Aera stood at the edge of the Salt Flats, the world behind her one of shimmering dust and silence. Before her lay a veil of pale mist creeping low along the ground, curling like smoke with a will of its own.
The Whispering Hollows.
From a distance, the region looked like a series of collapsed valleys and eroded ridgelines, but up close, it was a place that breathed—not with life, but with death.
She pulled her cloak tighter and flicked her wrist, activating the datapad secured to her forearm. A blue holographic projection flared to life, displaying topographic contours overlaid with atmospheric hazard readings. A dozen red markers pulsed.
CAUTION: RADIATION HOTSPOTS DETECTED. VOLATILE GAS COMPOSITION: 72% ARGON-15, 18% XENOGAS, 6% METHANE STRAINS, 4% UNKNOWN IONIZED PARTICLES.
Even with the datapad's filter adjusted, the sheer density of the toxins painted the screen in angry hues of amber and red.
"Elian," she said through her comms, "we'll need to switch to filtered respirators. The Hollow's active."
"I've already prepped the squads. Filters are sealed, pressure suits checked twice," he replied, calm as always. "But... Aera. You sure we want to go through this hellhole?"
She looked ahead. The mist roiled over broken terrain like a living thing. High above, charred clouds hovered unnaturally low, as if pushed down by some unseen weight.
"Yes," she said. "We don't have time to circle around. Besides—there's something about this place."
Something old.
Something forgotten.
She turned back to her squad—the Dawnbreakers. They moved in formation behind her, armored boots crunching against irradiated salt-crust. Everyone had their face masks on now, visors glowing faintly with data displays.
"You all know what we're walking into," Aera said, raising her voice. "And I know it's tempting to fear this place. I get it. The air smells wrong, the ground hums like it's got a heartbeat, and the maps label it like a grave."
She paused. "But we're not the kind of people who run. We're Dawnbreakers. We walk into the dark so others won't have to."
No one cheered. They only nodded, resolute. That was enough.
They stepped into the Hollow.
The air shifted immediately. Denser. Heavier. Every breath was a filtered struggle, and the world dimmed behind layers of radiation shielding. Above them, the clouds sparked occasionally with streaks of green lightning—static charges generated by unstable gases colliding in the pressure-warped sky.
Aera kept an eye on the datapad as they descended into the valley proper. Beneath their feet, the ground grew darker—layers of ancient stone, fused glass, and scorched metal ruins poking through like bones.
"Elian," she asked, "what's the story here? What the hell happened to this place?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then his voice came through, slightly distorted by interference.
"Two centuries ago, before the Dezune ever set foot beyond their cradle, this region was home to an experimental city. Project Syrix. A testbed for quantum energy reactors and synthetic atmosphere manipulation."
Aera frowned. "I've never heard of it."
"You wouldn't. The Empire buried it. The tech failed. Horribly. One of the quantum cores breached during a high-energy test. Vaporized half the city in a ten-kilometer radius. The gas clouds that followed… never dissipated."
"Why not?"
Elian hesitated. "No one knows. Some say the explosion tore a hole in the atmospheric membrane. Others think something got released from beneath the earth."
Aera didn't reply. She stared ahead at the drifting mist, which curled unnaturally toward her—like it recognized her presence.
Suddenly, her datapad flashed.
WARNING: RADIATION SPIKE IMMINENT. ZONE BETA-THREE UNSAFE FOR PASSAGE.
"Veer west! Now!" she shouted.
The squad shifted without hesitation, just as a blast of shimmering heat rippled through the air behind them. The ground hissed and bubbled where they'd just stood, fissures opening up to exhale more of the Hollow's corrupted breath.
They kept moving—past melted steel spires, through broken archways covered in ash, across terrain that felt less like a battlefield and more like a graveyard for the future.
That night, the squad set camp in the shell of an old surveillance tower. Half of it had been melted into slag, but the basement still held shielding strong enough to block most of the radiation. They stripped down their outer suits, letting the recycled air fill their lungs.
Elian sat across from Aera, fiddling with a cracked panel from a ruined terminal.
"You were right," he said finally. "Coming through here saved us at least a week of travel time. Still… I hate this place."
Aera stared at the ceiling, her fingers tapping her datapad absently.
"I don't like it either," she said. "But this Hollow—it's like a scar. A reminder of what power without understanding can do."
She didn't name Kael.
She didn't have to.