Chapter 11: Fear is necessary for evolution
[New Quest: Sandworm.]
The wave of disturbed sand was forty meters wide and moving at the speed of something that had never needed to hurry before and wasn’t starting now.
I ran.
My body had thoughts about this. My lungs in particular had a lot of thoughts.
I noted them and kept running because the alternative was the other thing, and the other thing was still moving.
The ground vibrated through my feet. Not a sound. A fact, and it was getting worse.
Sixty meters. Fifty. The displacement of sand ahead of it was pushing a ridge, and the ridge was growing, and I changed direction and the ridge changed with me.
My right leg buckled on the next stride. I caught myself with my hands. The palms were already torn from before, I filed it and got up because the worm was still moving.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
The rhythm held for a while.
Then my knee went into the sand and the getting up was slower than it had been, and somewhere behind the effort of getting up was a thought that kept appearing and I kept ignoring it, which was: sixty minutes.
I had lasted sixty minutes. That had to mean something. I needed it to mean something.
My vision was going wrong at the edges. Static, fraying.
Don’t.
Left. Right. Left—
The sand ahead erupted.
I went left. The head passed so close that the air from the motion shoved me sideways and I hit the sand on my hands and knees.
The palms screamed and I didn’t look back, just got up, just moved, just put distance between myself and where I’d been standing.
It was herding me. Understanding it didn’t help.
I changed direction again. The ridge changed with me again.
My left leg was going not a buckle, just delivering less than it had been, like something load-bearing had quietly given up.
Don’t think about the leg.
There was sound. Ragged, wet.
It took me a second to understand it was me.
The tears I only noticed when they dried.
I ran until running stopped feeling like running and started feeling like a series of decisions I was making one at a time. Left. Keep left up. Right. Keep right up.
My left leg stopped working entirely.
Just stopped.
I went down and lay there. The worm hadn’t surfaced. The ridge was still moving somewhere behind me, circling, taking its time.
I breathed. Just that, for a second.
Get up.
My arm shook. My body had a counterargument. I didn’t have time for it.
One knee. One hand.
The sand to my left erupted.
The head came out of the earth right there, so close, and the displaced air hit like a wall and I stumbled and—
I didn’t feel it at first.
I didn’t even feel it happen at first.
Then my arm wasn’t there.
I didn’t understand it at first. Then it became real.
My arm was....
I didn’t understand it. My mind refused to translate what my eyes were seeing.
It was just sand. Just red sand.
It wasn’t mine. That was the thought. It couldn’t be mine.
Move.
Move. Please move.
you have to get up...
My legs were shaking.
I ran.
Or I tried to run. I realized I was going to die here.
My legs were still moving.
The phantom of my arm kept sending signals that it was there.
I kept not having one. Distance. Just distance.
My legs gave out.
The sand came up to meet me slowly, or it felt slow, the way some things feel slow when everything’s already used up. Face-down.
I tried to get up.
"Please," I said, into the sand.
The vibration through the ground now was in my chest, my teeth, my jaw. Present in every contact point between me and the earth.
I tried again.
I couldn’t.
One thought surfaced.
"Yui."
It just came out. Wasn’t planning to say it.
"I’m sorry."
The shadow covered me.
[Day 2→ Wasted.]
***
(Unknown pov)
"Stop. I said stop this."
"This is necessary for his future."
"All of you are destroying his world."
"It’s simply his fate."
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