Three point two miles east, where drone rotors cut sky-paper, Niya squinted at her monitor. Pixel-grain shifted. "Rewind!" she barked. "Sector Gamma-7." Beside her, Quill stabbed keys. "Glitching again?" Niya shook her head—dyed braids whipping her shoulders. "No. Look."
The feed jittered—pixelated green canopy stuttering across Niya's monitor. Quill stabbed keys. "Gamma-7's haunted today." Niya leaned closer, braids grazing the screen. "No. Rewind three seconds." The drone's eye flickered backward: trees blurring into moss-wrapped stone ruins, then—a blink. A thatched roof. Smoke curling from a crooked chimney. Against the wooly flank of an ox, a woman's pale face tilted skyward. In her arms, something glowed—violet? Gold? The image dissolved into vines. Quill whistled. "Whoa. Cottagecore glitch? Or..."
Niya froze the frame. "Coordinates." The numbers blinked—latitude tangled in ancient forest, longitude knifing through uncharted swamps. "That hut's older than wifi." Quill grinned. "Exploration bonus?" Before Niya could nod, the feed dissolved into fuzz.
Two hours later, mud slurped at the wheels of their bio-fueled rover. Vik, their muscle-packed guide, spat betel juice out the window. "Turn back." Rain lashed the windshield. Outside, the forest breathed—a wet, green sigh. "Deep woods ahead. Lost cities, sure. But people?" Vik shook his head, knuckles white on the wheel. "Only beasts live here. Vicious ones."
Quill peered past dripping ferns. "But the drone—" Vik cut him off. "Drones lie. Forests eat signals." He jerked a thumb westward. "Last team went in there." His voice dropped. "Found boots. Just... boots." Niya shivered. On her lap, the coordinates pulsed. That violet glow replayed behind her eyes.
Inside the stable, Keris fussed. Banesa rocked him, humming—a tune like wind through barley. Lurien's shadow stretched long. "Strangers come," he rasped. Petals fell from his shoulders, shriveling in the damp straw. "Metal beasts on the ridge-road." Maudra slammed a basket of turnips down. "Surveyors." Her lip curled. "Or poachers." She snatched a rusty scythe from the wall. "I'll shoo 'em."
Vik jabbed a thick finger at the crumpled map spread across the rover's dash. Rain streaked the laminate, blurring ink lines into soggy ghosts. "You see?" His voice grated like gravel under tires. "Nothing but green hell past the Sickle River. No villages. No roads." He traced a jagged contour line swallowing the drone's last coordinates. "Lost cities? Sure. But air rots lungs there. Toxic spores. Things that bleed acid instead of sap." He glared at Niya through the rearview mirror. "Only beasts thrive. Vicious ones. She should move."
Quill peered past dripping ferns. "But the drone—" Vik cut him off. "Drones lie. Forests eat signals." He jerked a thumb westward. "Last team went in there." His voice dropped. "Found boots. Just... boots." Niya shivered. On her lap, the coordinates pulsed. That violet glow replayed behind her eyes.
Inside the stable, Keris fussed. Banesa rocked him, humming—a tune like wind through barley. Lurien's shadow stretched long. "Strangers come," he rasped. Petals fell from his shoulders, shriveling in the damp straw. "Metal beasts on the ridge-road." Maudra slammed a basket of turnips down. "Surveyors." Her lip curled. "Or poachers." She snatched a rusty scythe from the wall. "I'll shoo 'em."
Vik jabbed a thick finger at the crumpled map spread across the rover's dash. Rain streaked the laminate, blurring ink lines into soggy ghosts. "You see?" His voice grated like gravel under tires. "Nothing but green hell past the Sickle River. No villages. No roads." He traced a jagged contour line swallowing the drone's last coordinates. "Lost cities? Sure. But air rots lungs there. Toxic spores. Things that bleed acid instead of sap." He glared at Niya through the rearview mirror. "Only beasts thrive. Vicious ones. She should move."
