The bird spied from atop its roost, high in the lonetree. The tree was dark and burned. Thousands of feet below it lay a vast desert, infested with chasmal lacerations that creeped hundreds of miles in each direction like veins in a decaying body. Its surface was pure beige stone, barren of sand that could give the illusion of movement. Nothing ever moved in the desert, aside from the worms.
It hopped from branch to branch, staring downwards, studying the landscape for any sign of its ever-elusive prey. That dance continued deep into the night. The bird’s orange eyes glowed out into the now abyssal darkness beneath the towering lonetree, but it would not find its meal this night. It eventually entered sleep, hungry, but still patient. Should need be, it would be able to survive another 74 months without a meal.
It awoke in the morning and stretched its gargantuan wings with a grinding flap that would have been deafening had there been anything around to hear it. A crunching mechanical crackle that shook the tree, ignoring its rigidity and immense size. The altitude atop the lonetree was so staggering that the bird could watch the gray sun appear from beyond the curvature of the planet, and ascend to the point in which the desert would fall beneath its light. Then, when it did, the bird would leap into the air and sail around the waste— again on the hunt, directing its bright, beady eyes towards the unmoving floor.
Throughout its territory, it loomed black and menacing in the sky, casting a shadow that swam on the ground and covered nothing but rocks and shallow ravines. Its chipped beak leaked a deep red glow from its mouth, and that glow intensified every time it opened it to inhale. The sharp feathers of its wings rattled with every motion and adjustment as it soared, and provided the only sound native to the desert. It flew all day; from the peaks of the mountains far to the north, and all the way down to the desert’s edge in the south. Never stopping and never losing focus of its task. Still, it found nothing— as it did most days —and returned home; where it would again perch itself up in the high branches of the monolithic lonetree, and stare hungrily into the waning light of the sunset, and eventually the night. Thus was the life of the bird.
Each day was the same. The same flight, the same sights, and the same results. Worms rarely showed themselves anymore. This bird was an ancient one, and they had slowly learned to stay away from its territory over the thousands of years that it reigned above it. Only young, foolish ones still ventured in every couple dozen years. The elder ones stayed nearer to other territories and other lonetrees.
The worms’ infrequent passage and diminutive size only spurred the bird’s dedication further; one moment of rest could mean missing the next worm. One loss of its single-minded attention towards that always silent desert could mean its death. Even during the few hours of sleep that it conceded every night, it still had a sensor constantly trained downwards, that would detect any movement as well as its eyes could. Thus was the life of the bird.
The 74 months turned into 62, then 50, then 38, then 26. Then something moved down in the desert.
The worm burrowed through the stone like a drill, deep enough to not disturb the surface. It made no noise that would have been audible from the outside— but it had to breathe. An experienced worm beneath bird-sight would time its breaths, but this worm was not one of those. It was young and had never met a bird. For just a single second, it breached the rock and grabbed a quick gulp, but that sealed its fate. From nearly a hundred miles away, the bird saw.
It roared a shattering bleat across the arid stonescape, vibrating the ground enough to move dust that had sat stationary for decades. Its wings extended to a length that they had never before; partially blotting out the sun and plunging half of the desert into a false night. It dived with a speed previously unreachable with its smaller wingspan and was upon the worm in seconds. It slammed into the ground, and ate through the earth, using its mouth as a shovel— penetrating directly into the path of the worm. The worm knew no better and dug straight into the bird’s clutches. Squirming futilely in the jagged talons, it emitted a screeching, high-pitched wail from its jaws as they clamped open and shut repeatedly in a hopeless panic as it was dragged from its tunnel. The bird didn’t even bother heading back to the lonetree to begin its meal. Right there on the desert floor, its beak serrated by its many breaks, it tore through the thin layer of armor and into the worm’s blue, veinous innards. Popping open tubes, pipes, and valves with an indiscriminate ferocity, it guzzled down the viscous, illuminant fluid that it had been searching so long for; splashing it all over the ground as it did, dyeing the dust. Immediately a wave a rejuvenation pulsed through it. The glow of its eyes and mouth became a little brighter, its weight a little lighter, and its movements a little smoother. It ate until nothing was left, aside from the worm’s steel shell, which it afterwards carried home, and draped across one of the smaller branches near the base of the lonetree’s trunk. There it would lay next to other worm-shells, still stained by their own phosphorescent blood. While it sat and dried under the dim sun along with its brothers, the bird was already searching for another worm to add to the collection of corpses. That may take it decades, or only a few days— it didn’t matter. The hunt never ended, even after a recent success. Always vigilant, it never wavered in its watch. Missing a worm was death. So, it sat atop the lonetree looking downwards as night fell, eyes shining and hungry. In the morning, it would make its rounds in the sky. Thus was the life of the bird.