The sand is cool and granular against my palms. Textured. And I've never hated that so much in my life until now, when I can't get away from it. The shallow cave I'm trapped in lets it spill in in droves, layers, like the tide except it never recedes. I'm reminded of the gaudy booby traps I've seen in media—the ones where the protagonist must escape a sealed room or else be buried alive in sand—and I don't find a lot of discrepancies between that and my own tomb.
Biggest difference: there's no way out. It's a shoddy cave, not an ancient pyramid. There's no trick tile to find in the floor.
And most importantly: I'd rather be in here than out there.
I can't remember the last time it was quiet. The storm—the house-stealing whirlwind taking place outside—it's been raging for months on end. How many I don't know; I lost track when my notebook was ripped from my hands and hurtled into the stratosphere. I assumed it was a sign from whatever powers that be that I should stop counting, because whether the number went up or not, nothing would change.
Sometimes it's tolerable. The wind never stops tearing at you like hungry brambles, but at least it eases up every so often; just whips your coat around instead of sending you rolling down the dunes like you're falling down stairs. That's when I go outside to gather supplies, hunt for new shelter, find food and avoid whatever few survivors are left here with me—because of course they're still here, and they all want me dead more than anything in the world. To them, everything is my fault; the desecration of their planet, the cleansing of their people, even the eternal storm outside, which—... okay.
I can concede to that last one. I hold blood in the others thanks only to my being a high flora, but I really did have a hand in the storm. It was an accident—I'd never have wished for this if I'd known—but I have no intention of taking it back, either. And I think that even if I knew the consequences when I did it, I'd still go through with it.
Because it was Ark up there on the ritual pedestal, screaming as the spectra engulfed him like the flames of a witch trial.
I don't know why he did it; betrayed his people like that. He was right there with me from the start saying he wanted to be a soldier, and I know the battlefield scared him, but that shouldn't be enough to warrant the rejection of everything we've ever believed in. It's insane. It's just like I told him then, in the moment: "nothing this great comes without sacrifice."
[And he looked at me like
he didn't even know me anymore.]
I didn't understand then, and I still don't. All those years of Ark and I being completely inseparable, and he just—throws it away? Just like that? In a single afternoon, over a bunch of savages? It's not fair! Verdel was supposed to be the first mission in a long line of great successes as we made our people proud. We had our whole future ahead of us like a red carpet to stardom.
But apparently our friendship meant more to me than it did him. And that hurts to acknowledge, but I have to—because if Ark cared half as much, I wouldn't be in this situation: cold, alone, on my hands and knees like an animal in a random cave trying to start a fire, all because I kept my promise. Even though Ark didn't deserve it anymore, even though the scales were tipped further than I ever could've imagined, I kept it.
[TW: I'll protect you.]
All I wanted was to save him. I slipped myself into the specter ritual like a wrench in gears—tenuously, foolishly—and then was forced to watch in horror as everything fell apart like the splintering chaos of a shrapnel bomb. There's a lot of things you can fight, but a vortex isn't one of them; everyone was running for the hills—lowly cadets, mercenaries, even Brigadier General Limbo—and me. Especially me. I was front and center when reality ripped itself apart at the seams, so the terror in me was all-consuming. Terror and guilt and hurt and a million other things I didn't have the time to feel.
So when Limbo snagged me by the arm right outside, hard enough to dislocate it, I almost wrenched us to the floor with my momentum. Our main headquarters were starting to come apart as he ordered with intensity, "hands against the wall, traitor!" And for a terrifying moment I thought he meant to have me go down with the building like a captain's sinking ship. It would be deserved—this was all my fault, all my idea—but then I was shoved against the wall and felt a hand brace against my shoulder and suddenly I understood.
My wings.
My wings.
My wings.
He's going to tear off my wings.
The fear never came. My entire being in that moment was just one big static squeal; nothing I'd ever done before had fallen apart so quickly, so detrimentally, for a black hole to yawn open like my own personal gate to Hell. This was my reward for keeping my promise. This was what I got for loving Ark like I couldn't love myself.
No room for delusions.
Azazel.
All my dedication, all my years of training, every gold star, glowing recommendation, shiny medal, and even the prideful glimmer in my father's eye—they're all ripped away in a heartbeat. Severed like the head of a garden snake. And I am left on Verdel to die with the man I so egotistically wanted to save. Powerless, grounded, useless.
My scramble for shelter as the high flora ships ascended to the stars, rapturous and screaming with the swelling wail of the vortex, was a humble one. The sand whipped against me, rough and abrasive as sandpaper. Rubble fell from the ritual site like great, world-ending meteorites. And like a bee caught in a rain shower on her maiden flight, all I could do was run, hide, and pray.
