Peter absorbed all the information, all the names, he had to listen to his own words, follow his procedure SERE, he feels like hes back at training when he first joined
"Alright let's set a small perimeter, I want eyes on all the forest lines"
It didn't take longer than a second for all of them to fan slightly out, when the place was deemed, he would never ever say this in a situation like this but he had to safe or acceptable
Gear check was next, he didn't have to say it half of the guys were already checking ammo, the nods on some of their heads
"Anyone injured"
Peter looked slightly behind him as his ears picked up the Australian accent that spoke in the darkness behind him still keeping his gun trained on the forest
There was a hush of unanswered A younger voice answered, he was sure it was the Canadian, Noah yeah thats what his name was.
"Scrapes and bruised"
The voice spoke back and Peter instantly knew what kind of person this was, probably the most important person besides the team lead, the moral booster, the shit stirrer, most importantly, that man was definitely a combat medic
"Then I wasn't asking you, was i?"
The NVGs painted the dense forest ahead in ghostly green, his IR laser cutting through the tangled darkness—only to glance off tree trunks, useless. Then Miguel's voice, rough with a Portuguese edge:
"Sat phone's fried. GPS too. Can't get a fucking signal."
Peter almost laughed. Of course. If something didn't fail tonight, that would be the real omen. Old school, then. He tilted his head up, expecting the familiar comfort of a clear night sky through his goggles—the Milky Way's sprawl, Polaris steady as a compass needle.
Except it wasn't there.
None of it was.
The constellations were wrong. Twisted. Missing.
"The sky's wrong," he muttered, more to himself than the others.
"You sure you didn't rattle your skull loose?" someone shot back.
Peter gritted his teeth. "Look up. North Star's gone. Milky Way too."
A sharp Polish curse cut the air. "Co to kurwa?"
Before the unease could take root, Peter forced his voice steady. "Lads, focus. Next step—"
Miguel interrupted, tone edged with challenge. "Respectfully, Capitán, we're all Tier 1 here. My unit operates autonomous in jungles."
The Aussie snorted. "Mate, you couldn't find hair on a bare ars—"
"Enough." Peter's command snapped like a wire. "None of us chose this shitshow. But we're professionals. Argue later. survive now. And since I've got the most joint ops time, I'll lead. For now."
Silence. No objections. That was as close to agreement as he'd get.
"Right. Next, we—"
A guttural growl ripped through the dark. Maja, teeth bared, was locked onto the tree line, her body rigid as a sprung trap.
A symphony of safeties clicked off.
Rifles snapped up as one, IR lasers stitching jagged green lines across the dense thicket. Something was coming—*fast*—crushing underbrush, snapping branches thicker than a man's arm. Whatever it was, it was **big**.
Maja's growls turned frenzied, her leash straining.
A brown snout thrust through the foliage. Yellowed tusks. A flash of froth on black lips. Then.
Horns.
Curved, brutal things, each as thick as Peter's thigh. Behind them, a shadow resolved into a shape that froze his finger on the trigger:
A battle-axe.
Not a relic, not some ceremonial prop—a weapon, its blade wider than his chest, clutched in a hand the size of a shovel. The creature's body was a mass of corded muscle and matted fur, barely contained by a stinking loincloth. Steam jetted from its nostrils as it inhaled, the stench of wet hide and rancid meat rolling off it in waves.
Peter's brain stuttered.
Minotaur.
Not a statue. Not a myth. Here. Flesh, blood, and fury, its bloodshot eyes locking onto them with primal recognition.
The Aussie's whisper was barely audible:
"Holy shit."
So. Not hallucinating, then.
The beast shifted its grip on the battle-axe, muscles coiling like steel cables beneath its hide.
"Waste the fucker!"
Gunfire erupted and lit the forest in bursts of flashes
thump-thump-thump
rounds punching into thick flesh. Tiny geysers of black blood spurted from the holes, but the creature barely flinched. It roared, swinging the axe in a whistling arc.
Peter threw himself backward. The axe passed so close he felt the wind of it slice the air above his chest. A hit like that wouldn't kill me—it'd erase me. He fired again, 5.56 rounds stippling its torso, but before he could reload, a massive hand clamped around his throat and lifted him off the ground.
