"Ow."
When he saw the debris, an untimely stab of pain shot through the inside of his head. It felt as if a stake had been driven straight into his eye.
He looked at his hand to check whether the bleeding had slowed—it hadn't. The wound was the same, the blood still flowing. Nova, however, remained eerily calm. His single healthy eye carried the dull opacity of a living corpse.
He took a step forward onto the sand and thought:
'This place is… was there anyone here?'
Maybe not people in the human sense, but intelligent life—or at least partially intelligent. It takes skilled hands to build something like this.
A sandstone temple. Its style resembled that of ancient Rome from Earth's past history, though the columns bore different details. The inscriptions, written in another language, were still unreadable.
'Did someone build this place?'
The ruins also showed that the structure had been meant to be underground, surrounded by the black stone of the cavern, which rose in jagged peaks of many different sizes.
If Nova had fallen just a little closer to the walls, his fate would have been certain death. His entire body would have shattered into pieces…
Imagining that stirred not the slightest emotion in him.
He continued moving through the debris. A single broken pillar was as thick as his body, and the pillars still barely standing were between six and seven meters tall.
The walls were cracked, revealing parts of the interior.
Covering his wound with the palm of his hand, he stepped deeper into hell. Darkness spread along the edges, while the faint light of the communicator grew stronger in the narrow space.
'Doesn't look like there's anything special.'
Just more debris. Everything was in ruins. The history? Buried along with this old, mysterious temple. Did the people who built this place down here worship some kind of god? Were the inscriptions on the walls and pillars related? Why build this out of sandstone? Was there anything in this world besides endless desert?
So many questions, and no answers. It was stressful.
The interior of the ruined building was a long, broken, empty corridor. There were no traces of other beings, no clues beyond the inscriptions carved into the walls.
'I was hoping there'd be something here to heal me—like one of those legendary weapons from web novels, or some weird system to help me level up.'
Disappointed, the light returned to his single eye. He looked down and shook his head.
"There's nothing here."
He left the temple and pointed the light outside.
'If there's nothing, then I don't have time to waste. I should look for the Sweet Flakes now.'
He began searching through the sand. Kneeling down, he started digging with one hand, following the faint trail of energy from the fruits.
Blood slid down his cheek each time his hand sank into the sand.
After a few minutes, he managed to find the backpack and the staff. He didn't hesitate—using the remains of his coat, he fashioned something to hold his wound in place: a black bandage, with a small wad of fabric to soak up the blood. There was nothing to disinfect the wound, so he would have to pray it didn't get infected.
Once he finished bandaging himself, he sat down on the sand and ate two fruits in a row. Then he lay back and looked up at the faint streak of light shining far above.
'It's daytime up there, huh. Guess I was unconscious for a long time.'
It was a shame that little bit of light couldn't reach down here. There was nothing but a grim, lonely darkness.
'I get out of one mess and straight into another. You're amazing, Nova.'
He covered his face with his forearm.
'Really amazing at having the most random bad luck imaginable.'
He closed his only eye. That sharp pain returned, deep and relentless. It stabbed inside his skull, slid down his cheek like blood, and burned like hell.
As the minutes passed, thinking about how the fruit would slowly start closing the wound, he fell asleep.
The silence of the cavern was still unsettling, but nothing mattered anymore—not now.
Nova's breathing grew soft. That made it clear he was truly asleep, dreaming of something.
In his dreams, he saw a distant memory from his childhood. He saw himself sitting on a rock beneath the shade of a tree, away from the other kids in his class, who laughed and played at being heroes and Aberrations. Meanwhile, he watched small spiders walking in a line, carrying all kinds of organic materials.
Back then, Nova wasn't curious, nor angry, nor prone to crying. He was just very boring. And it wasn't like he minded being alone.
In silence, he could better appreciate nature doing its work. However, one day that peace was broken when a mysterious girl with cat ears and a cat tail approached him.
She was red-haired and adorable.
She asked Nova something.
"What are you looking at? Spiders?"
Nova looked at her and nodded silently. The expression on his face was… depressing. There wasn't a single hint of emotion.
The girl, unlike little Nova, smiled brightly.
"Okay, can I watch too?"
He looked at the arthropods. Then he nodded again. The girl sat beside him, and together they watched the spiders in silence.
Nova opened his eye and woke up. A bit of sand fell onto his face—something was moving up above.
"What? You gonna throw me a rope? How kind of you…"
There was no one there. Just the wind above, pushing sand into the hole.
When no one answered, Nova let out a tired sigh.