Ruki and Z

I stood at the ridge, rifle still hot in my grip, watching dust spiral down the cliff where the boy had fallen. The mountain wind howled—dry, sharp—tugging at the brim of my hat.

For a long while, nothing but loose stone was tumbling into the emptiness below.

Ruki shifted beside me. The kid couldn’t stand still if his life depended on it.

“Z… was that the right thing to do?” His voice cracked, thin against the desert.

I slung the rifle over my shoulder, leather creaking.

“Right thing?” I let the words hang a beat too long. “That boy nearly fed a worm big enough to chew Solaris in half. You call that right?”

Ruki’s jaw twitched. He swallowed whatever else he wanted to say.

I clapped a hand on her shoulder—wiry under the desert cloth.

“Listen. You may be only recruited as an observer, but out here, right and wrong don’t save you. The only thing that matters is seeing another sunrise.”

She nodded, reluctant but honest.

That’s when everything changed.

The wind stopped—no whistle through the rocks, no hiss of sand. Silence so heavy it pressed against my skull.

Ruki whispered, “Z… he’s not dead.”

I crouched at the cliff’s edge.

“Fucking hell…”

The boy stood—no staggering, no limp. Just walking.

“Dead man walking,” I muttered.

Ruki pointed, panic rising. “Z—he’s heading toward the worm.”

Sure enough, a massive fin carved through the dunes, angling straight for him.

“Z, this is it. You can still make it right. Save him—”

“Silence.” My eyes locked on the sand. Something was wrong. Dead wrong.

He fell from the ridge. Should’ve been broken. Should’ve been gone. And yet—

I stood. “Let’s move.”

“What?”

“I guess you’d rather die here.” Boots grinding stone, I started down.

“Wait—I’m coming!” Ruki scrambled after me.

I swung onto the kid's V2, metal humming beneath me. “I’m sure he won’t mind if we borrow his ride. Get on.”

“Y—yeah, sir.” He clung to the back as I throttled forward.

Worms always chase the highest frequency, but this one ignored everything else.

“That kid ain’t human anymore,” I said, cigarette between my lips.

She fumbled for the lighter, eyes wide. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Never mind.” Smoke curled past my face. “Just shut up and hold on.”

Common Retreiver Worms are extremely sensitive to frequency, attacking anything that produces high amounts of it.

The desert wind tore at us as we sped down the ridge. My eyes never left the horizon, where the worm’s fin cut a jagged path toward that boy.