It had been centuries since the skies burned and Earth fell.
Now, silence reigned—a silence not born from peace, but from abandonment.
The once-blue planet had faded into a cracked, dust-choked echo of itself. Forests had vanished beneath the ash. Rivers dried into scars across the land. Oceans receded, poisoned by orbital bombardments long ago. The clouds no longer rumbled with rain—only with the dull hum of ancient drones that patrolled without purpose.
The Bright Light Empire still ruled.
From orbit to desert floor, their presence remained, unmoving, unchallenged. Cities were ruins. Governments were history. Humanity no longer had nations, only scars and stories. The last human capital, a place long fabled and forgotten—Null Island, the mythic center of Earth's oceans—had been transformed into a shining fortress of alien design.
They called it Central World now.
A monument to conquest. The seat of the Empire.
Massive spires of light and glass pierced the sky like thorns, while machines carved the seabed into geometrical hellscapes. It pulsed with energy, powered by suns beyond imagination. And at its base, the last remnants of organized humanity were kept—enslaved, monitored, forced into labor beneath an artificial dome that simulated life but felt nothing like it.
Outside the dome, there were no rules.
Only sand, fire, and the scream of wind across open wastelands.
Far from Central World, in the southern stretches of Earth's wastelands, the ground was dead—cracked like glass beneath a furnace. The sun never blinked. Temperatures soared so high that skin could blister in seconds. Cities here had names once—Serengeti, Outback, Sonoran—but they were now forgotten.
And in this barren hell, something moved fast.
A blur of rusted metal and roaring fury.
It was a boy, clad head-to-toe in sun-shielded rags—goggles covering his eyes, scarf wrapped over his mouth. His fingers gripped the vibrating handles of a crooked, sputtering machine: an old Cytra, a flying motorcycle model nearly fifty years obsolete, with one bent turbine and an exposed energy cell leaking sparks.
Its fuel gauge had been stuck on "Empty" for the last three years.
And behind him…
Something terrible pursued.
A giant centipede, mutated by radiation and the Empire's careless terraforming, burst through dunes like a sandstorm come alive. Its body stretched dozens of meters, its armored plates glinting with heat, each leg like a dagger punching into the dirt. Its head was a nightmare—clustered eyes, serrated mandibles dripping acidic slime. Every time it screamed, the air itself seemed to warp.
And it was fast.
Too fast.
The boy cursed under his breath and jerked the Cytra sideways as a spray of sand exploded beside him. A massive pincer barely missed the back of the bike. The Cytra jolted, spun slightly, then stabilized with a hiss. One turbine flared blue, the other coughed black smoke.
"Come on, come on… hold together!" the boy shouted through his scarf.
The Cytra blazed forward, skimming a few feet above the cracked surface. Chunks of sand and bone flew behind it. The centipede shrieked again, narrowing the gap. Its mandibles snapped within meters of the boy's feet. The scent of melting metal and venom filled the air.
A canyon loomed ahead. Its steep walls carved downward into nothing.
The boy didn't slow down.
He leaned forward, sweat soaking into the fabric of his suit, heart pounding in his ears louder than the engine. The Cytra began to rattle violently as it picked up speed. One of the handlebars shook loose—he gripped tighter with one hand, steering with desperate instinct.
The centipede reared back behind him, coiling like a spring.
With one final shriek, it lunged.
The boy shouted and launched off the edge of the canyon.
The world went silent.
For a moment, everything froze. The Cytra soared through the air like a broken bird. The engine howled. The sun caught its bent frame in golden light. Below, a vast drop into cracked desert. Behind, the centipede stopped at the edge, shrieking in rage—it couldn't jump.
Not this far.
The Cytra hit the ground hard on the other side, bounced once, and skidded across the sand, kicking up a trail of sparks and fire. The boy's body flailed with it—until finally, the vehicle groaned to a stop and collapsed into the dirt in a heap of smoke.
For a few seconds, there was only wind.
Then, a sound. Wheezing.
The boy rolled over, groaning. His limbs ached. His chest heaved like a dying engine. The heat pressed down like iron. He unwrapped his scarf slowly, goggles cracked, eyes bloodshot.
He raised one trembling hand toward the canyon, where the centipede hissed in frustration.
And with the last bit of strength in his body, he lifted his middle finger.
"Choke on sand… you oversized worm…" he gasped.
Then, the world tilted sideways.
And he collapsed.
Unconscious.
Face down in the dust of a dead world… with something waiting just beyond the heat-rippled horizon. The wind moved like a whisper over the dunes, stirring fine grains of pale sand into slow swirls. The broken Cytra sat still—its once-humming turbines now silent, its rusted body resting crookedly at the base of a cracked dune. Smoke curled weakly from its side.
