Ghosts Beneath Salt
By the fifth day in the Salt Flats of Droz, reality itself began to fray.
The endless white ground shimmered under the punishing sun, blurring into waves that rippled like water. Distant shapes danced at the edges of vision—phantoms of cities, twisted trees, or impossible beasts. The Dawnbreakers had learned not to trust anything that moved on the horizon. Most of it wasn't real.
Most of it.
"Aera," Elian said, his voice clipped through the comms. "We're being watched."
Aera looked up, her scarf falling slightly as she peered across the flats. Her squad moved in tight formation behind her, boots crunching against the salted crust.
"I've been feeling it since this morning," she muttered.
It wasn't a presence she could see, but one she could feel. Like heat rising behind her back. The kind of pressure that made your instincts scream, even if your eyes saw nothing.
They moved slower now, more cautious. The sun had peeled layers off their patience, their boots, and their skin. Yet Aera pressed forward, setting the pace with quiet resolve.
Then they saw it.
A shattered monolith, half-buried in the salt. Jagged stone spires rose like ribs from a sunken corpse. Rusted metal frames jutted from the ground—remnants of a downed air fortress, long ago swallowed by the war and the desert.
"Ancient battlefield?" someone asked.
"No." Elian stepped forward, brushing salt off a fractured insignia on the side of a crumpled hull. "This was a Dezune prototype. One of the first armored sky platforms from the Second Surge."
That meant it had been here for decades. A ghost of the war before Kael was even born.
They set up a temporary camp within the shadows of the ruin, grateful for the scrap of shade it offered. The salt still bit at their boots, and the air stung their eyes, but at least the wind couldn't reach them here.
Night came heavy.
No stars, just a bruised sky and the occasional flicker of blue lightning in the distance—Droz's storms didn't follow the rules of nature. Static charges built beneath the ground, sometimes triggering flashes without clouds.
As the squad sat around a low burner flame, Aera pulled her coat tighter and began another story—not one of childhood this time, but of the war.
"How do you know when you're still human?" she asked, staring into the flame.
No one answered.
"I think it's when you can still care for strangers. Even when you're tired. Even when you've lost people. Even when the world looks like this."
One of the younger soldiers, a boy barely eighteen named Kerran, spoke softly. "I didn't care at first. I just wanted to survive. But now…"
He looked around. The squad wasn't just a unit anymore. It was family.
They shared food, stories, and laughter that cracked through the oppressive silence of the salt. Elian, ever composed, cracked a rare smile at a joke someone made about exo suits and itchy armor liners. Even the gruff veterans began to open up, slowly, like frost melting from steel.
But the ruin wasn't silent.
That night, Aera awoke to a sound—metal grinding against metal. Not from her squad.
From beneath them.
She rose slowly, rifle in hand, scanning the camp. Elian was already awake, crouched with his sidearm raised. A few others stirred. The sound came again—deep, mechanical, distant.
"Underground vents?" Elian guessed.
"No," Aera whispered. "Something alive."
The ground trembled faintly—just enough to crack a few salt crusts underfoot.
They didn't sleep the rest of the night.