Kinamis sparkled under a hot dusk sky, the last rays of sunlight casting long shadows across the red earth. The town had begun to settle into evening. Smoke curled from cooking fires, and the sound of pestles striking against wooden mortars echoed gently in the distance. Crickets chirped low, as if murmuring secrets the wind had dropped too early.
But within the Andar Holdings site, quiet meant something else entirely.
Keyslar paced the length of the machinery yard, hands behind his back, boots pressing into the gravel with mechanical purpose. He had a sense, an unshakeable itch at the base of his skull, that something was slipping just beyond his reach. The air around the shed felt too still. The birds, the dogs, even the insects, all quieter than they ought to be.
Inside the trailer office, Stephen Brandt was poring over satellite maps, updating schedules and ignoring the chill creeping through the closed room. He hadn't noticed that his digital clock had frozen at 5:46 p.m.
Behind the tool house, Grat and Mayo worked in silence. They had waited two nights. Two long, restless nights.
Now, with half the crew working overtime at the bridge site and the remaining staff scattered between bunkhouses and maintenance runs, it was time.
Grat peeled back the corner of the tarpaulin that wrapped the stone. Its surface sparkled faintly in the fading light, as if the dusk clung to it differently than it did to the earth around it. It had grown heavier, at least it felt that way, though neither man said it aloud. They had secured a wooden crate, reinforced with scraps from the steel scaffolding and bolted shut from the inside.
The plan was simple. Emral had left a company pickup idling behind the fuel depot. Grat had forged a shift requisition, signed with Brandt's initials. If anyone asked, they were moving unused welding gear to the second site for early morning prep. No one would question them.
They rolled the crate out under the hum of cicadas, straining with each step. Sweat clung to their shirts. A single community dog sat watching from the fence, unmoving, ears stiff and tail tucked low. It did not bark.
As the crate thudded onto the back of the pickup truck, the sun dipped beyond the hills. A strange wind swept across the camp, dry and sharp like sandpaper against skin.
Keyslar looked up from across the yard, eyes narrowing. The breeze seemed to come from nowhere. He started walking toward the tool house.
Inside the truck, Mayo wiped his face and muttered, "Let's just move."
Grat nodded, slammed the tailgate, and climbed behind the wheel. The headlights cut through the early dark. Emral, stationed near the gate with a casual nod, opened it as they rolled out. No one stopped them. The few workers still awake thought nothing of it, just routine. Just night shift errands.
They left Kinamis behind just as the call to prayer rang faintly from the mosque on the far hill. The road was quiet. Silent, even. For a while.
They didn't speak for the first hour.
Grat kept his eyes on the road, hands gripping the wheel tightly. The crate shifted occasionally in the back, though neither of them dared look behind. The hills rolled past, then the dense patch of old trees where children said ghosts lived, then the wide bend where an entire market once fell into the earth during a flood.
Mayo kept glancing at the side mirror.
"Do you feel that?" he finally asked. "What?" "The heaviness. Like, like it's not just weight. It's something else."
Grat didn't respond.
Lights from a gas station flashed ahead like an oasis. Grat pulled in without a word. He opened the door and stepped out, inhaling deeply. The moment he did, the air shifted. The neon lights flickered. A bulb above the pump cracked.
The attendant stepped back, frowning. "You people carrying batteries?"
"No," Grat replied quickly. "Just equipment. Welding tools."
The man narrowed his eyes but said nothing more.
They refueled and drove on.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the next town, it was nearly 11 p.m.
Emral had arranged a safe spot behind an old warehouse, unused for as long as anyone could remember. The warehouse loomed in silence, a skeleton of rust and decay crouched at the edge of the town like something forgotten on purpose. It stood behind a row of derelict factories, fenced off with curling wire and half collapsed planks. The moon above it was swollen and orange, casting elongated, twisted shadows across the gravel-strewn alley.
Grat brought the pickup to a stop behind the building, cutting the engine. The truck gave a tired rattle before falling quiet. For a moment, all three men sat still, as if hesitant to open the doors. Then, with heavy, reluctant movements, they climbed out.