And that's how I've lived ever since.
It's been almost a year, I think. The worst year of my life. And after so much time, I've actually gained a sense of normalcy about this—as if anything about my purgatory is domestic and befitting a routine—but it finds me anyway. The willingness to rise before the sun, to wrap myself in thick, protective leathers, and wade into the storm with a hunger for survival. Or maybe it's just a fear of death. I can't tell anymore. Maybe I'm just accepting retribution.
I wish I at least knew whether Ark survived. I did all this for him, I'm living like this for him—or because of him, depending on how you look at it. If he was ripped apart in the vortex, then nothing has any meaning and I'm just living on a post-apocalyptic planet for fun. I watched the spectra engulf him, but I think he's fine. Probably. Just lost inside the abyss... probably. Maybe.
For all the time I have alone with me, myself, and I, conclusions don't come easy. I round topics again and again, haloing them like the moon around the earth. They're both my favorite pastime as well as my Sisyphean burden. I have so much mental energy I don't know what to do with, so of course I torture myself with what-ifs.
What if I didn't keep my promise and went on to live a successful, normal life in high flora society. What if Brigadier General Limbo left me with my wings, some small tool to fend for myself. What if the storm subsides tomorrow and I get to see the sun again. What if Ark loved me back.
[That one aches like a bruise.]
Mostly, I wonder how long I'll last. Resources grow more scarce with every day that passes. I see my competition—the survivors of both the genocide and the vortex—less and less often. Every time I think they've been wiped out and I'm the last one left, I'll see the shape of one through the haze and it's almost a relief. I know they're out to kill me, but something about being the sole living being on a big ball of sand in the dead of space—it's chilling, even though I hate them. Even though I've never made contact. Despite it all, I still dread being alone.
But as the days turn into weeks. And into months. And into years. As I lose track of time on a whole new scale. That's exactly what happens.
I've outlived them. The realization hits me like a bullet between the eyes the day I stumble across a massive, underground network of caves and find monsters there. Dark, stilted things that creep around mindlessly, their glowing eyes empty. They look just like the natives, but—wrong. Something so deeply wrong with them. I don't understand it and it makes me sick to look at them; I think the vortex did something to them. And it makes me wonder, with a cold pit of dread in my gut, whether it's doing something to me.
I don't feel any different. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. But the chance that my own perception is compromised—that this virus, this curse, this plague, whatever it is—could blind me to my own rotting soul?
Gods.
Losing my wings is nothing in the face of that.
But time goes on and I keep not changing—not like that. Still me, just with none of the visual cues I've cultivated around my identity. I abandoned my uniform so early on because it didn't protect me from the blistering winds, and ever since I've walked Verdel in a dark, flowing cloak with tattered hems like a proper survivalist. From the cloth mask to the big hood and the shiny goggles, I've got it all. And I have to wonder what my parents would think of me now. They were such clean freaks I think they'd be appalled to know that I track sand wherever I go like a muddy puppy, because no matter what I do I just can't get rid of it.
[After so many years I barely feel it.]
My parents would have a laundry list of opinions about me, I think. Not that they haven't always had that—that's just how they are—but I mean they're bad opinions now. And after thinking long and hard about it for the past several years, I don't think they're looking for me. Nor did they ever. When my father got the news of how I betrayed the high flora army and the God-King by extension, he probably disowned me that very same day, went out for smoothies after, made a thing of it.
It takes awhile to admit it to myself, but I know I'm right. I always liked to think they loved me deep down, in some dark, oceanic place in their souls, but in hindsight, that was just hopeful optimism. I had all the evidence I needed. I just didn't want it. And the more time that passes the more I realize that that's how it was with every relationship I've ever had.
No one ever really cared at all.
It was always me making one-sided promises.
Having one-sided conversations.
Pretending not to have one-sided crushes.
Sooner or later, I start to convince myself that I don't mind life on Verdel. It's not so bad being alone. How many times in the past have I longed for this kind of solitude? I hate crowds, I love a good challenge, this should be a game to me. Strength doesn't equate to composure, but maybe it equates to independence?
I think if I could just find myself in the bottomless sands of Verdel like a needle in a haystack, then I could say it was all worth it in the end. My being here and suffering had meaning. And maybe then it won't hurt so much when I finally give in to starvation or infection or whatever other lethal disaster finally decides to stop teasing me first.
I never meant to betray my people. If only Brigadier General Limbo forgave me for keeping my promise, I probably would've never done another bad thing for the rest of my life. But he didn't, and now the high flora don't want me anymore. And sometimes, when I think long and hard about that, I feel like I can al most
understand.
