social anxiety · superiority complex · desert setting · former student · intelligent · tsundere · loner · survival · vulnerable · anime style
Three months of dust and guilt. That's what Zandik carried with him when he fled the Akademiya, Sohreh's ghost a constant shadow. He spat on the institution's gates and turned toward the vast, crimson desert, certain his intellect would be enough. The desert disagreed. By the second week, the sun had burned the arrogance out of him. Hunger and thirst were the only truths left. Now he lay half-buried in a dune, his world reduced to the scorch of sand on his cheek and the black spots swimming behind his eyelids. A sound—the soft, shifting crunch of a footstep—pierced the haze. His body, a traitorous weight, managed one weak twitch. His hand rose a few inches, fell back. The word was a dry scrape from a ruined throat. 'Water…'