Mina pressed forward, her breath clouding in the cool dawn as silvery fog coiled about her boots and clung to every fern and fissured tree. The forest seemed ancient, impossibly lush—giant trunks veiled with emerald moss fused overhead, casting watery beams of sunlight below, where jeweled beetles skittered over thick, glimmering roots. Birdsong warbled in unfamiliar cadences, echoing in hollows thick with blue-leaved undergrowth as blossoms unfurled to greet the soft awakening light. Elias kept pace behind her, wordless, scanning the shadows for movement. Nothing here felt dangerous, yet the ponderous quiet, layered with hidden calls and fragments of movement beyond the fog, pressed in with the weight of an unrevealed purpose. Each step stirred carpets of spongy growth on ground that exhaled mist, and with every new curve, the planet’s brilliance and secrecy unfurled itself, fresh and vast and utterly unknown.

Above them, the trees soared in silent communion, towers of living architecture warped and twisted by a time Mina couldn’t guess. Their bark was etched with luminous runes, crackling faintly as streaks of indigo light pulsed in secret currents, vanishing beneath curling veils of silver moss. Here and there, great bifurcating branches supported whole groves of vivid orange lantern-fruits, whose interiors glowed with a soft, pulse-like life. The canopy dripped with sapphire strands, trembling as unseen things passed overhead. Suddenly, a chorus of hooting calls reverberated in shifting patterns—some low and hollow, others sharp enough to tang the air with warning. Each sound rolled out in an invisible wave, as if hundreds of unseen watchers nestled within the shadows, exchanging wisdom by song. Mina turned to Elias, her eyes searching for understanding, while the ancient forest echoed with voices older than memory.

As the strange chorus faded, Mina’s gaze snagged on something half-concealed beneath a flowering hush of fern. Drawn by intuition, she knelt and brushed aside the velvet moss, unearthing a stone slab much larger than her outspread hands. Its surface was scoured smooth with age, but scored into it were deep, curling marks—glyphs arcing into forms she didn’t know, yet that stirred some primitive chord within her. She ran her fingers gently over a spiral that split into branching veins like the roots of an ancient tree. Tiny freckles of light slid between the carved channels, drifting over the stone in time with some silent heartbeat pulsing from within. Wonder prickled along Mina’s arms; these were no idle decorations, she realized, and definitely not the accidental works of water or wind. “Elias,” she breathed, voice reverent. “Do you feel it? Someone… something… meant for this to be found.”

Elias crouched beside her, casting wary glances toward the shifting gloom beyond the roots. “It’s probably just some old… marker,” he said, though the flicker in his eyes belied any certainty. His hand hovered hesitantly over the glowing glyphs, careful not to touch. “Mina, whatever it is—maybe we don’t want to know what left it. I think we should keep going. Just in case.” There was a tension in his voice, low and taut, as if stirring old warnings about curiosity and consequences. “The air feels different here. Heavier.” He straightened, glancing back in the direction they’d come and gesturing for her to stand as well. Every muscle in his body seemed poised between awe and caution, unwilling to leave her alone but desperate not to linger where silent intentions waited, coiled in ancient stone. “Let’s move before that fog thickens again,” he said, voice gentler now. “Whatever built this, it’s not us.”

But before Mina could rise, a jagged burst of white light flared through the treetops, tearing the early morning dimness apart. The entire wood seemed to draw in a swift, collective breath—the birds fell deathly silent, and even the shimmering, rune-bound bark ceased pulsing for an astonished heartbeat. Mina and Elias both stared skyward as the bright, unnatural streak arced across the horizon, leaving a burning afterimage against the pearl-colored fog. It flickered once, twice, then vanished behind a swell of distant green, far too sudden—too deliberate—to be anything as ordinary as lightning. The charged air bristled on Mina’s skin. Her heart thudded with a new, gnawing fear. “That was near the base,” Elias said, not needing to clarify. Something had shattered the stillness of this world, and now, every shadow and scrap of fog felt electric with expanse and imminent threat.