Five years had passed.
The world was quiet, buried under layers of dust and sand. A lone figure walked through the vast desert. His clothes were old, torn, and rugged — long black pants, a black shirt, and a black cloak. His boots kicked up small clouds of sand as he moved forward, but he didn't stop. He never stopped.
A large sandworm broke the surface behind him, its body twisting through the air before diving back beneath the ground. The figure didn't even turn. Whether it was there to eat him or not didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
He looked out at the horizon, where the white sun hung heavy in the sky, casting long, dry shadows. As he walked, the figure muttered, "It's so lonely in this world."
After hours of walking, the figure reached what was left of Dorius H2. It was once a place filled with life, but now it was a graveyard of broken buildings. The structures were collapsing in on themselves, rust and decay eating away at everything. The roofs were gone, the walls cracked and falling apart. The wind blew through the empty streets, stirring up dust and ash.
Two graves stood near the center of the ruined city. They were marked by simple crosses, makeshift from old metal and wood. The figure walked toward them, his face shadowed under his hood. Slowly, he pulled off the cloak and tossed it aside. His right eye, the only eye he had left, stared ahead. It was dark, almost empty. His left eye was covered by a black eyepatch, hiding whatever damage was there.
Finally, standing over the graves, he said quietly, "I've found them."
He knelt down in front of the first grave. His hands, rough and calloused, began digging into the dirt. He didn't stop. His movements were steady, focused. It wasn't long before his fingers brushed against something hard. A skull. He carefully pulled it out of the ground, holding it in both hands.
Staring at the skull, the figure's voice was low. "Humanity may be lost... but that doesn't mean we can't have a little faith."
He didn't say anything else. The world around him was quiet. The sun beat down on the land, and the wind carried the distant howls of sandworms moving beneath the surface.
The figure stayed there for a moment, holding the skull in his hands, as if waiting for something that would never come. The graves stood silent, and the ruined city of Dorius H2 was just a shadow of what it once was.
END OF CHAPTER 58