Theme song: “At the River” by Groove Armada The light of the sky dimmed slowly as the sunset faded from view. The expansive desert began to come to life around Hadi. Whispers of movement from figures hidden in the rocks, the soft shifting of the sand dunes in the distance, it was a natural alarm that gently greeted the lion’s ears as he woke up from a rustic bedding of reeds and mosses sandwiched in between large rock formations. For Hadi, it all felt so normal after calling the desert his home for so long. Even so, there was an unusual heaviness that weighed on his heart as his eyes slowly opened to the desert twilight. For several moments he simply gazed up at the beauty of the dynamic sky starting to sparkle to life with a kaleidoscope of stars and galaxies, the lion feeling a sense of belonging, of connection to the infinite nature surrounding him. The desert was a part of him as much as he was a part of the desert, and he felt it so strongly in this moment. A little too