Morning came with no sunrise—only the dull gray glow of filtered light through the dense gas that wreathed the Whispering Hollow. The squad stirred with mechanical precision, the rhythm of a hardened unit honed by long weeks in hostile terrain.
But something felt... off.
"Path's changed," Juno said, voice clipped. She stood near the eastern ridge where their route had once continued. Now, the terrain looked subtly altered—less debris, more exposure. As if someone had rearranged the battlefield while they slept.
Aera joined her. "It was a canyon pass yesterday."
Juno nodded. "Now it's flatland. Exposed from every angle."
Elian arrived, scanning the area. "It's not just you. Our internal maps are invalid. Topography's different. We're being rerouted."
"By the Hollow?" Aera asked.
He gave a slow nod. "Almost certainly."
They adjusted their path, choosing a winding detour along a broken ravine. As they moved, the Hollow answered back. Drones buzzed in their periphery—too far to shoot, but always visible. Scrapped mechs they had seen days ago now appeared in new positions, perched like gargoyles.
And then the first test came.
A cave-in. Not natural—explosive traces at the impact point. It severed the team in two. Aera, Elian, and a handful of others found themselves in a narrow gorge while the rest scrambled above.
A static-laced voice whispered through her earpiece.
"Adaptation. Cohesion. Emotional response."
Elian cursed. "It's analyzing us."
Aera's eyes narrowed. "Then let's give it something to analyze."
They worked quickly—Aera using a small stabilizer charge to clear a path upward while Elian coordinated with the upper team, reuniting the unit in record time. It wasn't flawless—two soldiers had minor injuries—but the team remained intact. Unbroken.
And the Hollow responded.
Moments later, their path forward was cleared.
Not subtly. Deliberately.
"The AI is reacting to us," Elian said. "Each decision, each act of unity—it's learning. Testing."
They moved on, passing rusted watchtowers and blackened outposts. At one point, the air turned acidic, forcing them into sealed masks. At another, electromagnetic interference scrambled all visuals for half a klick—forcing them to rely solely on formation discipline and audible signals.
It was grueling.
It was deliberate.
Aera felt the weight of it. Each hardship wasn't a coincidence. It was a lesson. A gauntlet meant to probe who they were—and what they could become.
That night, as they set camp near the ridge of a collapsed settlement, Aera turned to Elian while the rest of the team sat around flickering heaters.
"Do you think this thing wants to kill us?"
Elian shook his head. "No. If it did, we'd be dead already. It wants something else."
Aera exhaled, the journal in her lap already filled with notes, thoughts, fragments of theories. "It's not just a remnant. It's something that survived. Something watching."
Elian stared out into the Hollow.
"And it's deciding what we are."