Our story begins with four brothers on a trek back to their desert village. They had gone to trade goods with travelers rumored to be staying a neighboring village who came from faraway lands. But as the brothers discovered that this rumor was false, they immediately headed back in anger and disappointment.
The wind swept across the endless desert plains, whipping the sand up and obscuring the light of the sun. The oldest brother was in the lead and he motioned to the rest to stop for a break during this sandstorm. It was, after all, very dangerous to keep moving through the desert without direction. The brothers took this chance to take stock of their belongings.
They laid out their supplies in front of them. An ornate lever-action rifle with twelve rounds of ammunition, medical gauze, fire sticks, salted meat to last them four days, but only enough water to last them two. The youngest brother realized their folly: they forgotten to resupply at the neighboring village in their anger. As their situation was now dire, they were forced to press on through the storm.
30 hours passed before the storm cleared. The brothers started bickering over the direction of their travels, each arguing for a different direction to head in before the eldest made his decision final. Additionally, the brothers miscalculated their water intake, failing to take into account the extra hydration needed because of the salted meat. Their jugs were empty. Still, they march on, hoping for a miracle.
6 hours passed as day became dusk when they saw a patch of greenery in the distance. It was surely an oasis, they thought. As weary as they were, they sent the second youngest to fetch water from the pond, as he was the last to drink from the jugs. The rest waited. And waited. And waited.
The brothers grew impatient and figured that he was drinking the water himself the entire time, the oldest brother instructed the second oldest to scold him and go fetch the water. Again they waited until the oldest brother angrily decided to go there himself, leaving the youngest to wait. He hears a crack in the distance, then another, and three more after that. The youngest brother chose not to wait any longer.
He found his brothers laid down in the water, but while approaching them a voice commanded him to stop. He heard the commands but did not understand them. But rather than coming to the aid of his brothers, he walked straight up to the oasis out of delirium, hoping to finally quench his thirst. He touched his lips to the water and drowned the very core of his soul.
Author's Note: So this is a story based on the lake story from the Mahabharata, where Yudhisthira and co. meet with yaksha. The yaksha kills everyone for drinking from his lake but Yudhisthira beats the yaksha in a riddle contest of sorts and so the ones that were killed got revived. This story is supposed to be in the 1800s, though there aren't many clues to that besides the lever action rifle. I originally planned for the story to stick to the original plot with the youngest brother saving the rest, but I decided having him fall victim to the oasis would be more interesting.
Bibliography: The Mahabharata by R. K. Narayan
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