Dawn crept through the mist like a pale ribbon drawn across the hillside. Not blazing sunlight—just a quiet glow, warm and slow, as if the forest was breathing from somewhere deep in its chest. Mike woke earlier than Kuro, quietly reigniting the mini thermal stove. He pressed his palm to the ground and felt a faint vibration—not from the earth's crust, but from the tangled roots beneath, pulsing with their own secret rhythm.
Kuro stirred, still half-dreaming. He rubbed his face, then sat in silence, watching steam curl from the kettle's lid. Neither spoke. The silence wasn't awkward—it was agreement. Today was not a day for many words. The closer they came to the Hollow, the more their senses quieted of their own accord.
Breakfast was dry biscuits dipped in herbal tea. They chewed slowly, drank slower, and packed quickly. When the morning light revealed the ridges in the soil, they hoisted their packs and stepped into the woods.
The Hollow lay to the northwest, marked on an old map as a "zone of seismic instability"—though no one seemed to know when it was last verified. The path ahead was barely visible. Traces, perhaps, of past footsteps—or perhaps of animals. The ground grew soft, sometimes wet. Above them, trees leaned permanently in one direction, as though shaped by a wind that had blown steady for decades.
An hour in, Mike raised a hand.
He crouched. Checked his wrist sensor.
"Something's here," he whispered. "The fluctuations... aren't strong, but the rhythm is irregular. Like someone is walking... stopping... then walking again."
Kuro froze. His eyes scanned the trees. Nothing visible. But yes—the air had changed.
The wind wasn't just movement. It had weight. It had direction. It moved with purpose, not chance.
The grass beneath their feet darkened. Not crushed—changed. As if the land itself was shedding skin.
Mike planted a probe in the soil, wired it to a primitive scanner. The graphs that appeared didn't follow natural electromagnetic waves—they pulsed erratically, like corrupted code. Or something encoded on purpose.
Kuro murmured: "I feel something circling. Not visible. Like standing waves—present, but unmoving."
Mike pulled out a laser pen and swept violet light over mossy stones nearby. In certain angles, the reflection twisted—not just in hue, but shape. The air around the stones was bending.
He stepped back.
"The air's carrying forced energy layers," he said softly. "Either from the stone... or something buried."
They moved deeper.
Crossing the final threshold of trees, where light no longer reached the forest floor, they both felt it: the temperature hadn't dropped—but something in them had. A draining. As if their life force was being siphoned.
Breaths grew heavier. Not exhaustion. Compression.
Before them unfolded the Hollow: not a valley, but a depression—a basin surrounded by stone ridges draped in moss. At its center, a still pond. Opaque. Non-reflective. Nearby stood upright stones, too ordered to be natural.
Mike took out the scanner again—this time switching to a prototype mode for gravimetric micro-oscillation. A setting that had never worked properly before.
Today, it lit up.
A circle.
A spiral.
A dent in the energy field.
"This isn't a physical hollow," Mike said, his voice strained. "It's a... drain. For energy."
Kuro stepped forward, but didn't enter the center. He drew his baton, stuck it into the earth. His eyes stayed fixed on the pond.
"I can't see anything... concrete," he whispered. Mike stood still behind him.
Mike didn't touch anything. Not out of fear—but because, for the first time, every one of his devices agreed on a single conclusion: stop.
Only one anomaly stood out—the light. The ambient lighting didn't shift with time. It had been nearly an hour, yet the sun hadn't moved. No long shadows. No angled beams.
Mike looked at Kuro.
"We need to pull back. We're not ready. We can't stay blind."
Kuro nodded.
But the moment they turned to leave, they both felt it: a cold breath against the back of the neck. Not wind. Not chill. A presence.
They spun.
Nothing.
Just grass. Stone.
And the pond.
But now, the pond was not still.
A ripple.
Then another.
As if invisible drops were falling in.
Neither moved.
Then Kuro felt it—like a string in his head had just been tugged.
A memory not his own. A voice echoing from elsewhere.
"Someone... was here," he whispered.
Mike gripped Kuro's hand.
"Now. We leave."
They retreated—not running, not turning their backs. Each step backwards felt like tearing free from invisible tethers.
Not until they passed the last edge of the Hollow did the wind return.
The air lightened.
The light shifted.
They collapsed onto the grass.
Their hearts racing. Breaths unsteady.
No words.
But they knew.
They had stepped into a place that did not belong to the world they knew.
And that place—was truly dangerous.