The One Who Stands

Planet: Velmora

Species: Threxari (insectoid-reptilian bipedal species with iridescent chitin and four eyes)

Average lifespan: ~40 local cycles (~29 Earth years)

Local Year Duration: 0.7 Earth years

Continent: Ar’Kael

Location: Wastes of Durness, near the ancient monolith of Kareth’Tar

Dust flowed like slow water across the basin, whispering through the bones of the broken Wastes. On Velmora’s southern continent, where twin suns dipped low into the dunes, the sky was always the color of bruised copper.

Solek Varn watched the sun sink behind the cliffs, his segmented arms resting on the stone railing of the outpost. Behind him, the hum of the settlement’s shield-grid crackled faintly—an old defense net from the War of Cinders, long before his birth.

Below, on the flats of Kareth’Tar, stood the Monolith.

Dark. Towering. Silent.

It rose 60 spans into the sky, untouched by erosion, unyielding to time. One side bore faint, geometric carvings, though their meaning was long lost. Historians speculated it wasn’t even Threxari in origin. It predated their written history. No one remembered who placed it there. Only that, according to what was left of the Old Records, it was erected as a “gesture of peace”—a phrase that stirred unease rather than comfort. Peace from whom?

Generations had passed. Settlements rose, burned, fell, and rose again. But the Monolith remained.

It was said that once every few cycles, someone would come. Not a Threxari. Not a scavenger. A figure. Dressed in layers of black cloth, tall, faceless. Silent.

And he would stand.

Solek never believed the stories, of course. He was practical. A mining technician on rotation at Kareth’Tar Outpost 17-Delta. His people didn’t indulge in mysticism anymore—not since the Collapse.

Still, on his last night before rotation offworld, he found himself alone, drinking a vial of spice-water and staring at the dust-choked plain. The Monolith shimmered faintly under the dusk-stars. Something in it unnerved him.

It always looked like it was watching.

His comm clicked.

“Solek,” came the voice of Mira Chav, the outpost’s administrator. “You’ve got motion down there.”

Solek frowned. “Motion?”

“West quadrant. 112 meters from the Monolith.”

He stood, checked the old scanner built into the wall. One blip.

Small.

Bipedal.

Not a Threxari signal.

He pressed the comm. “Probably some idiot kid from Ryn Hollow. They get drunk and come to spit at the ‘stone ghost.’ Want me to—”

Then he saw it.

The figure.

Rising from the haze like a shadow pulled free from the stars. Wrapped in black. No lights. No sound.

He moved with eerie stillness—each footstep deliberate, slow, and somehow weightless. Then he stopped, exactly twelve spans from the Monolith. The same distance is described in every old story. Not a pace more. Not a pace less.

And he simply stood.

Solek descended the ramp fast, heart thudding. Against his better judgment, he approached, boots sinking in the dust.

The figure didn’t move.

He was taller than a Threxari, which was rare. Maybe two full spans taller. Clad in overlapping layers of dull-black cloth and armor that shimmered faintly, like heat distortion. The face was fully covered—veil upon veil. Not even a breathing tube. No sounds. No movement.

Solek stopped ten spans behind him.

“Hey,” he called. “This is sovereign territory. You’re trespassing under Article—”

The figure turned his head slightly, but did not speak.

Solek blinked. Something itched at the edge of his mind. His lower hands gripped the hilt of his energy-hatchet instinctively. But he didn’t draw it.

“You okay?” he asked.

Nothing.

A long silence stretched, and then—barely audible—a whisper. Not from the figure’s mouth, but from everywhere.

“You are too young... to understand this place.”

Solek stumbled back. “What?”

The figure tilted his head slightly, then looked back at the Monolith.

“It remembers.”

Another whisper. Not accusatory. Almost… mournful.

“So much was buried here.”

“Even the ones who buried it are now dust.”

Then the figure took a step forward, placing one gloved hand against the Monolith’s surface.

A low vibration pulsed through the ground. The Monolith lit up. Just a line. Just once. Then it went dark again.

The figure stood for another few seconds. Then, wordlessly, turned and walked past Solek, heading into the deep dark of the Wastes.

Solek didn’t follow.

He couldn’t.

The air felt heavy. His lungs burned with a cold that wasn’t there a second ago. He looked back at the Monolith. No sign it had ever pulsed.

He checked the scanner.

No lifeform present. Not even a residual signal.

But he had seen it.

The figure.

The One Who Stands.

Afterword:

Mira laughed when Solek filed the report. “You had too much spice-water, technician.”

But when he left Velmora five days later, he noticed something odd. In a pub near the orbital port, a group of young Threxari were gathered around a parchment. It showed dates—each one marked with the appearance of the dark figure. Each account described the figure standing twelve spans from the Monolith.

The earliest recorded appearance was over Five hundred Velmoran years ago.

Too long for any being to live.

Unless… he wasn’t alive in the way they understood.

Final Note from an Old Historian’s Journal (recovered 102 years later):

“The Monoliths were placed on twelve worlds.

Each one untouched. Each one unclaimed.

We hoped they would endure.

A message across time.

A silent promise: When the stars forget us, the stones will still remember.

I wonder if anyone will remember what they were meant to mean.”