His boots kicked empty air. The world narrowed to the beast's bloodshot eyes, the reek of rotting meat gusting from its flared nostrils. Maja snarled, locked onto its leg, but the others had stopped firing—no clean shot.
Gasping, Peter wrenched his pistol free. A muzzle pressed against a fur-covered flank. Squeeze.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG-
The minotaur's grip tightened. Stars burst in Peter's vision as it yanked him closer, jaws widening.
It's going to bite my face off
His fingers found the knife at his belt as he dropped the pistol.
One desperate lunge. The blade sank deep into the beast's eye. A twist.
The minotaur recoiled with a guttural shriek, grip loosening just enough—
Peter jammed the grenade into its gaping maw.
"Fuck you."
He was airborne for a heartbeat before slamming into the dirt. The world flashed white as the explosion tore through the creature's skull.
A wet crunch. The axe thudded to the ground.
Then—nothing. The beast blinked out of existence mid-collapse, as if reality itself had rejected it.
Silence.
Peter lay there, gulping air, his ears ringing. Spent casings gleamed in the dirt, still smoking.
No one spoke.
They looked at the empty ground itself, still stained in black blood, right where they were standing in the circle they appeared, it was gone
"You broken?"
Peter slowly got up with a helping hand
"Im good"
**The realization hit them like a gut punch.**
Piotr was the first to voice it, his accent thickening with unease: *"We're not on Earth, are we?"
FZZZZZT—
"LIAM WHERE ARE YOU?"
Every radio crackled to life simultaneously, the same child's voice piping through their earpieces.
FZZZT— "MATIO COME LOOK WHAT I FOUND! EWW, IT'S GROSS! I THINK IT'S MISSING IT'S HEAD!"
Piotr exhaled sharply. "Static was dead for hours. Now this? Either we're hallucinating, or someone's fucking with us."
But Peter's grip tightened around his radio. Hope.
"Focus," he barked. "One—we're god-knows-where. Two—someone can hear us now."
He keyed the mic, voice steady: "This is Sierra-One, any station on this net, authenticate?"
A giggle. High-pitched, unmistakably a kid's.
"Hello? Who's this?"
Miguel crossed himself. "Dios mío."
Leaning in, Miguel softened his tone like he was coaxing a skittish animal: "Niño, listen carefully. What country are you in?"
More giggles. Then a shout: "TEXAS!"
Henry smirked, despite it all. "Fantastic. We're lost in Narnia, and our lifeline's a six-year-old with a walkie-talkie."
"I'M TWELVE!"
Noah deadpanned: "Ask if they've got GPS coordinates. And ice cream."
Peter cut in, all business. "Child—do you have something to write information down?"
"Yeah! I bought a journal with me!"
"Listen to me very carefully," Peter said, slow and deliberate. "This is an emergency. Get a phone and call this number." He rattled off digits. "When someone answers, say: 'The flowers bloom once.' Then tell them to come to your location—exactly where you are now. And mention the radio. Understood?"
A pause. Then, suspiciously: "...What's in it for me?"
Peter's eye twitched. "I will personally give you a hundred pounds."
Silence.
Henry snorted. "Kid drives a hard bargain."
Peter gritted his teeth. "Two hundred."
Followed by more silence
"Two hundred and fifty"
"DEAL!"
"Kid tell them that in… 72 hours we will be here to receive"
He looked at his watch and set a timer
"Are you astronauts?"
"No kid, now run along and get that phone its a national emergency "
Miguel speaks as he checks his compass, which spins and points weirdly to a point he knows isn't north
"We need to assume we're not on Earth anymore. But if that signal's real, it's a thread we pull hard."
Peter nodded
"Then we treat this like an ISR mission. Mark this spot so we always know where it is. if we live, intel's gonna want every detail. I say we follow where the monster came from"
"Agreed. Maja's got a scent already."
They gathered their gear not that there was much left and moved. The monster's path of destruction was unmistakable: splintered branches, crushed undergrowth, the stench of musk and iron still clinging to the air. But Maja was their guarantee. The dog's nose was the only compass they could trust in this godforsaken place.
