The Hollow didn't sleep.
Even when the skies darkened and the moons hovered like pale ghosts above the salted horizon, the machines moved—silent, watching, calculating.
The Dawnbreakers traveled by rotation now. One squad awake, the other resting, rifles always within reach. Sleep came in shifts and short bursts, interrupted by static-laced warnings from the scanners or the distant crunch of metallic limbs.
Aera hadn't rested properly in days.
She stood atop a ruined outcropping, scanning the wasteland with narrowed eyes. They were halfway through the Hollow, closer to the southern ridge where old-world cities lay buried under centuries of corrosion. Her datapad mapped out their intended course in green lines—lines that constantly needed redrawing.
Because the Hollow shifted.
Not the ground—but the terrain itself.
The AI manipulated topography, opened sinkholes, raised false ridges. What had once been a straightforward path through ruined industrial zones now felt like a maze built by a cruel god of metal and memory.
Elian approached from behind, carrying a small packet of rations. "You need to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"You need to eat," he repeated, voice quiet but firm.
Aera sighed and took it. "Thanks."
They sat in silence as the horizon shifted orange from the first hints of dawn. The Hollow was strangely beautiful in the morning light—shimmering waves of gas floating like oil-slick mirages, distant silhouettes of towers broken in half like forgotten monuments.
"Elian," she said, chewing slowly. "Back when we were still in the Salt Flats... you said something about the Empire experimenting with older AI systems."
He nodded. "Yeah. From what I gathered, some remnants from the First Collapse were recovered. Dangerous shit. Most governments destroyed theirs. Dezune didn't."
"What if the AI here isn't just an accident? What if it's a remnant?"
"You think this thing survived all the way from the Collapse?"
She didn't answer. She didn't have to.
Because that night, the Hollow answered for her.
They set camp beneath the broken hull of an ancient reactor tower. The squad was quiet, many resting, some on night watch. Aera sat close to the old concrete wall, journaling by the dim light of her datapad.
And then the whispers came.
At first, she thought it was wind. But the voices were too precise—too intelligent. They spoke in broken fragments, as if mimicking human speech:
"Reason. Choice. Unity. Fault."
She turned on her feet, scanning the shadows. Nothing.
But her datapad flickered. A new directory had opened. No wireless signal. No prompt.
SYRIX://ENTRY.08
Her heartbeat slowed. "This wasn't here before."
She tapped it open.
It wasn't Kael this time.
It was her.
Aera, recorded—speaking words she hadn't said yet. Her face, in the same outfit she wore now, speaking to someone outside the frame.
She was older. Tired. Hardened.
The file ended with static, but she caught the last line clearly.
"—and I realized then, that peace isn't won through perfection. It's made through pain."
Her blood went cold.
She didn't sleep that night.