Quill snorted, tapping his holographic tablet. A violet smudge pulsed faintly over Vik's toxic swamp. "Sensor ghosts," he insisted. "Or anomalous flora radiation." But doubt pricked his throat. He remembered Vik's earlier words, "Found boots. Just... boots."
Niya leaned forward, her breath fogging the rover's rain-speckled windshield. "Fine. I'll scout footpath. Five minutes." Before Vik could protest, she slid the door open. Damp slapped her face—rotten leaves, wet moss, ozone. Forest sighed, swallowing the rover's thrum. Above, canopy dripped silver beads onto her forehead. Niya adjusted her collar-cam. "Recon log: Niya Sol, Sector Gamma-7. Proceeding northwest." Mud slurped at her boots. Ahead, fog curled between cycad trunks like pale serpents.
Just then—'hooooooowl'. A deep, guttural roar tore through the valley. Not wolf. Not bear. Something... heavier. Timber-splitter loud. Seconds later, another answered—higher, shriller—from miles east. Echoes ricocheted off granite cliffs. Niya froze mid-stride. Full moon hung bloated behind storm clouds, bleeding ivory light onto the path. Vik's growl erupted from the rover window, "TOLD! Drakes hunt! Get IN!" His spit sprayed against wet metal. Niya didn't move. Her cam caught it, a violet flicker, deep in the mist. Quill's voice crackled in her earpiece, "Niya! Signal's shredding! Get ba—" Static swallowed his plea.
Inside the stable, Keris wailed. Not hunger—terror. Raw, primal. Banesa clutched him tighter. His glow flared suddenly—silver-white—drenching Maudra's calloused hands, catching dust motes mid-fall. Lurien stiffened. Bark groaned as his willow-limbs twisted toward the ridge-road. "Fire-beasts scent him." Mud-Mouth Maudra spat into straw. "Poachers bring drakes." Scythe blade scraped stone as she hoisted it.
Niya scrambled back, boots sliding in mud slick as sludge. Static screeched in her earpiece—Quill's panicked voice shredded into digital confetti. Behind her, fog swallowed the ridge-road whole. That violet flicker? Gone. Erased, like chalk on slate. She'd caught something—a glimmer, a tremor—but the collar-cam footage fizzed into pixel soup the instant she'd hit Record. A mystery buried beneath rain and corrupted data. Undug. Unproven. Just another ghost in Gamma-7's green machine.
Her retreat wasn't graceful. She stumbled into the rover, dragging mud chunks onto Vik's spotless floormats. Quill slapped her a towel without looking up from his tablet. "Ghost town," he muttered. "Literally." Vik nodded grimly, peeling the rover away from the dripping forest edge. "Told you," he said, knuckles tight on the wheel. "Only beasts thrive here."
Niya swiped rainwater from her brow. Beast? Maybe. But beasts didn't hum. Not like that. Not vibrating through her fillings like a tuning fork pressed to bone. Pearl called it a sixth sense, your guts screaming before your eyes catch up. Niya swallowed bile. The rover ate asphalt. Behind them, Gamma-7 sighed wetly and closed its fist.
Below, deep in the dripping ferns, something struggled. Small. Alone. Scraping against roots, crying out for a pack it didn't know existed. A scrap of damp fur. Milk teeth bit air. Blind eyes squeezed shut. Not wolf. Not drake. Something... new. Its muzzle pressed slick moss. First breath tasted of rot and ozone. Hunger—sharp as flint—drove tiny limbs forward. Unseen. Unheard. Above, Niya's rover vanished. The valley held its breath.
A raw, trembling howl shattered the silence, fragile yet fierce. It was a voice unsteady with newness—raw with the ache of change and the fear of the unknown. Under the cold glow of the moon, the sound ebbed and flowed like a heartbeat, small and unsure, but growing stronger with each desperate note.
It was a cry of awakening, of a soul torn from innocence and thrust into the wild's unyielding embrace. In that haunting call, the first breath of a young wolf reborn echoed into the night, marking the beginning of a new, fierce existence in the darkness.