Beside it, half-buried under dust and sweat, lay the boy—motionless, limbs sprawled, chest barely rising.
Then, a sound.
Clink… tap-tap… clink…
Tiny feet. Metal on stone.
A pair of thin legs approached with the speed of a desert lizard. Its movement was oddly graceful, like a dancer that had studied too much physics. A small, agile frame—barely half a meter tall—appeared at the boy's side. It stood like a bird, head tilted, scanning the unconscious form in the sand.
Its single optic lens blinked.
BEEP.
No response.
The little bot lowered itself, poking the boy's chest gently with one spindly leg.
PEEB?
Still nothing.
The droid stood straight again, as if in contemplation. Then, with a small leap and mechanical hiss, it landed directly on the boy's stomach—its metal feet clicking.
"Ughhh…" the boy groaned.
A twitch.
The droid gave a louder BEEP-BEEP!
The boy's eyes cracked open, bloodshot, pained. Sand clung to his lashes. He squinted at the sunlight pouring over the canyon ledge above, confused, disoriented.
"Wha—? Wha… wait… where—?"
He jolted up slightly, only to have the sharp sting of pain remind him of the earlier chaos. His eyes widened, panic overtaking the haze.
"Centi—!"
He rolled, reaching to his side—scrambling for the pipe weapon he always kept slung across his back. It wasn't there. For a moment, adrenaline surged. He reached toward his belt, coughing.
Then he saw it.
The tiny droid stood still in front of him, head tilted slightly. Its tiny clawed hand lifted in what almost looked like a wave.
Beep… peeb.
The boy blinked.
"…BP?"
BEEP!
He let out a long, tired sigh and fell back onto his elbow. "You little rustbucket... I thought you were another sand crawler. Almost clocked you in the optic."
Peeb?
"I'm fine," he muttered, wiping his face. "I mean, kinda. Nearly got chewed in half by a centipede the size of a starliner, Cytra's totaled, my ribs feel like gravel, and I think my foot's still on fire."
BP responded with a sympathetic chirp, hopping down and skittering over to the boy's leg to scan him with a tiny flickering light.
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. Nothing broken. Just bruised. Again."
BP turned back and made a softer noise—less a beep, more a low coo of concern.
The boy looked at him, smiling faintly despite everything.
"I missed you too, bud."
They sat in silence for a moment. Wind tugged at the boy's tattered scarf. BP climbed onto a rock beside him, optic lens focusing on the crumpled remains of the flying bike ahead.
The boy followed his gaze.
The Cytra lay at an awkward angle, its side half-caved in from the landing. One wingblade was snapped clean off. The underside was torn open, and the fuel cell—already unstable—had cracked, oozing out green residue like bleeding guts.
He stood slowly, limping over to it. Sand crunched beneath his boots.
The boy reached out and ran a hand along the dusty frame. "Damn. She's done."
BP followed, chirping low.
"Fifty years old," the boy said softly. "One of the last military escape runners. My father found it during the sweep of Crater Bay… Rebuilt it with his bare hands."
He looked down.
"She's been mine ever since."
His voice caught slightly at the edge.
BP leaned in, nuzzling against the boy's shin. The boy sighed and knelt beside the wreckage, resting his head on the Cytra's battered surface.
"I don't know how we're getting home, BP."
Beep…?
"I mean it. We're at least a hundred klicks from the nearest human outpost, and that's if the bandits haven't taken it. This far south, nobody travels alone anymore. Not since the empire set those terra-tunnels under the dunes."
Peeb-beep?
"No. I don't trust the tunnels either. Remember what happened at the Denhold Ridge?"
BP made a short, almost offended tone.
"Yeah, I was the one who said it was safe. I was wrong, okay?"
BP seemed smug about that. The boy chuckled bitterly.
He stood again, brushing sand from his shoulder, taking one last look at the Cytra. The wind howled louder now, and the sky was beginning to darken—storm clouds forming to the west, red and charged.
"We have to move. Sandstorm's coming."
He looked back to BP, who beeped and nodded quickly, dropping from the rock and hopping along beside him.
Together, they walked toward a rising plateau in the distance—small, barely visible in the shimmering heat—but it was shelter. Maybe even water. Or a place to think.
"BP," the boy muttered, adjusting the straps of his gear. "I don't care how beat we are. Next time we go looking for engine salvage, remind me not to run off a canyon."
Beep peeb.
"Shut up. You loved it."
The droid chirped in agreement.
But even as they bantered, the boy glanced back over his shoulder at the wreckage—at the broken bike, the still-smoking sand trail, the distant canyon.
And the faintest shadow still perched at the top of the ridge.
Watching.