The sun bled into the desert, a molten eye glaring down at the endless dunes. Heat rippled off the sand in waves, distorting the horizon into something unreal, like a world trembling on the edge of existence. The sky was an endless expanse of blue, unbroken except for the distant shimmer of heat mirages that warped the landscape into something surreal. The air was dry, a relentless force that clawed at the lungs and stole the moisture from every breath.
A child staggered through the sands, his bare feet blistered and cracked. His small frame swayed with each step, his body weakened by thirst and exhaustion. He did not know how he had come to be here. The last thing he remembered was waking up alone, the world around him an endless, shifting sea of gold. No signs of life, no shelter, no water. Just the unyielding sun and the burning ground beneath him.
His vision blurred, his mind grasping at fragments of thought. Where was he? Where had he come from? The questions circled in his head, but no answers came. His throat was parched, his lips cracked and bleeding. Each breath was a struggle, shallow and wheezing. The heat pressed down on him like an unseen weight, suffocating and merciless. He tried to call out, but no sound came.
Then, through the haze of his fading consciousness, he saw something. A figure. A man.
The old man stood motionless, staring at the child in quiet disbelief. His weathered face, etched with lines of time and weariness, betrayed no immediate emotion, but his eyes—dark and thoughtful—held a flicker of something close to surprise. A child, here, in the middle of the desert? Impossible. And yet, there he was, stumbling forward, each step weaker than the last.
The child's legs finally gave out. He collapsed onto the burning sand, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His small hands twitched as he tried and failed to push himself up. The old man approached slowly, his tattered robe trailing against the wind-swept dunes. He crouched beside the boy, observing him with an expression that was neither sorrow nor concern. Just a quiet, tired acceptance.
"You're dying," the old man said, his voice dry as the air.
The child blinked up at him, unable to form words, but his expression—somewhere between fear and confusion—was enough of a response.
A sigh. The old man crouched and held out a palm. A shimmer danced above his skin—at first barely visible, then swirling into shape, defying the cruelty of the desert. In an instant, clear water pooled in his hand, reflecting the light of the dying sun. The child's eyes widened, a flicker of wonder breaking through the haze of exhaustion.
"How?" The word was barely more than a breath.
The old man looked at the water, as if contemplating its existence. "Vis," he murmured. "Creation is meaning. The desire of all things to be."
The child reached forward, trembling fingers cupping the water, bringing it to his lips. He drank greedily, drops slipping down his chin, lost to the sand below.
"I don't understand," the child whispered. "Is it… magic?"
The old man exhaled, long and slow. "Everything wants to be something. We give names to things that are not alive. We shape them, give them purpose, make them real. Vis is the force of that desire—the yearning to exist."
The child stared at the old man's empty palm, where the water had been. "Can I do it?"
A flicker of something passed through the old man's gaze—pity, perhaps. "No," he said simply.
"Why?"
"Because you are only a moment."
The wind howled between them, shifting the sand like the turning of an hourglass. The child's breathing slowed. He shivered despite the heat, fingers twitching feebly against the sand. The old man watched, impassive.
"I'm cold," the child whispered.
The old man did not move. "That is because you are leaving."
The child's breath hitched once. Then silence.
The desert stretched on, unchanged. The wind erased their footprints, as if they had never been there.
The old man sat in the sand beside the still body. His shoulders sagged, his hands resting on his knees, empty. The act of creation, however small, had drained him more than he would admit.
"It is always like this," he murmured to no one.
He looked up at the vast, uncaring sky, where the stars had begun to flicker to life. Somewhere beyond them, beyond time itself, the Bodhisattvas watched. He had once been among them, part of their eternal cycle, seeing all his lives at once. And yet, here he was—choosing to walk the earth, choosing to know thirst, choosing to feel the weight of pity and the futility of mercy.
"They will never understand," he said softly. "Immortality means nothing to those who live only once. And so, the cycle turns."
He stood, leaving the child to the desert. The stars above did not weep. The wind did not mourn. Existence moved forward, as it always had. As it always would.