"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jayden said, holding up both hands. He sounded half-panicked, half-ready to bolt. "What do you mean go there?"
He was staring at Liam, who had just casually suggested they check out the massive structure looming in the distance.
"You seriously think there are humans over there? In case you forgot, we're on another planet. You know, outside of Earth." Jayden's voice kept rising as he spoke... "You know, alien planet. Which means aliens. And aliens don't like humans."
By the time he finished ranting, he was nearly out of breath. Erin and Eira exchanged glances with each other and then back at Jayden and Liam.
While Liam, he just laughed. It started with a cackle, then it evolved into a full-on, hearty laugh, like Jayden had just told the world's funniest joke. After a while he exhaled and with a straight.
"How stu—" He stopped when Erin shot him a look. That same look she gave him last night that said 'say it and my fist meets your face.' He cleared his throat and quickly changed his sentence.
"What I was going to say," Liam muttered, "does that look like an alien structure to you?"
Jayden turned to study the ruins again. Now that he was actually paying attention, Liam had a point. It didn't look alien. If anything, it looked… familiar. Stone blocks stacked high, weathered with time, like some ancient ruin from Earth. Something straight out of a history textbook.
"Okay, fine," Jayden admitted grudgingly.
Even Erin surprised herself by agreeing. "He's right. That does look earthly." For a moment, she and Liam's eyes met. Just a second too long before both of them broke it off awkwardly.
Eira who had been trailing behind like a shadow, just quiet and unreadable as always. Stepped forward "Yes. It's human. Or at least, it used to be." She spoke with so much certainty that raised questions that no one asked out loud.
"Wait," Jayden blinked. "So you're saying other people were here before us?"
"It suggests that," Eira said simply.
"Then let's go," Liam announced, already moving.
"I don't think there's anyone there now," Eira countered. She sounded so sure it made everyone pause.
"And how exactly do you know that?" Liam asked as he spun around, walking back toward her.
Eira didn't flinch. "Look at it. The place is old. A structure just collapsed. If people were living there, you'd hear screaming. You'd see them running."
Jayden paused as he reasoned. She was right in fact, the realization set in as he realized, he didn't evaluate. Heat quickly rose up to his face due to the same, he wasn't used to being corrected by people, especially not a freshman like Eira Monroe. For some reason, his eyes flicked to Erin, who was grinning from ear to ear. She enjoyed watching get put in a spot
"Guess your genius doesn't work outside Earth," she said, smirking.
He didn't answer her, he couldn't. He brushed past all of them and continued walking.
"Why are you still going?" Jayden demanded.
"To see if there are supplies," Liam tossed over his shoulder. "Something useful. Food, maybe. Actual food." His eyes slid to Erin who was still centered on eating the dead worms, pointedly before facing forward again.
Jayden called his name, but Liam didn't stop. He was set on the ruins, and that meant the group had no choice but to follow.
Maybe, just maybe, there was something there for them. And in fact, there was something waiting for them, but it wasn't something they'd be happy to find and Erin could feel it. Unease crept up to her neck as they trekked. Her mark glowed slightly and she knew it wasn't a good thing. It was red...
---
The tall structures were much more visible up close. There were about twenty of them, and they looked even taller, even larger, than they had from a distance. These were monoliths, ancient, towering stones that seemed to date back centuries.
Strangely enough, scattered across the field where these monoliths stood were bunkers. Well-structured and advanced bunkers. Nothing like any twenty-first-century technology. They had bio-scanners, retinal scanners, and fingerprint locks. They were arranged in a specific order, though some had been shifted from their original positions. A few were crushed, ripped in half, and others lay covered in debris. It was as if a massive battle had torn through this place.
Liam was the first to arrive, given that he had stormed off earlier. Deep inside his mind, a storm still brewed. He fumbled over his failure to assess properly and the fact that he had been corrected by a freshman. It gnawed at him. Soon enough, Erin appeared with Jayden and Eira close behind. Their eyes scanned the field until they landed on the gigantic monoliths resting silently in the ground.
