The ground settles as the sands of the cliffside silt and dry soil scatter and tumble down the scorching hot rocks. Here, in this barren land of the Mongolian desert, it is oft required to travel in groups, lest you attract the attention of bandits, the ever-expansionist Chinese PLA patrols raiding desert parties for their supplies, or other more sinister dangers. It would be highly unusual, if not unheard of, for a single man to traverse these sands.

And yet that is what one man found himself doing. With little of substance on him save for the coat wrapped around his thin person, and the wooden scabbard clattering haphazardly against his leg. His face was emaciated and lanky, both from lack of water and profound fatigue. Yet he continued.

“Cold makes the traveler tuck their coat in, but heat brings them to their knees...whoever came up with that damned line needs to have soap rubbed in their eyes.”

Shampoo, he thought. The man blinked at the absurdity of his own thoughts. Was he finally losing it in the swelter? No, he thought. Be logical. You are subconsciously thinking of shampoo because you are filthy and you want a shower. Shower...water...food. These things were distant in his mind, yet screamed at him from across the expanse...they demanded attention.

“Last meal I had. Think. Last meal. It was, uh...the desert deer...Yeah. That was a week ago. I think.”

Removing a stick from his coat, the man checked the engravings. He had been counting, and utilized a two-sided dagger, worn and pitted in the handle with age, to count the number of times the Sun rose. Days. Another stick, he counted his miles, measured by 2,000 paces each. Numbers, he thought. Life, death, economics, war, in its simplest terms, is a game of numbers. 2,000 paces a mile. 2,000 miles to the coast of China.

“Assuming, of course, I don’t run into any PLA patrols. Or thieves. Or sand worms.”

Gazing at the cliffside, he took note of the fact that the insects in the area had gone silent. His withered lips closed into a grimace as he slipped his heavy, dark coat aside, revealing the scabbard on his hip, the cloth and leather torn and frayed from prior conflict. Similarly torn, the flesh on his leg. Travel along the desert was far from a daytime road trip.

“To think this is so difficult now. In the war, it was at least one continent. There was rain. Water. God damn it all, I need wat- focus.”

Forcing his withered body into action, the man deeply considered being the first to draw a weapon. He wiped the dust off of his dry face. Dry. No sweat. Water, damn it. The frustration finally gave the man resolve enough to indignantly scream out, roaring a challenge to his unseen foe. It echoes and scatters across the rocks as the sand vibrates with his voice.

Wait, he thought. I didn’t scream that loudly. Why is the sand...moving?

An upwell of alarm forced adrenaline into the man’s blood as he skid across the rocks to avoid the doom surging through the sand. Wide enough to swallow many men whole at once, long enough to wrap around most city blocks, a Mongolian death worm releases a supersonic, bassy blast to stun its foe. The man’s hearing turns to tinnitus for a few moments as he slams to the cliff below. Having fallen some 10 feet, he could add a sprained shoulder and gouged arm to his injuries.

A fighter he may be, but fighting a Mongolian death worm is not something he is keen on doing. Now would be an excellent time for a distraction. Something. Anything.

Crack! 5 millimeter rounds ripped by the man’s head in a violent, controlled burst. Whipping his body to force it behind a rock for cover, he recognized the shooter before ever needing to raise his head to look. A PLA patrol - small by their standards, but it consisted of two armored cars mounted with their light machine guns. There was no time to debate or negotiate. The man needed to make for the coast, and fast. Getting shot here was not on his to-do list, and neither was fighting a sandworm.

Brazenly, the man charged from his position behind the rock as the two cars screamed down the road. The noise spurred the worm to action as it erupted from the ground. Car engines were louder than footsteps, and gunshots louder still. As it engorged its mouth cavity with the metal and gore carcass of the first car being crunched in its steel maw, the second car’s gunner was dispatched by a well-placed gunshot to the chest. The man was armed with a junky black pistol, frankly on the verge of giving up. Sand and grit jammed it, and in that instant, he was thrown over the hood by the now indignant driver running him over. Returning the favor, the man kicks in the flat window of the vehicle and piles onto the diver, driving his sword into the soldier’s neck and tossing his body out. It was challenging, to say the least, to whip the wheel back under control while falling over oneself to orient the body into the proper driving position, not whatever contortionist pose the man held. Usually, one drives with their feet at the pedals, not their head.

“My knees are gonna kill after this.”

Fighting shock and pain, the man nearly stalls the vehicle as he clambers for control of the wheel, and in the process smacks the shift lever stick out of position. The vehicle slows to a rumble as the man stomps the gas to the floor, jerking back and forth as the car slows down.

In moments, he registers the rumbling of the sand worm and has little choice but to improvise. He forgoes the steering wheel, jumping into the back seat and feeling air leave his lungs as he lands on a spare gas can and an ammo container...gas can, he thought.

Leaping into the gunner's seat as the sandworm crests by the Sun, the man hurtles the gas can upwards at the right enough moment to punt the can into the maw of the worm. A burst from the machine gun confirms the kill as the gas can ruptures, tearing the worm apart from the inside, thus reducing it to a smoldering mass of burnt flesh and teeth as it crashes into the ground between the cliffside and the car. The force, however, savagely rocks the man in place as he clambers back down into the gunpit and climbs for the front seat. He is sent careening off of the road and into the embankment below, which is a significantly more substantial drop than 10 feet.

The man blacks out on impact as his body is sent hurtling through the front window he had knocked out earlier, glass shards, shell casings, sand and who knows what else following him as he grinds to a halt on the plateaued ground below, blood trickling from his wounds. Silence fills the air as his last thought before unconsciousness was something akin to being thankful there wasn’t a second worm.