Why Ark did what he did. Why we're in this mess. Why Verdel deserved to be saved.
And it was saved, in a way. It's still here. Holding on like a stubborn tumor. If I've lasted this long on it—however long that is, I've completely and utterly lost track—then I think Ark's succeeded in whatever he was trying to do.
I try to be content with it. I try to live my life. I've gotten good at not just surviving in a wasteland, but living in one, so I do other things on the side, like learning knife-throwing techniques and making maps of the planet. Save for the no man's land right by the vortex, I've been all over; my longevity has made me the perfect nomad.
And one day, as I'm climbing one of the high flora's old towers trying to get a decent vantage point of the natives' old city, I suddenly find the wind's grip on me lacking. It catches me so off guard I stop right where I am and extend my arms, making a triangle of myself against the tower, because, yeah, it's weak; barely even there. Feels like nothing. But that's the wrong word—I've been living in blistering storms for so long it's lost meaning for me—it's not nothing, it's a breeze. Like from back home.
And that thought catches me as a hitch in my chest. Propels me the rest of the way up the tower where it gets weaker and weaker. Once I'm at the very top, crouched on the weathered crystal for balance, I find myself
Bathed in sunlight.
For what feels like the very first time.
And for a long while, I just sit in it. Stunned. I'd completely forgotten what this felt like—it takes me right back to childhood, to my academy days with Ark, to that self-indulgent vacation in the countryside. But it hurts to call those the good times, because they never really were.
I feel myself tear up about it. And I don't want to. It's not fair. I've done so much living, I'm a grown man by now, I don't want to cry—I haven't shed a single tear since the day I lost my wings even though there's so many awful things worth sobbing over—why is it a little dose of sunshine is all it takes?
Even though I try not to, I stay up there for a long while, head in my hands, entire back burning like the sun is right there with me, rubbing it for comfort. And when I can think again, I realize that the vortex is weakening. Normally I can only see for a mile out on the good days and the sky is just a dark blur, but now I can see the hazy horizon in the distance. I can tip my head back and admire the other planets from afar.
[You can look, but don't touch.
Carrot on a stick if I've ever seen one.]
Eventually I convince myself to climb down, plunge back into the storm. It doesn't hurt like I expect it to, and I realize that that peace I felt up there on the tower, soaring over all my problems—that's the event. My normal is down here, half blind and caked in sand. Business as usual.
Makes me angry, but there's nothing for it. All I can do is move on. Add meteorologist to my list of strange skills adopted through trial and error. I start logging the intensity of the vortex day to day and watch the numbers slowly, slowly go down, guesstimated as they are. It takes even more years, but the time would pass anyway. I'm not going anywhere.
On one of Verdel's worse days, with the kind of winds that make me debate heading underground with the brain dead natives, I catch a violent flash of light through the storm and immediately fear the worst.
I've been here so long. I know all the weather patterns. If I close my eyes and focus real hard, sometimes I can predict them. But that light—that's never happened before.
I climb above the storm again and peer out and for awhile I see nothing. But eventually I notice a dark haze drifting above the storm to my left. The survivalist in me doesn't want to know, but the academic, the student, and basically ever other part of me—is dying to find out. This is the most interesting thing that's happened in the last million-or-whatever years.
As I approach on foot, through the storm, I think it's a meteorite—the flash of light being either explosion on impact or flames from entering the atmosphere—though I'm not sure what I could possibly do with such a thing. If it holds rare metals, I have neither the experience to recognize them nor the firepower to forge them into anything.
But it's not a meteor. When I round a lopsided stone pillar to gaze upon the crash site, my heart leaps in my throat as I recognize the dark silhouette of a ship. I've been trying on and off for so long to get one of the abandoned high flora ships working again, but I'm missing so many parts—I'm not much of an engineer anyway—and I'd been giving up hope. But now a brand new one just drops in my lap like nothing?!
Or—like something. The passengers are alive and they stagger off their ship with pain screaming through every inch of their body language. It's startling to so suddenly not be alone anymore—how long ago did the natives die?—I can't see the newcomers clearly from where I'm standing, but they don't seem human. Too small, too dark, their eyes glimmering like little stars.
It doesn't bode well. I want their ship, but I don't have any magic to take it with. Fat chance they'd ever give it to me, being a high flora. I think they might commune with me if I just keep my hood up, but the risk is high. Being at the mercy of an unknown force just for another ship I can't fix isn't very appealing. It crashed for a reason, after all.
In the end, I slip wordlessly back into the storm, no contact made. And despite all the time I spend aching for something—anything—to happen, this decision is easy. It's exactly what I've always been doing. Loneliness used to tear me up inside, but now it's all I know and I don't feel it so much anymore, just like the abrasive winds. I've acclimated.
