Day 21 to Day 23 Beyond the Door
The rain had stopped.
It wasn't much, but to the six survivors, it felt like mercy.
The sky above Zarconis—lavender during the day, streaked with twin auroras by night—was clearer than it had been in days. Three moons hovered like silent watchers: one red, one silver, one green. Floating crystal specks drifted high above the treetops, catching the glow of the twin stars as they filtered through layers of mist. No rumble of claws in the distance. No echoing roars. Only the soft hum of wind rustling through thick jungle vines and the occasional cry of a bird-like creature that never revealed itself.
A temporary peace had settled over the camp they'd rebuilt at the edge of a towering canyon. They called it "The Spine"—a deep ravine with luminous waterfalls, wrapped in thick fog. The canyon's mist swirled upward, catching glints from the star-river patterns in the sky above. The team believed the depth of the chasm would offer early warning if anything climbed up to reach them.
They were wrong. But they didn't know it yet.
Right now, they believed they had a chance.
Day 21
Lior leaned over a stone slab, analyzing one of the glowing spore-pods she'd collected from a nearby nest-like growth. The plant was still pulsing with warmth, feeding on something beneath the soil.
"Still alive," she muttered.
Beside her, Rul squatted, using a military-grade tablet to map the structure's strange layout. "Alive?" he chuckled dryly. "That thing's breathing."
"I think it's communicating," Lior added. "Maybe through heat. Or scent. There's a pattern. It matches the movements of those flying things from last night."
"Let's not name things until we're sure they won't eat us," he said, eyeing the jungle nervously.
"That's half the camp's fun," said Nyla, the scout who'd once been a singer back on Kewaa. She sat on a rock nearby, chewing on a ration bar while sketching the landscape.
"I still say we call that six-legged lizard a 'Snagger,'" said Juno, their injured engineer, motioning toward a curled-up corpse at the canyon's edge. "It nearly snagged my whole damn leg."
They all laughed. Quietly. But it was real.
Even Kalen—the quiet one—grinned as he fixed a rail turret using leftover parts from the fallen drone. For a moment, they weren't the last flickering embers of a dying mission. They were explorers. Adventurers. Survivors.
Day 22
The team expanded deeper into the canyon's upper edge, drawn to strange black columns that hummed when approached. Alien script danced along the surface—shifting, rotating, never quite staying still.
"We shouldn't touch these," Lior warned.
"But they're charged," Juno said. "Could be energy sources. Maybe even a signal node."
"Or a trap," Nyla muttered.
But Kalen was already scanning one, his visor flickering with warnings. "It's old tech. Mixed with organic materials. Like a nervous system for a building."
Rul looked skyward, toward the moons that hovered like distant gods. Between them, the auroras moved in wide ribbons, casting ghostly light across the canyon. "Whatever made this… I don't think they're gone."
They found remains that day. Bones—massive and clawed—scattered across a clearing. One skull had six eye sockets. Another was impaled on a tree grown through its jaw, now blooming with amber flowers that released tiny glowing motes into the wind.
Lior knelt before the scene in awe. "These weren't animals. They buried their dead."
Nyla swallowed. "So what happened to them?"
No one answered.
Flashback: Before the Door
Juno stood beside a white transit pod, adjusting her tool belt. She was late to briefing but still smiling.
"You nervous?" Kael had asked.
Juno smirked. "We're about to step into another world. Yeah, I'm terrified. But this… This is what we were made for, right?"
She offered her hand.
Kael shook it. "Glad to have you."
Her laughter echoed through the docking bay. The sound was a memory now—too clear, too warm.
Day 23
It began with music.
A strange melody, echoing faintly through the jungle, as if someone far away was playing an instrument carved from wind and water. It wasn't familiar. But it wasn't terrifying either. It beckoned.
They followed it.
Through thick mist and glowing moss fields, deeper than they had ever dared. The moss shimmered beneath their boots like stardust trapped in sponge. The music led them to a cavern—a dome of silver trees bent into a circle around a crystal spire.
At the base of the spire… movement.
An intelligent lifeform. Humanoid, scaled, with eyes like obsidian mirrors. It was old. Not frail, but ancient in presence. It held something in its hand—what looked like a heart of glass, pulsing with faint light.
The team froze. No one dared speak.
The creature raised its hand, not in attack, but in acknowledgment. It touched the spire. The forest echoed with a sudden chime.
And then… it disappeared. Gone. As if it had never been there.
That night, they debated what they saw.
"Sentient," Lior said. "We were wrong. This world isn't abandoned."
"Then where are they?" Rul asked. "Why are they hiding?"
"Maybe they're not hiding," Nyla said. "Maybe… they're warning us."
The End of Day 23
They returned to the Spine, shaken but alive.
Juno sat by the edge of the canyon, legs swinging. The moons shone overhead, red and green reflections dancing in the fog below.
"You ever think this place… wants something from us?"
Kalen looked at her. "Like what?"
"I don't know. Maybe… to remember. Maybe we're not visitors. Maybe we're witnesses."
She stood up to return to the others.
Then the ground beneath her shifted.
A soft tremor.
Not a quake. A breath.
The Spine moved.
Juno's scream was brief.
The earth opened, and the wall of the canyon split like skin tearing open. A mouth. A long, fanged chasm of flesh and rock. Something had been sleeping beneath them the entire time.
She vanished in a blink.
The camp exploded in panic.
Kalen shouted her name. Lior tried to reach the spot where she fell, but a shockwave knocked her flat. Nyla dragged her back, screaming, "It's not a canyon! It's a body! A living thing!"
From the torn earth rose a limb—scaled, coiled, bigger than any creature they had seen. Eyes blinked open along its side, each one reflecting the faces of the terrified survivors.
The Spine… was not a place. It was a beast.
They ran.
Firing. Screaming.
The creature didn't chase.
It only watched. Then slowly folded itself back into slumber, as if the death of one was enough tribute.
By morning, only five remained.
They sat in stunned silence around a dying fire. The auroras faded as morning crept in.
No words.
No tears.
Just five souls… waiting for Day 24.
And above them, the moons began to turn red.
To Be Continued in Chapter- 8