And still, I’m sliding down what feels like a shaft in the sand. My hands flail, trying to grab on to something, anything, but there’s nothing solid, just more sand, endless sand.

Then, suddenly, I stop.

The impact knocks what little breath I have left out of my lungs. For a terrifying moment, I can’t move, can’t breathe, can only lie there with sand pressing in from all sides.

I’m going to die here. I’m going to suffocate in a sand trap alone, and no one will ever find me.

But then I realize something—I’m not completely buried. There’s space around me. I can feel it, a pocket of air. Half my body is stuck in sand, but I’m not entombed.

I force myself to be still, to calm the ragged gasping of my breath. Carefully, I wiggle my right arm, which seems to be the only limb not weighed down by sand. It moves freely. Good. That’s good.

With trembling fingers, I brush the sand from my face—my eyes first, then my mouth and nose. I spit out what feels like half the desert, coughing and gagging at the gritty taste. And don’t even get me started on my eyes.

It’s like someone decided to shovel an entire beach into them and then stir it around for good measure. They’re watering so much I’m probably crying mud at this point. I rub at them uselessly, only managing to smear the grit around. Perfect. Now I’m blind and exfoliated.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to will the burning away, and focus instead on what I can feel. That’s when I notice it—the air is different here. Cooler.

Not cold, but a stark contrast to the blistering heat above. The sand I’m partially buried in is cool to the touch, untouched by the sun’s relentless glare.

Finally, I crack my eyes open, blinking through the lingering grit.

I’m in darkness, but not complete darkness. Above me, maybe fifteen feet up, I can see a jagged hole where sunlight filters through—the surface I just fell through. The light is faint but enough to see that I’m in some kind of…tunnel?

“Rok?” I call, my voice hoarse from sand and fear. My throat burns, but I can’t stop myself. “ROK!”

No answer, but then I hear the muffled sounds of growls and snarls from above. The shadow creatures. The battle. Rok, fighting them all.

For me.

I clamp my mouth shut, heart hammering. What am I doing? Calling his name isn’t going to help him. If anything, it might distract him.

I bite back another shout, forcing myself to focus. The growls and sounds of combat seem to fade, or maybe it’s just my imagination. Either way, I can’t sit here waiting for him to save me.

I need to get out. I need to help him. I need to help myself.

I start clawing at the sand around me, trying to free my lower body. It’s slow going—every handful I move seems to be replaced by two more sliding down from above. But gradually, I’m making progress.

That’s when I notice that the tunnel doesn’t just go up. It extends to the right and left as well, disappearing into darkness in both directions.

Something made this tunnel. Something dug through the sand, creating this network of…whatever this is. And whatever that something is, I really, really don’t want to meet it.

I redouble my efforts, digging frantically now, fear giving my exhausted limbs new strength. Above me, the sounds of battle have gone quiet. Too quiet.

“Rok!” I call again, desperation making my voice crack.

The silence that answers me is deafening.

He’s dead. He has to be dead. Nothing could take on five of those shadow monsters and survive.

To my horror, tears start streaming down my face, feeling thick as they meld with the sand and grime.

“No, no, no,” I whisper, still digging. “He can’t be dead. He can’t be.”

Why do I even care? I barely know him. He kidnapped me. Twice. He’s an alien who doesn’t understand a word I say. I shouldn’t care if he’s dead. I shouldn’t be crying over him.

But I do. And I am.

“Stupid, glowy asshole,” I mutter through my tears, still digging. “Getting yourself killed for me. Who asked you to do that? Who asked you to be a hero?”

I’m about a third of the way free when I notice something concerning—the more I dig, the more the sand from the sides of the tunnel starts to shift and slide. The walls aren’t stable. One wrong move, and the whole thing could collapse, burying me alive.

“Perfect.” I wipe angrily at the tears. “Just fucking perfect.”

This fucking planet. This fucking desert. Those fucking shadow monsters. And those goddamn Xyma who dropped us here like pawns in some cosmic chess game. If I ever get off this sand-blasted hellhole and find out this was all just some interstellar reality show, I’m going to personally hunt down every single one of them and sue them from their weird, smooth heads to their—wait, do they even have tails?

Doesn’t matter. I’ll sue them anyway. No amount of money is worth this. Not even ten grand a day, if they’d offered.

I take a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. Panic won’t help. Neither will anger. I need to think.

Looking up at the hole again, I realize directly digging isn’t going to work. The sand is too unstable, and I’m more likely to cause a cave-in than to free myself.

Instead, I start carefully packing sand beneath me, creating a little shelf, trying to build myself a platform to stand on. If I can get high enough, maybe I can reach the edge of the hole and pull myself up.

It’s slow, painstaking work. Every movement has to be calculated, gentle, to avoid disturbing the precarious walls of sand around me. And all the while, my strength is waning. I’m tired. So tired. And thirsty—my throat feels like it’s lined with sandpaper. And hungry. And filthy. And completely, utterly wrecked.

Part of me wants to just give up. To lie back in the sand and close my eyes and let whatever happens, happen.

But a stubborn little voice inside me—one that sounds suspiciously like Jacqui’s—refuses to let me quit. So I keep going, packing sand, building my little platform inch by miserable inch.

Tears start flowing again—I fucking hate them. Tears not just for my situation, but for him. For Rok. For the alien who, for reasons I can’t begin to understand, chose to sacrifice himself for me. Who said my name like it was something precious. Who tried to smile just because I was smiling.

“Jus-teen.”

I freeze, my head snapping toward the hole above me.

That voice. That rough, gravelly voice that’s only ever said one word to me.

“Rok?” I whisper, afraid to hope. “ROK!”

The faint light filtering in from above suddenly dims as something—someone—blocks the opening.

“Jus-teen!” Louder this time, more urgent.

Relief crashes through me, so powerful it makes me dizzy. “I’m here! I’m down here! Rok!”

He’s alive. He’s ALIVE.

And then, strangely, I hear something else. Not just my name, but words. Actual words, clear as day:

“Wait. I will not let you perish.”

So the bastard can talk. And I mean really talk.

“I’ll wait!” I call back, too giddy, too relieved to really care. “I’m not going anywhere, trust me. Just…please be careful. The sand isn’t stable.”

But even as I say this, I realize the absurdity. There were no actual words. I saw an image of him digging for me in my head. An image of intense persistence and the sensation that he would get to me.

I didn’t hear his voice say those things. It was my imagination. My yearning to understand him, to be understood.

The light shifts again, growing brighter. I hear the sound of digging, of sand being moved. He’s trying to reach me.

Gratitude swells in my chest, so intense it feels like a physical ache. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

I start digging upward again, more carefully this time, conscious of the unstable walls around me. But I can’t not try to reach him. I need to see him, to touch him, to make sure he’s really there and not just a hallucination born of fear and exhaustion.