Then she stopped.
Ears pricked, body rigid. She sat.
At her paws lay a collar.
Not just any collar thick, leather, heavy enough to restrain a beast. The kind that would fit snug around the minotaur's neck.
Henry whistled low. "Well, shit."
Noah crouched, running a thumb over the worn grooves. "There's someone or something here that's smart. Smart enough to domesticate."
The forest seemed to hold its breath around them
*****
Matio watched as Liam prodded the massive creature with a stick, its scaly hide unmoved by the feeble poking.
"You should've asked for more," Matio muttered.
Liam exhaled, rubbing his temple. "He said it was an emergency. We should just grab your mom's phone you know she always forgets it when she leaves for work."
"Yeah, yeah. Alright."
Matio scanned the backyard forest, grateful for the shade of the oaks in the sweltering Texas heat. The journal in his hands felt heavier now, especially after what they'd heard on the radio. The voices had been urgent, frantic even.
He pushed himself off the moss-covered log, and the two of them trudged back toward the house.
"I'm home!" Matio called out as soon as they stepped inside, only to freeze at the sound of his father's voice from the living room.
"I thought you were sick. That's why you missed school today."
Matio's stomach dropped. He shot Liam a panicked look before stammering, "Um… I mean, I just got out of the..the bathroom. I'm… back. Home?"
His father's sigh was heavy with skepticism. "You sound awful. Go lie down, Matio. And if Liam's with you, tell him not to get too close."
They bolted upstairs, snatching the phone off the kitchen counter in one fluid motion. Back in Matio's room, they collapsed onto the bed one clutching the journal, the other the phone.
They'd already dialed the wrong number once.
The phone rang for an agonizing stretch before a woman's voice answered.
"Hello?"
The boys locked eyes. Matio blurted out in a rush, "Hey, lady—so, we were in the woods, and we heard these people on the radio, and—"
"Sorry, you have the wrong number."
"Wait, wait!" Liam flipped the journal toward Matio, jabbing his finger at the scribbled phrase.
Matio swallowed hard. "The flowers bloom once."
Silence. Then, slowly: "Where did you hear that?"
Liam snatched the phone back. "The radio! The guy sounded like Batman or something!"
A flurry of keyboard clattering erupted on the other end. Then, crisply: "Stay on the line, boys. Transferring you to a specialist."
The call crackled, and a new voice sliced through older, rougher, laced with command. "This is General Peterson. Repeat who is this? Identify yourselves immediately. That phrase is not to be used lightly."
Matio's throat went dry. He shot Liam a panicked glance, but Liam was already stabbing a finger at the journal's scrawled *72 HOURS* and then at the phone, eyes wild.
"Uh… we don't know who was talking," Matio stammered. "Some guys on the radio told us to call you and say… that thing about the flowers. Then they said to tell you to come where the radio works for them. Called it a national emergency."
Liam couldn't hold back anymore. "And they said they'd be receiving in 72 hours! Also also, there's a giant dead monster in the woods behind my house! You should probably get here!"
Another pause long enough for Liam to mouth "what the hell?" at Matio before the voice returned, now laser-focused:
"Signal acquired. Location locked.. listen boys we'll be there in a day or two you tell your parents?"
****
"No, the guy promised me two hundred and fifty pounds?"
The voice on the other end of the line was young, American, and laced with disbelief.
"Understood."
A click. Silence. The call was over.
Rain drummed against the windows of General Peterson's office, no surprise there. England's weather was as reliable as bureaucracy. He lowered the landline receiver, the dial tone humming in his ear before fading into nothing.
Pounds. The word echoed in his mind. And the code, only one man should have known it. A man who had been missing in action for five years. A ghost. An SAS captain.
His fingers moved before his thoughts fully settled, pressing the intercom button with practiced precision.
"Janet. Coffee. The best scientists we have. Military personnel top tier. And a plane to the States."
A beat. Then, crisp and efficient as always: "Done, General Peterson the cars waiting for you right now."
He exhaled. "Thank you, Janet."
looking up he spoke to himself
"Peter is that really you?"