Dawn filtered through the mist like a soft ribbon draped across the hillside. It wasn't a blazing sunrise, but a quiet, warming light, like the forest was breathing through hidden lungs.
Mike woke before Kuro. He silently re-lit the compact thermal stove to boil water, his hand pressed to the soil, sensing a faint vibration, not from the ground, but from the tangle of roots beneath, pulsing in their own ancient rhythm.
Kuro stirred, eyes hazy with sleep. He wiped his face, then sat quietly, watching steam rise from the metal flask lid. Neither spoke.
It wasn't awkwardness, it was mutual understanding. Today was not a day for words. The closer they drew to the hollow, the more their senses seemed to quiet down on their own.
Breakfast was dry bread dipped in herbal tea.
They ate slowly, drank slowly, packed quickly. When the light sharpened enough to show the web of root-lines underfoot, they slung on their packs and stepped into the woods.
The hollow lay to the northwest. The old map labeled it as a "zone of seismic instability," but no one seemed to know how long it had been since anyone verified that.
The path was vague, faint traces remained, but unclear if left by humans or animals. The earth grew soft beneath them, at times damp.
Trees leaned to one side, as if a fixed wind had nudged them for decades.
About an hour from camp, Mike abruptly raised his hand. Kuro halted. Mike crouched, checking the wrist sensor.
"Something's here," he whispered, eyes on the screen. "There's movement, not strong, but irregular. Like... someone walking, stopping, then moving again."
Kuro scanned the surroundings. Nothing distinct. But the air had changed.
Each gust of wind no longer felt like random air. It had weight. Direction. As if this wind carried intent.
Beneath their feet, the grass darkened, not from being crushed, but like the earth itself was shedding skin.
Mike inserted a probe into the soil, linking it to his primary reader. A string of waveforms blinked onto the screen, but instead of the usual steady pulses, the lines jittered erratically, like corrupted code. Or encrypted data.
"I feel something circling me," Kuro murmured. "Not moving, exactly. Like a standing wave. Present, but not spreading."
Mike drew a laser pen, switched it to ultraviolet, and swept it over moss-covered stones. In certain angles, the reflections warped, not just color, but form. Light bent. As if the air around the stones was being subtly contorted.
He stepped back. "The atmosphere here might be under pressure…"
They moved deeper.
Past the final treeline, where sunlight no longer touched the grass, they both felt it.
The temperature didn't drop, yet their bodies felt drained. Breathing thickened. Not from fatigue, but from compression.
Before them stretched a real hollow, not quite a valley, more like a bowl, sunken and rimmed with jagged, mossy rock. At its center lay a small pond, murky, still, without reflection. By the shore stood upright slabs of stone, too precise to be natural.
Mike quietly unpacked a secondary scanner. This time, he activated a prototype setting, gravitational micro-oscillation. It had never worked well before.
Today, the screen lit up.
A circle. A vortex. A dent in the field.
"This isn't just topography," Mike said, his voice strained. "It's... like a drain. An energy sink."
Kuro stepped closer, halting near the perimeter. He pulled out his baton, planted it into the soil, gaze locked on the pond.
"I can't see anything clear," he muttered.
Mike didn't move.
Their vision blurred. A wave of disorientation swept over them.
Mike didn't dare touch anything. Not from fear, but because, for the first time, all his sensors agreed on one thing: stop.
There was something off. The light.
The lighting around the hollow didn't change. An hour had passed, yet the sun remained fixed. No shifting shadows. No angled beams.
Mike turned to Kuro. "We need to retreat. Prepare more. We can't stay blind here."
"How?" Kuro's voice trembled, sweat sliding down his neck. "Can you guide us?"
"Follow me," Mike said, grabbing Kuro's arm.
Kuro nodded.
Just as they turned, both felt it, a cold breath skimming the nape of their necks. Someone, something, behind them.
They looked.
No one.
Just grass. Wind.
And the pond.
But now, the pond rippled.
A single ring.
Then another.
Neither moved.
Kuro felt a pull inside his skull, a tight thread snapping taut.
A memory not his own. A distant echo.
"Someone's been here," he whispered.
Mike gripped his hand, firm. "We go. Now."
They retreated, no running, no turning. Just backward steps, as if turning their backs would invite collapse.
Every pace was a struggle against an unseen weight.
Once past the vortex's edge, they didn't stop.
They didn't panic. But instinct pulled them far from the center.
Something followed. Unseen, unnamed.
The air lightened.
The light shifted.
They dropped onto the grass.
Hearts pounding. Breaths ragged.
"Thank... the stars... we didn't go deeper. What the hell was that?" Kuro gasped, kneeling, fists clenched on his pack.
Mike didn't answer. He fiddled with his sensor, fingers shaking. The graphs showed distortion. Not clean. Not interpretable.
Waves torn apart. Nothing familiar. No pattern.
"This... can't be real," Mike muttered.
Kuro lay back, staring at the sky. Air rasped in his lungs. Sweat dripped past his temples.
He felt like he'd been pulled through a veil. A threshold with no name.
Neither spoke.
They just sat, one at each edge of the grass, as if tossed from a whirlpool they couldn't fathom.
Fifteen minutes passed before they exited the core.
Still, the air hung thick. As if it had witnessed something the eye could not.
The shock ebbed.
Mike rinsed his mouth. Jotted a mark in his journal. Kuro leaned on a stone, eyes fixed on the path they had just fled.
"Do you think we'll go back?" Kuro asked, voice lowered.
Mike didn't reply. He just tapped the receiver, once, then twice, as if waiting for the air itself to answer.