who’d gone through quite an ordeal and survived. Well most of us did. One of us was dead now.
His mother was going to demand answers.
My mind was completely shrouded in dark thoughts by the time we sped into the city. Dubai’s glittering beauty of modernity was lost on me. I pressed my forehead against the cool window and watched the world outside blink by. I was looking for sure signs this was indeed real, not another mirage cooked up by the oasis and offered to us on an elaborate plate.
Our cars navigated Dubai’s busy afternoon streets on the way to a hotel aptly named Jewel of the Sands. It sparkled in the afternoon sun. The five of us had to wait in the icy, air-conditioned lobby while Dad and Dr. Palombo secured rooms. Lori, Minh, and Luke were on the next couch over, while Tommy was splayed next to me but facing away, eyes closed. I was very still, eyes trained on the floor, watching the granules of sand falling from my clothes and settling into the lush carpet. The hotel cleaners would have a hell of a time vacuuming the lobby after us.
There was some commotion behind me where the hotel’s main entrance was located, but I was too lethargic to turn around and check it out. Then a bright flash of light illuminated my face. There was an unfamiliar white woman in jeans-and-a-blazer business-casual attire, a serious-looking camera in her hands. The woman was being escorted off the premises while Dad was running toward me.
“Let’s go!” he said.
I let him usher me away from the lobby and toward the escalators. Lori, Minh, and the rest were not far behind.
“Bloody vultures…,” Dad was muttering under his breath. I had no strength to care.
He explained that most of our luggage had been rescued from the dig camp and was soon to be delivered to the hotel. But all I could think about right now was a hot shower. The hottest I could tolerate. I would burn my oasis clothes. And then I would use up all the free body lotion in my room to soothe my sun-damaged skin. In that order. I knew I couldn’t actually burn my clothes, but entertaining the possibility felt nice.
I was to share a suite with Minh, which made me selfishly grateful I didn’t have to deal with Lori. I was operating on fumes by now, having to make an effort to focus whenever someone spoke to me. I nodded when I thought it was expected of me and smiled, hoping to reassure those around me that I was indeed okay.
Two paramedics who were part of our rescue effort had already done some basic checkups on us, and now they were doing rounds, attempting more thorough examinations, as much as their carry-on medical equipment allowed. I didn’t know why we weren’t being taken to a hospital, but I was glad of it.
It was at least a whole other hour before everyone cleared out of our suite, leaving me and Minh alone. Minh went to use the shower first, and after I had my turn, I emerged from the steam, cleansed but not renewed, to find Minh on the floor in front of a TV. It was set on some news channel, but the sound was turned off. Minh was completely engrossed by the screen. I got dressed and sat next to her on the carpet. Mindless, we stared at the flashing images together. The soundless lips of the telecaster were putting me into a daze.
When the news segment went to commercials, it was time for us to talk.
“On our ride here, Lori lied to my dad about what happened to Rowen,” I explained. “She said the last time she saw Rowen was in the camp when the storm hit.”
“That was a smart thing to do.” Minh looked away from the TV screen and focused on her bruised knees sticking out from under her hotel bathrobe.
“Lori’s clever. She’s already cooking up her story in case they want to do mental-health assessments with us. I mean … we all hallucinated that whole oasis thing. Including what happened, or what we think happened, to Rowen. The sooner we admit it, the better.”
Her bluntness had a shock-wave effect on me. My ears burned from all the blood rushing into my head. I struggled to control my quivering voice.
“You can’t possibly mean that. We know what happened. We know what we saw. At least I know I do.”
“But do you? Really?”
“It was all too real to be made up! The sensations, the smells, the hunger! And what, you’re telling me we all had the same delusion? A delusion that maintained itself for the entire time we were stuck in the desert?”
“I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened. Mass hallucinations are more common than you think.”
“Okay … But how do you explain our relatively good health? You heard it yourself from the paramedics—we’re not nearly as dehydrated as we should be, considering the official story is that we’ve been rolling around in the sand, unconscious or whatever, for days!”
“Alif … the truth is that we don’t really know what happened. We can’t know that. We might’ve been unconscious, or seeing things that weren’t there, but we could also have found some kind of water source and it sustained us long enough till the rescue came.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Okay, one last try … What about the tablet?”
At my mention of it, Minh edged a few inches away from me, a shiver shaking her body. Another news segment started on the TV, but Minh had lost interest. She was looking at me so intently now, it required an effort on my part not to look away. The truth was, everything about her—but especially her eyes, bloodshot and bleak—was starting to scare me.
Her dry lips squeezed out, “I’m not even sure that was real.”
