They’d been walking for hours, far beyond the farmlands, mines, and outposts that circled Terra’s Heart. The land here was raw and uneven, scattered with crooked boulders and dry, whispering grass. The cliffside ocean roared in the distance, its crash muffled by the height of the ridge.

  Now, nestled in a natural bowl of stone and dust, the ruins slouched like a forgotten scar. Crumbled arches jutted from the earth, and a collapsed stairwell led downward into darkness. Stone walls curved in broken, half-submerged circles, some barely standing. Moss covered what the wind hadn’t stripped away.

  The moon cast long shadows across the clearing. There were no lights from Terra here, no sounds but the wind, no roads or markers. Just the end of the world.

  Alden adjusted the strap on his shoulder and stared ahead.

  "Well," Alden said, hands on hips, "here we are. Totally didn’t get lost at all."

  Lyn turned to him slowly, arms crossed.

  "You thought moss grew on the north side of trees," she said flatly.

  "Technically, I was only half wrong," Alden replied. "Moss grows somewhere, and we got here, so..."

  “You didn’t even know where this place was,” Lyn muttered.

  “I had a hunch.”

  “You got stuck in a thorn bush for half an hour.”

  Louie, silent for most of the trip, held up the charcoal-smudged map. “He did help carry the water, though.”

  “Thank you,” Alden said, puffing out his chest. “Team effort.”

  They crossed the final stretch of loose stone and reached the ruin’s edge. The main stairwell yawned ahead, blocked partially by a tangle of vines and broken columns.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  "Sooo…" Alden said, squinting into the tunnel. "Who wants to go first?"

  "Not it," Lyn said quickly.

  Louie said nothing. He just stepped forward and peered into the dark.

  "Louie!" Alden whisper-yelled. "You can’t just walk into cursed shadow tunnels!"

  "I didn’t go in. I’m just looking." Louie said quietly. His voice didn’t carry far—like the ruin absorbed sound.

  Lyn chewed her lip and looked around. "Do we even know if it’s stable?"

  "It’s ancient stone. Probably fine," Alden said, already stepping closer.

  "You also said the shortcut over the ravine was ‘probably fine,’ and I had to pull you out with a stick."

  "This one’s more of a... stone-based probably."

  They bickered back and forth in circles—like they always did—until Alden suddenly stopped.

  He felt... something.

  His foot froze halfway through a step. A strange chill climbed up his neck, not from the wind but from beneath the earth itself. Like something cold had blinked into existence and turned to face him.

  He glanced down.

  Half-covered in dust and weeds, nestled just off to the side of the ruin’s entry path, was a small metal ring. It looked like someone had tossed it there and forgotten about it.

  He squinted. “Wait... no way this is the treasure, right?”

  “Looks like junk,” Lyn said, peering over his shoulder.

  “Or a cursed trinket,” Louie offered.

  Alden held it up. “Or, hear me out... an ancient relic.”

  “Or just junk,” Lyn repeated

  Alden glared at her. He twirled the ring on his finger.

  “You’re not seriously gonna put that on,” Lyn said.

  “Why not? It’s cool. And if I die, you can keep my stuff.”

  And with a grin, he slid it onto his finger.

  The world blinked.

  Not a flash, not a bang—just a subtle lurch. The air thickened. Sound warped around them for a second. The breeze stopped moving.

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  Then came the noise. Faint at first, like a whisper behind stone.

  A low, drawn-out static hum.

  It wasn’t loud, but it was wrong. Like something had been knocked loose in reality, and now the silence was no longer empty—it was listening.

  "Did you feel that?" Louie said quietly.

  Lyn looked around, squinting into the trees. "Feel what?"

  "The air," Alden said. "It...?"

  Before either of them could answer, a sound came from the ruin’s dark entrance.

  A scrape. Then another.

  Then a wet, stuttering shuffle.

  A shape moved into the light.

  It was tall—not towering, but wide, like a door frame turned inside out. Its limbs were the wrong length for its body, bending in delayed, jerky angles, and its skin wasn’t skin at all—it looked like cracked glass wrapped over shifting shadows, with light flickering inside.

  Its head moved too slowly.

  No eyes. No mouth. Just a deep split running from forehead to chest, pulsing faint white.

  Then, with a noise like a stone snapping in half, it stepped forward.

  And screeched.