[Strength = Independence]
[Just pick the safe option.]
I'm not worried. If the newcomers turn out to be problematic, I'll just outlive them. I've outlived everything on this awful planet from the natives to the monsters—I've watched them all evolve inside and out to suit the vortex, morphing like butterflies. Some of them are barely even recognizable anymore.
So I just let myself have neighbors again. After awhile I start seeing them through the haze or hearing the echoes of their booming chatter, and I think them rambunctious. They go quiet and skitter away whenever they catch sight of me, and I have to marvel at the fact that, somehow, I still manage to be a threat even without wings. I suppose it's more about fearing the unknown than anything, though; I'd be bristling too if I saw a strange, silent, cloaked figure stalking through the sands.
We play nice, even if I've accidentally become a cryptid to them. And it's tense for awhile as I skirt the edges of their society as a shadow, but once again time begins to pass, and the new familiar becomes set in stone. Cyclic.
I watch the newcomers struggle from afar. They dismantle their ship for parts and build sleds for those that don't walk well. They start taming wildlife and building tents. There's less of them than when they first showed up, but I'm not sure if that's the natural way of things or the caustic ways of Verdel. Either way they figured it out in the end and I'm surprised by how well they're doing; up until now nothing but me has been able to live sustainably here. I might actually have permanent company?
The novel idea of it soon becomes a guarantee as the vortex subsides, then disappears altogether. It happens slow over the course of months with periods of regression and flash storms that rush in like an ambush predator, but once it's gone, it's gone. Nothing but sunshine and blue sky for miles. And in the wake of it all, I have to admit that Verdel is prettier than I realized.
But with the vortex dead, I also have to start asking myself the big questions again. Like whether Ark has been trapped in the abyss all this time. Whether he's still alive. And if he is alive, do I even want to see him?
Hundreds of years ago, however long its been, it would've been an instant yes. I wanted so badly to shake him like a maraca until answers fell out; it was all I could think about for the longest time. But I'm no longer the same person I was then, and the idea of dredging up the past makes me cringe. I still want to know why, but I think it will only hurt when I find out. It won't do anything for me. It won't change the past. It won't give me back my wings. Like a parasitic larvae, knowing can only be a burden of pain.
After everything, I can't imagine Ark wants to see me either. I still remember the way he looked at me then; "nothing this great comes without sacrifice." Something died between us that day and I've never quite been sure what. I just know he picked the natives over me and I don't need him to spell it out beyond that.
So I don't go looking.
I mind my business. It's easy. I've been doing it for so long it barely means anything anymore. I'm never getting out of here, I'm never protecting anything ever again, I'll never tell my father "I tried." I'm a record player loop personified, the same few tracks over and over again. Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal
Eternal.
It's a surprise when I look down from the peachy crest of a tall dune and see one of my smallest neighbors face-down in the sand, lying so still and quiet in the cool blue shade. My shadow shifts as I do a double-take, just a hesitant extension of the dune.
My neighbors are a bunch of pack dogs. I've never caught them alone in my life. I've never found corpses, either—I've looked, some of their helmets have a quality shine that I could put to good use—I'm sure they bury their dead. So I don't know what to make of this.
There's no signs of struggle or anything. My neighbor's footprints lead in as a slow, meandering stagger before they seemingly face-planted out of... exhaustion? Heatstroke? Staying cool has become a big problem ever since the storm subsided. A desert is worse than a wasteland in some ways, but I don't mind; I've been eating up the warm quiet like fresh garlic bread.
I've never been this close to my neighbors before—we've always been like ships passing in the night—but now I'm sliding down the dune like a mini tidal wave, making dust clouds as I go. Because I want to see what I'm dealing with. Because there's no reason not to. I know my neighbors don't have magic because I've heard their manufactured explosives echo off cave walls like a shockwave.
When I reach the bottom and nudge them with my boot, I'm surprised when they grunt and shift. Slowly lift their head with a confused noise. And just as I start to wonder if they're concussed, they turn to look at me and promptly/
/shriek like a banshee.
We both jump. They scramble back in a great, dramatic flailing of sand and cloak—they really are just inky black void all the way down—and stammer quick, "I'm—I'm—I'm not tasty!"
[Yeah, probably not?!]
"Calm down," I say, and mean it to sound like an order, but it comes out exasperated. I'm out of practice. My voice is rough with disuse. "I was only checking on you."