Seeing them up close made Jayden and Eira stare in awe.
"Would you look at that.." Jayden muttered. His gaze still plastered on the structure before him. "Feels so...surreal."
Eira, on the other hand… she didn't look surprised. Not in the slightest. To her, this seemed like just another day in a dystopian nightmare of a world.
Eventually, Jayden had enough of staring. He walked over to Liam. Eira followed, but Erin stayed where she was, not because she was still awestruck by the enormous structures, but because of something else entirely.
"Do you guys hear that?" she asked, not breaking her gaze from the nearest monolith, like it might vanish if she dared to look away.
"Hear what?" Jayden asked.
Slowly, Erin began to approach, placing one foot carefully in front of the other. As soon as she crossed a certain point, a stinging pain surged through her arm. She flinched, glancing down. The strange marking on her skin began to illuminate, not just glowing faintly, but blazing red.
Erin knew that whatever this thing was, she was reacting to it. But that didn't stop her. She kept moving.
The closer she got, the brighter the mark burned. Her fist tightened as she was overwhelmed with the strange urge to touch the rough surface of the monolith.
While she approached, something else changed. The air around them thickened, it was almost dense, and purple energy swirled around Erin with purpose.
Jayden, Liam, and Eira, still several meters back, suddenly felt the sheer force of it. Whatever was happening seemed to suck the air straight from their lungs.
They gasped, their hands clutching at their throats as they struggled to breathe. And as if that weren't enough, a wave of heat surged from the ground beneath them. At first it was faint, then it became steadily intensifying until it felt like their skin was being cooked alive all over again.
"What the hell?" Liam choked, eyes darting from Erin to Jayden, then back again. She seemed untouched by what was happening. Not only untouched, she looked almost possessed, her eyes were somewhat blank, and her body moved like a puppet in a trance.
"Is she doing this?!" Liam's voice broke through the choking air.
Jayden's gaze locked on Erin. The mark on her arm flared violently. He had already figured it out; red was never good. He wanted to warn her, but before he could, it was too late.
Her palm pressed against the surface of the monolith and for a moment, everything froze.
It was as if time itself had stopped.
For a single frozen heartbeat, the world went utterly still. Then a violent wave of purple energy exploded outward from her body. It rippled across the ruins, knocking the others off their feet and shattering the bunkers into dust. The wind began to howl, shrieking with rage, and within seconds it became a violent storm, tearing dust and debris high into the sky.
"Argh!" Jayden gritted his teeth as the unbearable pressure rattled his bones. Liam's face was buried in the dirt, he lifted his head just enough to see Erin standing rigid before the monolith.
"Erin!" he screamed. "Snap out of it!"
Another pulse of energy ripped out of her, slamming into the monoliths. The sheer force left jagged cracks across their surfaces, though somehow the blast didn't reduce the group to ash. It flung them like ragdolls, but never annihilated them.
Jayden didn't have time to wonder why they weren't vapourized. He forced himself to his feet. Without hesitation, and without a second thought about the risk, he sprinted toward her. At any moment another wave could have gone off and done some serious damage to him, but he didn't care. He had to stop her.
He reached her just as her body tensed for another surge. Throwing himself forward, Jayden grabbed her and yanked her back. Her palm successfully tore away from the monolith.
The glow on her arm sputtered then died as both of them crashed hard into the sand. Erin's eyes rolled back as her body went limp, knocked out cold the moment her hand disconnected. And with her collapse, the storm ceased. The purple energy dispersed, and the air was breathable again, making the others gasp desperately for air.
Liam and Eira pushed themselves shakily to their feet. For the first time since arriving in this strange world, Eira's mask of calm had cracked. Her wide eyes were filled not with mystery or apathy but with something else entirely. Horror.
For the first time, she was actually confused and scared. That meant something…