It missed his head. But now, he was completely and utterly exposed with no tree coverings. The sandworm’s entire body was entirely viewable to the near-death Lark.

His vision blurred and he couldn’t lift his head up. He definitely broke something in his handsome face. Jaw? A piece of his common sense? But at least Gushi was safe. The sandworm’s attention was all on him. He would be its meal instead.

Somewhere inside his stomach, echoed a pitiful laugh, knowing all that energy on screaming went to waste. He had landed on the side of his face and was staring at the butt-side of the sandworm. Or what he guessed was the butt-side without razor-sharp teeth—wham!

His body suddenly barreled through the air. A huge rock ceased his flying as pain slammed from behind his back.

It’s not good to play with your food, dammit! Then as he thought a laugh was bubbling out of his chest, what regurgitated out of his throat instead was a steady stream of blood. Oh great, he was hemorrhaging. Lark wore a shit grin as the second tail flick came for him. Carefully, he scrunched his neck to his knees and rolled under the tail swipe, which blasted through the top-side of the rock formation.

I’m in trouble now. No longer able to move, Lark came face to face with the sandworm’s food chute. Its teeth angled in jutted triangles along the rim and something scarier lurked inside, a tongue. Supposing snake tongues were cute, a sandworm’s was the complete opposite. It appeared like a second body akin to a caterpillar, lumpy with tiny hairs, but scaled like a lizard.

Sphinx, I’m going to kill you twice over, you fucking sadist. Lark closed his eyes and waited for the bite that never came.

“In this state, soul-linked parties will be able to gain experience simultaneously in SIM as long as parties are participants.”

In the bleak, sorry state Lark was in, he still was able to hear the robotic voice of his A.I. COSMO? Although the AI was paired with his smartwatch’s basic functionalities, he didn’t remember connecting COSMO to the SIM app.

“I took the liberty of doing that,” Sphinx said. “The little guy makes a good assistant.”

Shortly after hearing the return of his guide, Lark’s face hurt. He still couldn’t move, but he was alive?

Lark’s chest heaved. Hopefully, it was just a bruised rib, he thought, before trying to lift heavy eyelids. The mammoth of a monster was grotesquely covered with dirt and putrid blood. All the adrenaline in his body shortly rebounded in his heart once he saw who was clinging between life and death in the Sandworm’s orifice.

“Gushi?”

The tiny slime transformed into a larger version of itself and was currently holding apart the Sandworm’s mouth with raw strength. Lark rolled on his stomach and coughed. Pain and pain and pain. Every bone in his body freakn’ hurt! But Gushi wouldn’t last long at this rate. Just remembering numbers, the Sandworm’s strength stood at 50 points compared to the slime’s measly 10.

He inhaled, breathing in sand and blood(most likely his nose broke), and ignored all the flashes of prickling sensations inside of him. “Gushi—” he breathed out. “Patch yourself up and get outta here.”

His eyes wanted to roll to the back of his head as soon as he finished speaking. Never mind basic martial arts training and all these nonsensical breathing exercises, he couldn’t even get back up after one hit. Cough. If he slept now, could he pretend none of this ever happened?

That sounded nice.

It was getting too hard to breathe anyways, he conceded.

Next thing he knew, he awoke to the sound of a watermelon exploding above him. Something cold, and wet drizzled down his cheek.

“No?” Lark muttered blankly. Instinctively, he knew what had happened. An oddly, familiar goopy sensation traveled over his skin, the same way his hands first quivered against his first monster kill.

“No?” repeated Sphinx. The ground thumped. A second later, the sand slithered under his bones.

“That’s not good enough Lark.”

He could envision that smirk and shake of that devil’s head even with his eyes closed. Still, not an inch of him could move anymore.

“Spirit training will be very harsh on you at this rate.”

Soon, he wasn’t lying on anything anymore. Unending darkness confronted him. Hot air encased his sides, burning his ears, the rest of his body he couldn’t feel. And as quickly as he imagined it, his arm ripped away from him, hanging at the jaws of the Sandworm’s mouth. Worse than a hacksaw job. Of course, in his Mind Space, it was difficult to separate the arm from the body. Arm from body. His arm unattached. Armless.

At last, death was unavoidable.

The caterpillar tongue ravished him, skinning his clothes into tatters, and finally tightened around his waistline. He wondered why his head was left unbroken still. Or maybe it already was? None of this felt real. Real.

If all he had left was his head, where would the Mind Space go? Would this nightmare end?

“You should know by now, just punch-harder tactics won’t work in unreasonable situations.”

The voice of his guide was always unreasonable. How could anyone think clearly in this kind of situation, when all only felt was despair? Unreasonable despair, which kept spiraling down with him. Strange enough. This was the exact feeling he had on his bus ride. Contained chaos.

His left arm, still with him, grappled the slippery, scaled tongue, which slowed his descent down the pipeline, but undoubtedly the worm did not like it. The dark tunnel quaked.

An unbearable quietness settled in his head. Quiet did not mean calm, and there was no way he could silence the anger unraveling. The spatial ring’s storage space appeared next to his waist and with his free hand he pulled out the gun.

How else can I say that exist? His teeth clenched. It’s this!

The symbol on his chest glowed as if it lit on fire. Raw energy shot down his arm and into the gun.

Several shots immediately collided against the monster’s thick, throaty walls. Fleshy, pink gums sizzled. A moment later, the scaly tongue tightened even more against his ribcage. A squelchy sound escaped him before he spat out what he believed to be bile. Surely, more blood spurted out.

Then he aimed lower at where it was holding him. Perhaps, the loss of bodily fluids was getting to him, so his grip loosened, and only a single shot fired.

Luckily, or unluckily, it was just enough to fling his body upwards into the monster’s jaws where light filtered through the gaps of its teeth. There wasn’t a wide enough gap for his body to exit. He had to press it further, but his gaze scrambled. Eyes unfocused, Lark’s gun rang out wild shots with the singular intent to pierce a way out.

A tooth broke off. The jagged edge cut into his cheek. More light poured through. Finally, the jaws opened.

However, Lark was no longer going ‘up’ but rather, the sandworm’s cavernous throat had shrunk and twisted. It began to writhe in agony.

The worm’s actions told him, he’d won a point against it, but his body could no longer endure the thrashing and screaming. Out of breath, and out of mind, his body tumbled into a gravelly path. His vision wore out not long after he felt the sand fall between his fingertips, and soon after, absolutely nothing.