Birds circled overhead, casting shadows across Warren’s face every so often. He blinked up at the scorching desert sun, eyes dry from the hours he had spent laying on his back in the sand. The birds heckled him from above. He knew it was only a matter of time before they would become bold enough to dive down and take what they wanted, regardless of whether he had moved on or not.

He sighed, so long and deep that for a second he entertained the idea that it might be his last, only for his lungs to suck in an arid breath, forcefully reinflating. With a sun-baked weariness, Warren’s head tipped to allow him a glance to his left.

There lay his companion. Former companion. Near-future birdfeed.

Warren gazed at him with glassy eyes. They’d known it was a perilous journey, when they’d first set off. What he had failed to consider was how one was meant to continue in the event that they were left alone. The event in which only one of them met an untimely demise. Warren knew what his partner would have wanted, but did that matter now? He was finding it rather difficult to believe that there was much point to anything at all, in that moment.

But then, there wasn’t much point to laying in the sand until the sun left him dry and crisped, flaking away like a pastry in the winds of a sandstorm.

He supposed he should at least finish the journey.

He pushed himself to his feet as the birds came closer.