Follow the path. Find the cactus. Pierce the green. Move on.

The moon watches over you. Your blood cools, but you continue, graceful as ever, treading over the endless expanse.

Sand and stars.

Sand and stars, as far as your straining eyes can see. But you can smell the cacti, and so you march. Your quills draw lines in the sand. It's a trail and it's a signal; this path is yours, and you won't share it until the moon sets.

Follow the path.

Your quills glimmer in the moonlight. They emerge all the way from the bone. Blood vessels innervate them, dissipating the heat you've built up through the day. Your life is tough. You conceptualize rest as a sporadic thing, a boring thing, but necessary. You don't conceptualize safety at all. To be unsafe is like being unbreathing; you're always safe so long as you stick to the path, for your quills are long and sharp, and even the faintest scratch makes the blood fester.

All but the most daring predator gives you a wide berth. Even the scorpion, bane of the desert-dweller, fears you, for it you find one in your journeys, you never fail to kill it, impale it in your quills and carry it like a banner for the rest of the trip. You do this, hungry as you may be, because you know it'll taste better later.

Find the cactus.

The Saguaro towers before you, a pillar blotting out the stars. Its thick stem bears a lattice of scars. You can trace your growth with a glance, from the small pinpricks that barely pierced the skin, to the deep and exact slices that kept you fed for days. If you look close enough, you can see markings even older. Of your mother and father, of your grandparents, maybe of your ancestors who tended to the sapling that would become this towering form. Your lineage has toiled nightly since the dawn of time.

You look for an unscarred spot. You find one; it lies between two gnarled knots, and you've been monitoring it for a while now, knowing it would serve you one day. It's smooth and spotless. It is perfect.

Pierce the green.

Getting through the sand-battered walls is no easy task. You know to use your best tools for it; the spurs that jut out from your paws. You strike at the outer armor with learned precision, again and again, breaking the skin to reveal the soft flesh inside. Soon enough, your reward is at hand, and the cactus begins to bleed its golden bounty. You feel no desire to drink of it now, however. Not yet.

Move on.

The smell of fermenting sap beckons you forward. That was the last one, and a good thing, too--your legs ache, and your dry tongue stings in your mouth.

Perhaps one day they will fail you.

Perhaps the cacti will dry up, one by one, or your quills will grow blunt with wear, and you will no longer be able to feed yourself. Already, every nightly excursion feels longer than the last. But tonight, you earned yourself another day.

Your journey has finally brought you back to its beginning, back to the sweet sapling you cut for the first time tonight; the sap foams as it runs down its stem, pooling between its roots. You drink of it; it burns your tongue, your throat, and your stomach. Its warmth spreads through your body and numbs it all. The sand blurs. The stars fade. This is it--this is what you've been working toward. And for a precious few minutes, until the sun rises and you stumble your way back to your burrow, everything feels worth it. You lived.

Follow the path, find the cactus, pierce the green, move on.

Inevitable as it may be, tomorrow's journey feels so far away. You gather the sap in your paws and run them down your spurs; thick droplets roll from their sharp tips. They glimmer with danger.

The sap keeps you alive.

It is others' poison. It is your reward.