“It was real. It is real. I touched it and it screwed with my mind. There’s something wrong with that thing … Lori’s got it now, and she’s so possessive of it…”
“Sure, but what if it’s nothing but a piece of flat rock? We came across it in the desert, and it became a part of our group delusion. Our minds just imbued this rock with whatever power we think it has.”
But she hadn’t touched the tablet. She didn’t know what it could do.
“Minh, I’m telling you, I touched that thing, and it showed me these … images. Like it was sorting through my head, searching for my deepest secrets and desires. It was scary … but also wonderful … And then Tommy held the tablet for a moment and I had this overwhelming need to kiss him. So I did. But when he let go of the tablet, the compulsion was over. But that sensation, that enchantment, it didn’t just appear out of nowhere—I wanted to kiss Tommy before but was always too shy, too scared, or too proud to do it. All my inhibitions were lifted and it was just me, like pure subconscious-me took control.”
“You kissed Tommy?”
I studied her. “I thought we were going to die anyway, so I had this nothing-to-lose attitude going.”
“Whatever.” Minh stood up and opened one of the closets. She untied her robe and dropped it to the floor. In her loose white singlet and boy shorts, Minh wasn’t how I remembered her. She was always tall and slight but not skinny exactly. Now her ribs were protruding whenever she lifted her arms. Plus, her skin was painfully red all over. Seeing this physical evidence of our ordeal was heartbreaking. I looked away.
“Lori could see Rowen, alive again, when she held on to the tablet,” I said, unwilling to let it go and also eager to distract myself from Minh’s emaciated body. “She spoke to him.”
“Lori wasn’t exactly in control, was she?” Minh rummaged through the closet. “Plus she needs to have all the attention on her all the time.”
I knew what she meant, but still, she seemed unnecessarily harsh. “Her boyfriend just died. Cut her some slack.”
“Rowen wasn’t her boyfriend,” Minh said, suddenly annoyed. Or angry. I couldn’t tell. “She just wanted someone to hook up with during this trip. He didn’t mean anything to her. You know how she is.”
This was getting personal. And uncomfortable. I never asked Minh about Rowen and what went down between them. But I also remembered Lori telling us back in the tent at the dig how she really liked Rowen. All of it felt unreal now, childish even, just like my own crush on Tommy, but now Rowen was dead and Minh was angry and Lori was unwell.
“Were you in love with Rowen?” I blurted out.
Minh’s shoulders sagged, hands releasing her pile of clean clothes to the floor. “What does it matter now?”
“Of course it matters.”
She sat down on the edge of her bed. “I thought I was. I loved him as a friend, and maybe that messed with my head. I imagined that perhaps I loved him in other ways too. I always found him good-looking and funny. I slept with him once, you know. Just once.”
Stunned, I stared at her. Her words were simple, clear, and yet their meaning was unreal to me. How well did I really know these people I called my friends?
“You what?”
“I…” Minh’s bravado was fading. I could tell she hadn’t shared this with anyone. “I didn’t love that. It was just … It felt wrong—with him. But I kind of mishandled it afterward. I just pushed him away because it felt easier that way at the time. I think he went straight for Lori as a way to validate himself or something. And now he’s gone, and I miss our friendship so much. I don’t care who he’s with. I miss him.”
She wasn’t crying. Our time in the desert must’ve burned all tears out of us, leaving us with nothing.
“Minh, you still have me.” I came to her and sat next to her on the bed. “You’ll always have me. And it’ll be okay, I promise … And we’ll figure out what to do. And we’ll figure out what’s going on with the tablet.” I was now mostly talking to myself.
At my mention of the tablet, Minh snapped out of it. “Okay,” she said, returning to her usual self—or a version of it. “So we have a difference of opinion on this whole tablet matter. And this object, currently in Lori’s possession, is your only proof that the oasis was real. That is, if the tablet really does what you say it can do.”
Minh picked up her clothes from the floor and got dressed. A pair of denim shorts and a red short-sleeved blouse were hanging off her thin frame. But despite her diminished physique, Minh was brimming with renewed determination.
“Anyway, I agree that we gotta do something,” she told me. “If that thing is from the oasis, then maybe it’s somehow responsible for what happened to Rowen.”
“And now you believe that the tablet has … powers?”
Minh shrugged. “I’m just entertaining hypotheticals.”
“What do you want to do exactly?” I asked.
Minh’s lips were tight, her damp hair long and ruffled. “I’m going to Lori’s room, and I’m going to demand to see that tablet. I want to see it with my own eyes in the light of day, and I want to see it now.”
“You and me both.”