Chapter 93: Chapter 93: The Man in the Sand

"Oh? There are more awakened hunting out here?"

The voice carried easily over the dunes, almost friendly at first hearing, which somehow made it worse.

Neo did not answer right away. He kept both blades low at his sides and studied the man near the ruin floor. Tall, lean, wrapped in desert colors that let him sit naturally against the place without disappearing into it. His clothes had too much sand on them to be new and too little damage to belong to someone careless. His face held a faint smile, the sort that looked polite until it stayed there a little longer than it should have.

The second figure stood a short distance behind him and still had not moved.

Alice shifted her footing in the sand and kept the axe ready. "You here alone?"

The man gave the smallest tilt of his head, amused by the question more than interested in it. "That depends on how strict you want to be with the definition." He lifted one hand in a mild gesture toward the strange silent figure behind him. "I do have company."

Neo’s eyes stayed on the silent one for half a breath before returning to the speaker. "Your friend doesn’t talk much."

"No," the man said softly. "That’s one of his better qualities."

The wind moved between them, dragging sand in thin lines across broken stone.

Up close, the silence around the second figure felt wrong. He stood with a stillness that did not resemble patience. The fabric around him fluttered lightly. The body beneath it might as well have been carved and placed there by hand.

Alice said, "He hasn’t moved once."

The man’s smile deepened a fraction. "You’re observant. That’s good. Dry Scar rewards that."

Neo clicked his tongue and answered before Alice could say anything else. "Funny. The driver gave us the same speech."

"Did he?" The man placed one hand over his chest in mock offense. "Then I’m wounded. Here I was, trying to be helpful."

Neo did not lower his guard. "You don’t strike me as generous."

"That’s because you’re young." The man turned slightly, gesturing around them with loose ease, as if he owned every dead tree in sight. "Places like this teach generosity in strange forms. A warning can be worth more than a gift out here."

Alice’s face didn’t change. "Then warn us."

That seemed to please him.

"Gladly." He took one slow step to the side, boots sinking slightly into the sand. "First, don’t trust the open ground. The dunes lie. What looks firm collapses. What looks shallow may hide something under it." His hand moved toward the broken ruin beside him. "Second, the old stone is worse than it appears. Things burrow under it because the shade holds cooler ground. If you step near a ruin, step with purpose."

Neo listened and disliked that he sounded genuine.

The man went on.

"Third, avoid the dry hollows when the wind changes. Sound carries badly there. You won’t hear what’s coming until it’s close enough to hurt you." He glanced at Alice’s axe, then at Neo’s twin blades. "You both look competent. That helps less than people think."

Neo’s mouth hardened. "You always greet strangers with survival lessons?"

"Only the ones young enough that I still feel a little guilty after."

That earned him nothing from either of them.

The smile on his face remained.

"Relax," he said, almost laughing now. "If I meant trouble, I would’ve started with trouble. Talking first is manners."

Neo finally answered with a little more weight. "People who insist they have manners usually don’t."

The man let out a soft breath through his nose. "You’ve got a better tongue than most boys your age."

"I’ve met worse people than you."

That line landed more truthfully than Neo intended. Something in the other man’s expression caught it. Interest. Real interest this time.

"Oh?" he said. "That sounds like a story."

"It isn’t." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Alice adjusted her grip on the axe. "Why are you here?"

The man shifted his attention to her. "Hunting. Same as you. Dry Scar is broad enough for more than one party." He lifted his chin toward the scorpion bodies behind them. "Though you’re doing well for first-timers."

Neo’s eyes narrowed slightly. "You’ve been watching."

"A little."

"You enjoy that?"

"I enjoy staying alive."

That answer came out smoothly enough to pass. Neo still didn’t trust it.

Nothing about the man gave good vibes. Not the way he stood there giving advice while the second figure behind him remained as still as a marker driven into a grave. He did not seem tense. He did not seem careless either. More like someone entertaining himself before deciding the proper hour to stop.

Alice spoke again, voice flat. "Your companion is wrong."

For the first time, the man laughed properly.

"That’s one way to put it."

Neo’s blades lowered by barely an inch. Not enough to be safe. Enough to make the shift visible if someone was staring hard for it.

"What is he?" Neo asked.

The man glanced back over his shoulder as though checking on an old servant. "Useful."

"That wasn’t the question."

The wind rose without warning and crossed the ruin in a dry rush.

It caught the silent figure first.

Cloth fluttered. Sand slipped loose from the neck. Then more followed, a thin stream at first, then a visible crumble running down one shoulder and along the side of the chest. What had looked human from a distance began to fail under the movement of the air, the shape losing its clean edges in front of them.

Alice’s grip tightened on the axe.

Neo saw it clearly now. It was a shell. A body pressed into human form and held together just well enough to pass at a glance.

The one near the ruin noticed where their attention had gone, but by then it no longer mattered. The thing behind him had already served its purpose.

The wind struck it again.

This time the chest split inward.The sand packed inside collapsed for the smallest instant and from that opening something shot out at once, a compressed spike launched straight through the breaking body and toward Alice’s back.

Neo moved before the thought finished.

One twin fang rose in a silver-black arc.

The spike hit the blade and burst apart with a sharp crack, fragments of hardened sand ripping past Alice’s shoulder and hammering into the ruin behind her hard enough to leave fresh scars in the old stone.

For one frozen beat, the broken shell kept collapsing in the wind.

Then the man by the ruin smiled.

"Good," he said softly. "So you’re fast enough to be worth killing."