Writing prompts : The desert's shadow

So I'll just be answering this : https://mastodon.social/@WritingPrompts/100645680246761183

I was completely lost. For a few hours, I had been walking in the desert, away from the burning Beaufighter¹ which the fascists had hit. After the crash, I knew I could either stay there, hoping to be made prisoner by them, or trying to reach a safe point in the north-west. I had chosen the second option. It was now something like 3 PM (my watch had been broken in a previous airfight) and the sun was burning the ground (and me as well).

Suddenly, I fell a bit better, fresher, and I noticed I was walking in a shadow. Was it an airplane, a cloud, something else ? I looked at the sky, but there was nothing. Nothing else than a pure blue sky, and this bright damn sun. It was quite likely that I was having a hyperthermia. This was bad, in a few hours, or maybe even minutes, I'd fall on the crispy sand and into coma. I had to find the city soon. As I was lost in these thoughts, the shadow got away. At least it had made me feel better. I climbed up a dune, and then got into the shadow again. What was wrong with my poor dried brain ? But then I noticed something weird a bit further. Probably the city !

When I got to the next dune, I realized I couldn't locate the city anymore. I tried to find it again, and saw other weird artifacts, as if the air was not right, just like a mirage. But this could not be a mirage, as I knew well how mirages are made, and the weird stuff weren't at the right altitude for it, it was actually up in the sky. Then my hyperthermia ? But the spot stayed at the same place, and didn't follow my vision. The wind blew, making me close my eyes for a second. Then as I was staring at the sky, someone approached me from the back :

Hello, are you lost, they said.

Err... Sorry, I answered in my confusion.

Are you lost ? It's a bit weird to see someone out there on their own.

Actually yes, I haven't got a clue about my location, but...

There's a small oasis just done the hill there, the other said, showing a point not too far away.

Oh thank you very much !

A grin lightened my face and I looked at where they pointed, but when I turned back, they had disappeared. I was astonished, but even though I feared it was only my imagination, I decided to follow the direction. This was my only chance. I managed to find the oasis, and I survived there a few days, before a British reconnaissance plane spotted me and gave me a lift to its airbase.

Back then, I didn't know I had been saved by an alien who was on a spying mission on Earth. Until my 144th birthday, I didn't know at all who I had met. Or even if it was just my imagination. But then we met again, and... that's another story.

¹ It's an actual airplane from World War II !