Hours passed as he sat there, not knowing where to go. He took off his shirt and placed it over his head to shield himself from the sun's heat.
He was astonished when he looked at his watch and found the hands stopped moving.
He didn't dwell on this matter much as he was surprised to see two men running away from him.
He got up and hurried after them, hope beginning to rise in his heart. As he approached them, he noticed their strange attire and the intensity of their exhaustion, as if they were suffering from a severe chronic illness.
He stopped them and asked, "Excuse me, I need your help."
But they left him and continued running.
He chased after them and stopped them again, saying, "Why are you running away?" One of them looked at him and said:
"Can't you see what we're going through?"
Khaled was puzzled by their strange accent and sarcastically smiled, mimicking it.
"Yes, sir, I see." Then he asked, "We're in Saudi Arabia, right?"
The man looked at him in surprise.
"What do you mean, Saudi Arabia?"
Khaled smiled sarcastically again, sighed deeply, and muttered to himself:
"They're lost."
Then the other man asked:
"Are you a stranger?"
Khaled immediately replied:
"Yes, I am a stranger." Then he continued, "Where are we? And who are you?"
One of them answered:"We are poor, and we escaped to the desert. Don't you have any food with you?"
Khaled replied, "No, unfortunately. I had some, but it got lost with my bag."
Then he put his hand in his pocket, took out a ten-pound note, and continued:
"I have money. You can buy food with it if you tell me where we are and how I can get back home?"
One of them snatched the money from Khaled's hand and put it in his mouth, eating it.
Khaled was surprised and asked in amazement, "Are you that hungry?"
The other man replied:
"It seems to me that you're generous, and that's why I'm sure you're a stranger here. I feel you're very rich..."
Khaled laughed and looked at himself, at his worn-out clothes covered in tunnel and cavern dirt, and his pitiful condition. He asked himself:
"What wealth is this fool talking about? Does seeing ten pounds make him think I'm rich?"
Then he responded to them as if they were mad and asked them again:
"Now, I want to know, how are you going to survive in this desert? And what are you running away from? And most importantly, where are we, really?"
The man who had eaten the money, after trying to understand what Khaled meant, replied:
"We are poor, and the desert will be much better for us than a place like Zikula."
Surprised, Khaled asked, "A place like Zikula?"
The other man then asked "Don't you know Zikula?"
Khaled answered: "No, where is Zikula? I only see desert everywhere."
The man continued, "Who in this day and age doesn't know about Zikula? It's only the rich people who mock us like this all the time."
Then he pointed for Khaled to move a few meters in the direction of his hand, saying, "It's down there, rich man."
Then they left him and continued running in the desert. Khaled moved towards where the man had pointed and kept moving until he found himself on the edge of a high plateau.
He looked down and saw a large city with a beautiful view from above, with various buildings interspersed with green spaces as if they were agricultural lands, and expanses of water.