The sand felt wrong.
Rowan noticed it the moment his boots sank into the shore. It looked ordinary—pale, grainy, damp from the ocean—but it didn't shift the way sand should. Each step left a print that stayed too perfect, as if the ground had memorized the shape of his foot.
He glanced back.
Behind the landing team, the ocean lay unnaturally calm. The transport boats rocked quietly, but the water itself refused to form proper waves.
Five years of research.
Five years of expeditions.
And the shoreline still behaved like a thing pretending to be a beach.
"Form up!" someone barked.
The landing crew quickly organized into rough lines. Soldiers toward the front, engineers and researchers behind them. Rowan ended up somewhere in the middle, exactly where people with no combat experience usually stood.
A drone lifted into the air with a sharp mechanical whine. Its small rotors cut through the quiet as it rose above the cliffs, camera lenses swiveling toward the forest.
"Recon drone active," one of the technicians said.
Rowan exhaled slowly.
Technology always helped his nerves. Machines followed logic. Machines didn't lie.
At least… they weren't supposed to.
The commander stepped forward.
A tall woman with a calm expression and a rifle slung casually over her shoulder. Rowan had heard her name earlier during the briefing.
Commander Vale.
"Listen up," she said, voice steady.
The chatter died instantly.
"We establish a temporary base at the cliff line. Sensors go up first. After that, Team B will begin a short inland survey—no more than two kilometers."
She paused.
"Standard rules apply. No wandering off. No unnecessary risks. If something feels wrong…"
A few veterans finished the sentence quietly.
"…it probably is."
Rowan remembered the scarred man saying the same thing on the ship.
So it really was a rule.
The commander turned toward the forest.
"Move."
—
Climbing the cliff path took longer than expected.
The stone was damp and oddly smooth, like it had been polished by years of erosion. But the continent had only existed for five.
Rowan noticed things like that automatically.
His brain was wired for mechanical logic. Patterns. Wear and tear. Cause and effect.
This place had effects.
But the causes were missing.
Halfway up the slope, the drone operator suddenly cursed.
"Commander, the drone feed just glitched."
Vale didn't slow down.
"Define glitch."
"Camera interference. Static spikes."
"Signal disruption?"
"No… the signal's fine."
Rowan frowned.
That didn't make sense.
"How can the camera have static if the signal's clean?" one of the soldiers asked.
"Exactly," the technician muttered.
They reached the top of the cliff a minute later.
The forest stood immediately ahead of them.
Dense.
Silent.
Uncomfortable to look at.
The trees were tall and narrow, their bark almost black. Branches twisted together high above, forming a tangled canopy that blocked most of the sunlight.
Rowan had the sudden impression that the forest was too organized.
Trees shouldn't grow in such perfect spacing.
It looked… arranged.
"Set up the sensors," Commander Vale ordered.
Equipment cases snapped open.
Metal tripods unfolded. Small devices were hammered into the soil, each one humming faintly as they powered on.
Rowan helped unload a scanning unit from one of the crates. The machine was about the size of a suitcase, covered in indicator lights and antennae.
He placed it on the ground and activated the system.
The screen flickered to life.
Numbers scrolled rapidly.
Then stopped.
Rowan blinked.
"That's weird."
"What?" the technician beside him asked.
"The ground density reading."
"What about it?"
Rowan tapped the display.
"It keeps fluctuating."
The technician leaned closer.
"So?"
"So soil density doesn't fluctuate every few seconds."
He refreshed the scan.
The numbers shifted again.
Higher.
Lower.
Higher again.
As if the earth beneath them was slowly… expanding.
Then contracting.
The technician's expression slowly changed.
"…that's not good."
Rowan didn't reply.
Because now he could feel it.
A faint vibration beneath his boots.
Not strong enough to shake the ground.
Just a subtle rhythm.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Like breathing.
Someone nearby laughed nervously.
"Please tell me that's a machine malfunction."
No one answered.
Commander Vale crouched and pressed her hand against the soil.
Her expression hardened.
"Everyone step back."
They did.
Slowly.
Cautiously.
The vibration continued.
Up.
Down.
Up—
A soldier at the edge of the formation suddenly froze.
"Uh… Commander?"
Vale looked up.
"What is it?"
The soldier pointed toward the forest.
Rowan followed his finger.
At first he saw nothing unusual.
Then the trees moved.
Not swaying.
Not rustling.
Moving.
The trunks shifted slightly, leaning inward as though the entire forest had taken a step closer.
Rowan's stomach tightened.
"That's… not possible," someone whispered.
A low cracking sound echoed from the treeline.
Branches twisted.
Roots groaned.
And from the dark gap between the trees…
something slowly began to crawl out.
It wasn't large.
Maybe the size of a dog.
But its body was wrong.
Too many joints.
Too many limbs bending at unnatural angles.
Its skin looked like bark.
And its head…
Rowan's breath caught.
It didn't have eyes.
Instead, the front of its skull was split open like a flower, revealing rows of thin, twitching tendrils that waved slowly in the air.
The creature tilted its head.
Those tendrils pointed directly toward the landing team.
The forest behind it shifted again.
This time, dozens of shapes moved within the shadows.
Commander Vale raised her rifle.
Her voice was calm.
"Welcome to the continent," she said.
Then she pulled the trigger.