I saw in the distance a monument of harsh black shapes. Mounds of earth piled high in mounds to give them shape, sprouting like trees from the mounds of grey ashen soil. They were obviously constructed, artificial in nature as you could get.

They were made of some form of black glass that could reflect the light that should not be around down here off of their smooth surfaces. The branches were at right or acute angles and looked sharp, far too sharp for casual construction. The shapes themselves were also sharp, each a slightly different angular spike not too dissimilar to the pyramid in the distance but taller in height than width.

It had the same look and feel a hostile place would, like when someone put up barbed wire on the top of their fence to keep people out or when a place had wrought iron spikes.

It was unsettling, to say the very least, and that was discounting the approaching dark shape behind me as I rode towards the wall of discomfort, sand kicking up behind me in a plume I was no doubt being followed by a flying object of unknown hostility.

It didn’t matter; it would catch up and fight me, or it wouldn’t, and I would get away.

Instead of focusing on the incoming shape, I kept my eyes forward to the wall of harshness before me every so often, making sure I was going in the correct direction.

The moment I spotted the wall of black shapes. The Wayfinder, luckily, had stopped changing directions like a drunkard.

Apparently, whatever fuckery the Throne experienced; this place was exempt from it. The only odd thing that happened on my journey was that the light that could not come from the sun started setting as I approached. The light began to dim as I got close to the wall of dark shapes, but I arrived with enough light to take them in and get a very good look.

It was hostile architecture, the likes of which I had never seen anything like it. Nothing equivalent. Like a fence that screamed ‘leave this place’ when you approached it. The soil was almost sandy and even more desolate, if that was possible, lifeless beyond even the expanse of the sands and gravel.

I ignored its message. For what else could it be? They were obviously not defensive, the branches were raised on mounds, but between the mounds were easily traversed paths.

They split and split, a confusing layout that I had seen before in prison architecture. It was the only defensive part of the construction I could see, the splits intended to split larger groups up and minimize a numbers advantage.

Was this place a fort of some kind? A holdout point? Are there going to be guardians to hold in the thing the keeper talked about? That would make some sense. But if they exist, where are they? I’m not being subtle, so if they exist, I should see them soon.

I checked back in the sky for the shape, the light fading to a somewhat twilit state, the light coming in from the horizon played tricks on my eyes as it bounced off the black forest. They began to look more and more like black glass, the light reflecting off and refracting through the structure, giving them an inner glow and shine both showing brilliant colour.

Instead of contrasting with them, however, it just enhanced them instead. Unnatural lighting for the forest of angry shapes gave the place a whole new ominous feeling.

I spotted, engraved on them, strange pictures and stopped and squinted.

It looked like the face of someone screaming in pain.

I shuttered and continued forward.

I wasn’t going to be frightened by some admittedly very pointy, somewhat threatening structures covered in screaming faces. And I definitely wasn’t going to lose my cool over the ominous-looking light passing through them.

Absolutely not.

OK, I suppose there was nothing like the hostile landscape around you to give you a strange new fear, right? It's fine, there is nothing wrong with being afraid of anything, right? Nothing wrong with a little unease. Right?

I decided to speed up, winding through the raised mounds as I rode under the eerie light of the thickening branches.

It got darker and darker, but I finally found my way clear of the twisting cover overhead, clear of their odd colours and reflective, lustrous surfaces. The light had almost gone down, all the way down to the horizon, the light not reaching me through the field of dark shapes except through the light emitted by the shapes.

I bet the sunset would be gorgeous. This place has only ever been eerie and empty or lush and beautiful. What's with the sky?

Are thoughts… The lights? The station's lights? They are spinning around up there, and I can see them… God almighty, those are powerful lights, they look so much closer down here. Nothing in this place makes any sense.

I took my eyes off the sky and tried to use what little light was left to spot anything in the distance. Whatever I was finding was still off in the distance, right in front of me just, far out, either unable to spot with the naked eye or hidden beyond the horizon. I could make out the field of shapes, the same that I had come through, expanding out in a circle.

I checked the skyline but found nothing of note, but considering this place messed with me, I decided to trust my gut.

I still felt watched, so I kept going.

Driving through the ever-darkening place, following the un-erring compass of the Wayfinder, pointing ever forward into the dark of night on the Throne. There was enough light from the spinning lights of the station to find.

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I decided to check my time peace, taking my hands off of the handlebars and letting the bike continue forward under me, which was easier in the two by two than with just two wheels.

I pulled it out and, using the headlamps, saw the face.

The hands were still, the time peace had not a tick nor a tock.

I panicked a little, assuming that I had just forgotten to wind it, the action of which would get me locked out of my ship, which was a massive pain in the ass, but when I wound it, it didn’t start moving. I wound and wound it until the spring didn’t want to wind anymore.

The clock simply didn’t tick, didn’t move.

It was so bizarre I snorted from the relief of it.

I hadn’t gotten myself locked out of my ship. I had just found my way to a place where time didn’t pass.

Why didn’t I think about that?

I actually chuckled out loud all on my own.

“Of course, it's obvious! What the hell is with the place? It makes me feel like a crazy person. I swear if this stupid place gets me locked out and I have to pull myself into the console hatch to find the time, I’m going to build a doomsday weapon and blow this stupid cursed rock up and save the universe from getting gaslit by this stupid tomb. YOU HEAR THAT WORLD, FUCK OFF!”