"Wh—but I—huh?" My neighbor is openly and loudly floundering, as their entire species seems wont to do. And from the lilt of their voice, I think they must be young... or maybe they're just all like that. Even the biggest ones don't look like they'd rise above my chest. The one I've stumbled across is maybe hip height or lower. Hard to tell when they're standing all low and braced like I'm gonna charge them. "You're... you're not a monster?" They ask like they can't believe it.
I shake my head. I could be one if I applied myself—I've had some hundreds of odd years to master other crafts of destruction—but I think I'm talking to a kid. And I'm not a soldier anymore anyway. I've ended up on the other side of "war for peace" now.
My neighbor slowly deflates, then falls to sit down hard in the sand with a pomf. They're still staring at me with wide, flickering eyes, so I stay where I am and ask, "are you alright?"
They blink at me. "...N-... no. I'm lost. I got turned around somewhere and my footprints were erased..."
I didn't expect them to actually admit to anything. "Where's the rest of your group?"
"We, um, were scouting caves near here."
"Crystalline? Or low ceilings?"
"I-I don't know? There was just a bunch of pillars?" They're gazing up at me with open fear. Or maybe that's hope and I just can't tell. All I'm working with is a pair of empty, glowing circles for eyes.
Either way, they're much further out than they seem to think. And if I don't help, they'll die. I can feel it. I've lost things on Verdel that I've never, ever, ever found again, and they were just things. They couldn't get up and walk off like a person could. My neighbors have strength in numbers, the power of a search party, but that only means so much in a sand pit as massive as this.
I have no reason to save my neighbor just as much as I have no reason not to. Once upon a time I would've found a nice, easy target painted on them, but they're just a kid to me now. Just some weird, dark thing I found in the dirt like a filthy stray. And perfectly in line with that metaphor, I sort of feel bad for them.
[Poor thing.
How about some canned tuna and an old blanket?
Maybe someone will want you then.]
I sigh and unclip the waterskin from my belt—my littlest neighbor snaps to attention to see movement beneath my cloak—but I toss it harmlessly on the ground. "Drink," I tell them.
They do. Apprehensively at first, then all at once, with a kind of desperation that makes me think they'd collapsed from heatstroke. When they're done I start walking; it barely takes any prodding at all to make them follow. They seem to understand the weight of their predicament—that it's not the time to be picky.
I lead the way across the desert in silence. Less because I don't want to talk, more because I have nothing to say. There's so many things I've forgotten in my time here, and I think how to hold a conversation is one of them.
My littlest neighbor can't relate. They try to ask me all sorts of things, like, "who are you?" and, "are you really a ghost?" and even, "did I die?" They're definitely a kid. They have no idea what silence is.
When we arrive at the yawning mouth of a half-buried cave, I can hear reverberated voices calling out. A name, I think—Mar? My littlest neighbor gasps in delight to hear it, "the caravan!"
Is that what they're calling themselves? Makes me wonder what they've been calling me. Ghost of Verdel or something, probably.
Mar scurries forward, but before they can plunge into the darkness I take a breath and start, "your helmet..." They stop hard and turn back. Even though I can see in every inch of their body language that they're aching to hurtle down the rocky slope back to their family, I still hold their attention. "...Will you give it to me?"
Since the beginning of time, I've been trapped in a cycle. Nothing grows. Everything dies. Finding new supplies is like threading a camel through the eye of a needle—in other words, impossible. If I want something, another item that holds its potential must be sacrificed. When things break, it's mourn-worthy. There's not a day that goes by that I don't regret not pulling more supplies from the wrath of the vortex.
Mar's expression shifts around like a puzzle. Confusion, reluctance, then kindness, I think, before they shuffle back to me and remove their helmet. "Here you go! Thanks for saving me."
"You're... you're welcome." I accept my reward and, slowly, awkwardly, wave goodbye to Mar as they scamper away, flapping their whole arm as they go. And I don't know why that makes my chest feel tight, but it does.
Mar's helmet is olive green and shiny like a turtle shell. I study it as I hear the clamoring voices shift from worried calls to bombastic excitement, and I think I did something right for once. My ancestors would think me weak—I sort of do too, honestly—but I'm not part of their army anymore. It's just me and the caravan on a big ball of sand, and not a single one of us has a drop of mana to boast about. It's a matter of resources, of which they have more than me anyway.
It's humbling. And I hate it. I walk away with my head down, trying to just be glad that I got my prize, and that's when I hear a new clamor behind me—no echo to it. Present. I turn around to find a little group of caravan members standing around the mouth of the cave, all waving to me. Shouting something, too, but they're all talking over each other like always and I can't discern anything. But they're grateful... I guess.
I don't wave. I turn my back and keep walking.
I'll just outlive them anyway.
