Sleep came slowly and left in shambles.
Even inside the cave, shielded behind pulse fences and motion sensors, no one truly rested. The air was thick — heavier than it had any right to be. Breathing it in felt like dragging fog through your lungs. It wasn't toxic, but it was uncomfortable, like a weight pressing on your skin.
Kael sat up first, still inside Ravager. He hadn't dared dismount the night before. Neither had the others.
"I slept like crap," Tyren muttered through the shared comms.
"You slept?" Kael asked.
"Briefly. Between hallucinating fog monsters and counting seismic tremors. Ten out of ten nightmare real estate."
Oris was already running sensor diagnostics from inside Specter. "No movement on radar. No threats logged. But I've added two new fault lines to our terrain scan. Something moved underground while we slept."
Kael glanced outside the cockpit.
Still dim. Still no sun. Still fog.
It felt like time didn't pass on this planet. Only weight did.
---
By mid-cycle, Unit 404 had decided to expand their knowledge of the terrain.
Strapped into their mechas, they left the temporary cave camp and began a wide-circle route through the southern flatlands. The thick air clung to their visors. Visibility remained low — even in elevated optics mode — and the mech-mounted scanners picked up strange interference every few minutes.
Fog here didn't just hang in the air.
It had mass.
Ravager's shoulder pushed through a vine-covered tree — and the fog clung to the mech's plating. Almost like it didn't want to let go.
---
"Tell me this feels normal to someone," Tyren muttered. Pulse Fang's sensors were actively measuring everything.
Kael was focused on maneuvering Ravager around a massive root system. "Trees are oddly shaped," he muttered. "Like they're adapted to... survive impacts."
Oris added, "Or to grow in gravity shifts. These bark readings — they're not plant-like. They're metallic composites."
They stopped near a towering tree the size of a short skyscraper. Its bark shimmered faintly, and its leaves were solid.
Kael reached out with Ravager's blade-arm and gently severed one.
> CLANG.
The leaf hit the ground like a bent sheet of steel.
Kael crouched down. "It's dense. And magnetized."
Tyren activated Pulse Fang's onboard arc cutter and tried to melt the edge of another leaf.
> Result: Minimal melting. High resistance.
"These things are made to survive extreme heat, maybe even orbital friction," he said. "What kind of sunlight was this planet exposed to… if any?"
"We still haven't located a star in the sky," Oris reminded them. "This could be a rogue planet. Or worse — something cloaked in a dead zone."
---
They moved deeper into the terrain.
Not far beyond the metallic trees, the ground changed.
The soil was darker, softer… and disturbed.
Massive indentations in the dirt, as if something huge had stomped or fallen. Some holes were rounded — others torn, like claws had raked through it.
One hole was nearly 12 meters wide and led straight down into darkness.
Kael scanned it with infrared.
No heat. No sound.
But something about the shape…
"This isn't natural erosion," he muttered. "It's from impact."
Tyren added, "Or struggle."
"Or both," Oris said. "Whatever lives here… it fights."
---
The rest of the day was slow, methodical.
They stayed in formation — triangle spread — while logging as much terrain as possible. They found more warped trees, more silent fields, and more holes.
But nothing else. No life. No movement. Not even sound.
Until they turned back.
---
They were less than a kilometer from their base when Kael saw it.
> "Hold."
He froze. The others did too.
Ahead, just barely visible through a gap in the thick fog... something moved.
The fog parted slightly. A massive shape trudged through the brush.
Its bulk was immense — the size of a gunship, maybe larger. Covered in thick, boulder-like plates, with spikes protruding along its spine. Its front feet pressed into the iron-leafed ground, causing a tremor with every step.
The creature stopped in front of one of the massive trees… and began eating.
With its jagged horn, it scraped leaves off the tree's lower limbs and consumed them slowly, methodically.
> "Kaiju," Oris whispered.
It looked like a rhinoceros, but exaggerated — prehistoric and armored like a tank. It had three eyes on each side, all black. Its mouth split vertically when it chewed. And it had no ears.
"It hasn't noticed us," Kael said, lowering Ravager's energy signature.
"Then we don't disturb it," Oris said.
Tyren stared. "It's eating metal leaves. What kind of digestive system does it have?"
"The terrifying kind."
---
They watched in silence.
The Kaiju didn't roar. Didn't posture. It just... ate.
One tree. Then another.
Slow. Powerful. Indifferent.
Then, without warning, it turned — not toward them, but toward the west — and began to walk away.
The fog closed behind it like a curtain. Within seconds, it was gone.
Kael exhaled. "That thing could flatten a city wall."
"And it's not the one that roared yesterday," Oris said. "Different posture. No vocal action. This one's a grazer."
Tyren muttered, "So there's more. Maybe lots more."
Kael turned back toward the cave. "Let's move. Carefully. No noise. No light. And no more wandering off-path."
---
As they retreated, the fog thickened again — like the world was covering up what they'd seen.
But now, they understood something else.
This planet wasn't empty.
It just knew how to hide its monsters.
---