I shouted it like an accusation, head back, right up into the sky like I was slightly unhinged. Or maybe totally unhinged.

As if to spite me, a dark shape started moving in the periphery of my headlamp.

I shouted profanity, grabbing back onto the handles with one hand and stowing the watch before drawing Righty. I looked around but couldn’t see the shape. I drew the hammer back, heightening my vigilance, becoming dreadfully aware of the feeling of being watched.

I kept my ears open.

I kept my head on a swivel.

I wound the light side to side a little, winding forward through the dusty dirt to try and catch the figure in the headlamp.

I could not see it.

But I could feel it.

I could feel it chasing me, feel it in my blood, in the pith of my marrow, in my gut.

I didn’t know what to do, so I acted.

I levelled Righty to the left of me, slightly in front of me, and pulled the trigger.

The gun barked, the flash lighting up the dark.

It looked like a dog but was to a dog as toxic waste was to a cup of water, as a man was to an ape. It was a dog as painted by one who had never seen one. Misshapen. Too big by half and distended.

It was far too long from head to tail. Its legs looked more like a person's legs, not a dog's. Its paws were more like misshapen hands, it stood on the tips of the finger-like paws like some kind of martial arts training move as designed by the demented. Its jaw extended from the gaping maw like a second snout, like an industrial shredder made from bone, blood, and flesh in the shape of a dog's snout.

I missed, but I followed it up, snapping off shots, one after another. The third clipped the thing's leg as it stretched out like an elastic band of meat.

Its screech was not a screech that should come from the mouth of such a beast. It sounded like a child.

It sounded like the children on the radio.

The nightmares came back, the laughing children came back in full force, and an image clarifying in my mind of multiple of these things slowly tearing the grown men to shreds with their mouths, laughing through their hideous maws.

I snapped off a shot where I thought it was but missed as it fell behind me. I let go and started going forward without the handles, leaning back and lining up where I thought it was based on the flash of light I had.

The thing was moving too fast, coming up behind me, so I sped up and lined up my fifth shot with Righty.

But for all my faults, I was a damn good shot. It caught the thing through the head, I could feel the viscera spray out of it, a fleck hitting my face and making me gag.

From the flash, I knew that the thing was not finished.

It let out its shrill baby voice, growing distant before trailing off into the night.

I didn’t talk out loud, fearful of somehow bringing it back to me. I just reloaded my gun with plasma and remained ready for a second round until I spotted the needle shifting slightly.

I soon came upon a building, large but open in my headlights. I slowed my pace as I found my way toward than into the space.

Monolithic walls of the same black material as before met my light, and I coasted around in the open space, it was somewhat decrepit, objects that looked like lights that had since shut off sat in high corners.

I read the writing on the wall.

Literally.

There were placards on the inside of the structure, written in a myriad of languages I had never seen before. They seemed to repeat the same amount of lines, each script different in design it was easy enough to differentiate some from others, and each of those was different.

I circled the inside and found it to be a box of sorts, the center of each wall cut away for entrances meant that there were only four corners, and it was roofless, but it had a definite box-like appearance.

It was a strange metal, not because it was off in any way but because it wasn’t a normally used metal, or in any case, not one I used frequently enough to remember it.

It didn’t look scuffed or scratched from wind or rain or any other element, in fact, it stood practically shining to a mirror finish.

I scooted around to the next one, more languages, the next some kind of series of pictures I couldn’t understand, and the next was in a more familiar series of characters, but they made no word I could understand.

I circled around the box, trying to read them until I found one that I could read.

This place is a message and part of a series of messages. It is not unique.

Pay Attention.

Sending this message was important to us.

We considered ourselves a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor; no great deed is commemorated here, and nothing of value remains here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us.

This place is a warning about that danger.

This danger is in a particular location and becomes more dangerous towards that location.

The center of that danger is here, below the ground.

The danger is still present in your time as it was in ours.

The danger is to both the body and the mind and the spirit.

The danger is to the social and the soul alike and can kill.

The form of danger is an emanation of energy and can’t be blocked if this place is disturbed.

Do not disturb this place.

This place is best left shunned and uninhabited.

Followed by a series of different images similar to the one the Keeper showed me, bridging the full spectrum of eye shapes.

I looked around at all the placards I could see and knew existed. There were something like 60 of them on every wall, and that was just the ones at my height, there were more above, angled down at me.

Each of them barring the same message, hundreds of them were written by a society so powerful they were sometimes misremembered as living gods.

It made my fucking bones quiver in my body just reading the fucking thing.

I moved towards the center and found a tiny hut. The hut contained more complex pictograms that I could not decipher and a great metal doorway with a chit-reader next to it.

I parked my bike, packed my stuff up as best as I could, and walked to the chit reader, placing the chit inside after taking it out of the Wayfinder.

The box closed, whirring for a moment before opening again for me to take the chit out.

The door started whirring, the sound of great machines echoing from the earth. Beneath me, like a great clock echoing its chime from within the earth, it called and woke the tomb and its inhabitants.

‘We have a guest,’ it told them, ‘a guest and a trespasser.’

I did not stand down. I had come, I had seen, and I was going to get my prize.