They were tired. Not just from the drive and the weight of the crate, but from something deeper. Something unseen and heavy, like the air around them had thickened since leaving Kinamis. The silence that surrounded the warehouse didn't feel like peace. It felt like a warning.
Mayo glanced around as they approached the rear entrance. "This place's dead."
"Good," Emral muttered, gripping the side of the crate. "Dead places don't ask questions."
They hauled the crate to the rusted door. Emral kicked it open, the hinges screaming like something alive. Inside, the warehouse reeked of dust and old oil. The scent was undercut by something older, something foul. It wasn't quite rot. It wasn't quite metal. It was a smell that didn't belong anywhere natural, like scorched bone buried too deep to breathe.
They dragged the crate inside, the screech of it against the concrete bouncing off the walls. Grat bent to straighten the tarp, and as he did, the corner slipped from his fingers, flopping to the floor with a dull thud.
Everything changed.
The light outside flickered, then popped. The warehouse went dark. Wind slithered in through shattered windows, swirling dust into the air. It wasn't natural wind. It felt too focused. Like it was searching.
The stone began to hum.
It was low and steady, a sound they didn't hear so much as feel, in the soles of their feet, the hollows of their chest, the backs of their throats. A pulsing vibration, like something waking up from a centuries long sleep.
Mayo stumbled backward, eyes wide, clutching his ears. "Do you hear that? It's it's whispering!"
"There's nothing whispering," Grat snapped. But his voice trembled. His eyes flicked toward the crate.
They all heard it now. Not words. Not language. Just a sound that pushed into their minds like smoke: an ancient rhythm, deep and dark and rooted in things no one should remember.
The temperature dropped. Breath turned to mist. Frost crept over abandoned tools. Somewhere behind them, a rusted wrench rolled across the floor, by itself, clanging against a steel beam.
Grat turned sharply, flashlight raised. But before the beam landed on anything, an unseen force shoved him hard. He slammed into the wall, groaning.
Mayo screamed. "This isn't a stone. It's alive. It's wrong!"
The crate pulsed again, louder, harder. The walls groaned. The roof creaked. The air shook like the whole building was inhaling with the thing in the box.
Then, silence.
Emral backed away, chest heaving. "We chain it. Tonight. Bolt it down if we have to."
Grat didn't argue. They all looked at the crate like it might lurch to life. For the first time since this madness began, none of them doubted something unnatural had come with them from Kinamis.
They dragged the crate behind the fence. It was heavier now. Too heavy. It was as if the stone resisted being moved. As if it wanted to stay inside that warehouse, or worse, wanted to be seen.
There was no padlock, just a warped door and dust-covered floor. They rolled the crate into the shadow of the structure and draped it again in the tarp, adding ropes and chains this time.
Grat let out a shaky breath. "We did it."
Mayo nodded but didn't look away from the crate. "Something doesn't feel finished."
Inside, hidden from their eyes, the black stone pulsed once, softly.
In Kinamis, the king stood at the shrine, his face slick with sweat, surrounded by oil lamps whose flames twisted in silence. He hadn't slept in two nights. Not since the first dream.
"Where has it gone?" he whispered into the dark.
Behind him, Gafan trembled. "Your Majesty, I fear we are too late."
But Marcus kept his gaze on the fire. "No. Not yet. Not until the land itself spits it out."
"Do you mean to summon the sorcerer again?"
"No. This time we send for the boy."
Gafan's eyes narrowed. "What boy?"
"The one born during the thunderstorm," Marcus said quietly. "The child who dreams with silence. The one whose mother died screaming and whose cry stilled the river."
Gafan swallowed. "You believe the gods will speak through a child?"
"They won't speak," the king said, "but they might watch. And sometimes, that's all it takes."
Back at the warehouse, Grat was finishing a call when Mayo leaned against the fence, staring into the shadows.
"You hear it again?" Grat asked, pocketing his phone.
Mayo didn't answer. He tilted his head. "It's whispering again. I swear."
Grat frowned. "It's in your head."
They didn't notice the shadow shifting behind the fence.
Didn't notice the low glint of eyes, red, reflective, blinking twice before melting into the alley.
The stone had left Kinamis. But it had not left alone.
It never would.