  The sound wasn’t natural. It tore through them like wires dragged across a metal plate, sharp, warping, and filled with layers that didn’t belong in a single voice.

  Lyn froze. Alden dropped the lantern. Louie stepped back instinctively.

  Then it charged.

  Lyn grabbed Alden’s wrist and yanked him backward just as the creature lunged, smashing into the ground where he’d been standing.

  “RUN!” she shouted, voice cracking.

  They didn’t think—they ran.

  Alden bolted toward the left, ducking under a half-collapsed arch. Lyn sprinted the other way, stumbling on uneven stone. Louie vanished behind a broken pillar. None of them had a plan.

  The creature stumbled forward—jerking in and out of motion—appearing ten paces ahead without crossing the space between. It twisted mid-lunge, like it couldn’t decide how many limbs it needed. Its form buzzed and warped with static light.

  Alden dove behind a stone block, gasping for air. The thing appeared again, just feet away, its head twisting toward him like a broken compass.

  He screamed and ran.

  Lyn tried to circle back toward him, but she tripped hard on a fallen slab. Her knee scraped, and she landed badly on one arm with a yelp.

  “Lyn!” Alden called, but the sound barely escaped him.

  The creature’s head snapped toward her.

  She scrambled to her feet, running without thinking—limping, wild-eyed, her breath sharp and ragged. The thing chased, jittering in and out of motion. Louie shouted something from the other side, but neither of them could hear it.

  Alden turned to grab a stone, threw it—missed. Another scream echoed across the clearing.

  They scattered again, weaving through ruined walls and half-buried columns. The ground was uneven, slick with moss and dust. The creature clipped a wall and glitched sideways, reappearing far too close.

  Louie appeared suddenly, grabbing Alden and yanking him down into a narrow trench just before a claw-like limb swiped the air above them.

  “It’s everywhere,” Alden gasped. “It’s too fast—what do we do?!”

  Lyn staggered back, her face pale, her sleeve soaked in red.

  “We can’t outrun it,” she whispered. “We need to do something now.”

  Alden’s heart pounded in his ears. “How?!”

  Louie’s eyes scanned the ruins. “We trap it. That arch. It’s barely holding.”

  “We’ll never get it to go there,” Lyn said, clutching her arm. “It’s not dumb.”

  “We can trick it,” Louie said. “One of us runs. The others bring it down.”

  Alden froze.

  The idea hit him like a slap of cold water.

  One of them had to bait it.

  He looked at the arch, then at the creature tearing through a pillar just meters away. His hands were shaking. His heart was thundering in his chest. Every part of him screamed not to move.

  “What if it catches me?” he thought. “What if I don’t make it?”

  Louie met his eyes.

  Silence fell for half a breath.

  Then Alden exhaled. Nodded. Swallowed the fear.

  “Okay.”

  He lit the cracked lantern, held it up with trembling fingers, and forced his voice to be louder than the panic.

  “HEY! Over here!”

  The creature stopped.

  Turned.

  Screamed.

  And charged.

  Alden ran.

  Louie scrambled up the broken ledge, hands slipping on wet stone. Lyn pushed against a loose support, pain flaring in her arm.

  Alden sprinted under the arch.

  The monster followed.

  “NOW!”

  Louie yanked. The arch groaned—then collapsed in a cloud of stone and dust.

  The sound was deafening.

  Then nothing.

  Just dust. And quiet.

  The three of them collapsed in the dirt, coughing, bleeding, hearts racing out of sync.

  Alive.

  But barely.

  For a moment, everything was still.

  Breath. Dust. Heartbeats.

  Alden could hear his own pulse, loud in his ears. Louie was panting. Lyn was staring at the pile of stone like it might wake up again.

  Then—

  click. click. click.

  From deeper inside the ruin.

  And from behind them.

  And from beneath them.

  And from beyond the hills.

  Then came the orange glow.

  Fires.

  Smoke rising from far-off farms.

  And screams. So many screams.

  Alden turned, pale. Lyn gripped her arm. Louie stared at the collapsing stones.

  “We need to go.”

  They didn’t need to be told twice.

  They ran.

  Alden didn’t know where his lantern was. He didn’t care. His legs burned. Lyn was ahead of him, Louie just behind. The wind howled now, shrieking through the rocks.

  Behind them, the ruin howled back.

  They didn’t look back.