The sky shimmered violet over the Bone Dunes, where skeletal remains of forgotten machines jutted from shifting sands. Sylo, a salvage cartographer, traced symbols carved into a corroded hull. The language wasn’t human. Not entirely.
Her drone, Vex, chirped. “Incoming dust storm. Eight minutes.”
Sylo ignored it. The glyphs pulsed faintly under her fingertips, responding. A whisper curled in her mind—fragments of thought in an alien voice.
They had been here before. Long before humans.
The storm howled closer. She should run. Instead, she pressed her palm to the metal. Images flooded her—a civilization built from flesh and circuitry, then silence, their last knowledge locked away and waiting.
She could leave or stay and learn.
As the first grains of sand struck her visor, Sylo made her choice. Vex protested, but she smiled. Some things weren’t meant to be left buried.
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