A week passed, then two, then three, then a full month...
Soli was sitting in his cave—the spot he'd made his sanctuary, where he'd ended up settling down.
During daylight hours, he would gather pieces of wood and scout the surrounding land. When dusk fell, he would light a fire and sit beside it.
As for those mysterious creatures, they would visit him at night. They stood just at the edge of the firelight, screaming, growling, and clicking, utterly furious... or at least, that's how it seemed to Soli.
These creatures kept visiting him every single night without fail. They never missed a night. He'd even started calling them by a special name: the Nightfolk.
Maybe they were waiting for him to doze off, to pounce the moment he let his guard down.
But luck wasn't on their side—Soli's eyes simply didn't know sleep.
He stayed constantly vigilant, his gaze shifting from the fire to the darkness and back, as if his eyelids were permanently carved open.
This particular habit wasn't new to this strange planet; even back on Earth, the darkness of sleep had never truly crossed his eyes.
His regenerative ability healed every wound, but it always left behind a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. Still, he managed, just like he always had.
As for food, the gray boy brought it to him at the cave regularly. But Soli, cautious as ever, wasn't about to rely on trust alone.
One day, he grabbed the boy's arm and forced him to lead the way to where the fruit grew.
Soli pointed firmly at the ground, then back at his own eyes, refusing to budge until he watched—under duress—as the boy pulled the first fruit from the soil and showed him the telltale signs that separated the ripe from the rotten.
From that day on, Soli started going out himself every so often to check the fruit spots, making sure he knew the way.
But the boy never betrayed him. He kept visiting daily, always bringing those strange fruits.
The amount was small, but Soli would take them in silence. His only thank you was the slight easing of tension around his eyes.
This unique fruit grew underground, with only slender sprouts and incredibly thin leaves showing above the soil.
Picking it required real skill, as it was all too easy to end up with a rotten or unripe one—something only a trained eye could spot.
After being picked, the root-like tendrils on the fruit's surface would gradually start turning red.
But finding them in the first place was a whole other challenge, because they were carefully hidden under other bushes and trees, making the task of locating them nearly impossible without a guide.
One day, the boy came to Soli without the usual fruit. Instead, he was holding a new obsidian dagger, veined with blue lazuli, but with a different design than the old one. This new dagger looked freshly made compared to its predecessor.
The boy wanted to trade with Soli, to get the old dagger back in exchange for the new one.
Soli didn't care much about the boy's mysterious attachment to the old dagger—even though he had a new one now.
But what really caught his attention were the injuries covering the boy's body.
It looked like he had taken a severe beating. He was limping badly, his hand pressed against his stomach as if holding back a deep pain, and his left eye was swollen shut.
The real shock, however, was the blue blood trickling from the corner of his lip.
It seemed the boy had stolen the new dagger, and these injuries were a harsh lesson someone had taught him.
The strange thing was, despite it all, he had managed to hold on to the dagger. It was as if the punishment wasn't for keeping it, but for the act of stealing itself.
Soli refused the trade. He turned his back on the boy, gripping the old dagger in his hand. He knew this piece of metal was the only thing tying the boy to him.
Despair washed over the injured boy's face. He then turned and limped away to fetch the day's fruit, his plans shattered and his hopes dashed. He had endured all that beating for a plan that had ultimately failed.
Soli's footsteps began to lead him to the areas surrounding the cave, far from the familiar path.
His eyes scanned every detail: every strange footprint, every unfamiliar sound. And at night, with the fire crackling, his fingers would trace vague lines in the cave's sandy floor, like a primitive map.
He also returned to an old habit. Sometimes, he would command that black screen with the golden edges to appear, staring intently at the mysterious symbols adorning it.
Then, he would raise his knife and make a small cut on his forearm, watching a few drops of blood fall before the tissue began to knit itself back together before his eyes.
With each healing wound, his gaze at the screen grew more intense, as if challenging it to give him an answer.
***
"Dammit…"
Soli muttered, his eyes fixed on the empty cave entrance. He'd spent a full month here, and the boy had never been late—not once. But now, he'd been gone for four whole days.
On the second day of his absence, Soli had sat waiting in the cave, his hand resting on the hilt of his dagger. But no one had come... not the boy, nor his people.
By the third day, Soli had to venture out himself. His steps were cautious as he headed for the fruit patches he'd learned, his eyes constantly scanning the ground around him, searching for any sign of the boy or any impending danger.
And it was true—after days of rest and eating the fruit, the bone-deep weariness that had clung to him for weeks was finally starting to fade.
The improvement wasn't dramatic, but his muscles no longer ached with every move, and the pounding in his skull no longer flared up after walking long distances.
Yet, eating the same fruit day in and day out had made him sick of it. He'd started craving something different, anything else. But there was no alternative.
A fifth day passed with no sign of the boy, so Soli went out to search for the fruit himself.
He left the cave and took the straight path he always used, the one that led to an area rich with a decent amount of fruit... but.
"Another one."
He had traveled far from the cave, but he hadn't found a single piece of fruit that was intact, not even an unripe one. They were all... rotten.
Soli let out a deep sigh before standing up and continuing in a straight line. He was a good distance out, but he still knew his way back.
"Aaaaaaaaaaah!!"
His concentration shattered as a piercing scream came from the very direction he was headed. Soli broke into a sprint, rushing toward the source of the sound.
There, around a bend in the path, he found the gray boy. He was clutching a high branch, dangling from the tree with trembling arms, his eyes locked in terror on something below.