Dry. So incredibly dry and cold. The darkness is all but absolute until two moons, a large white moon followed closely by a smaller red moon, rise above a mountain line in the East, illuminating a vast plain below. The plain, as far as the eye can see, is a waste of reddish-brown, cracked clay that, under the red and white moonlight, seems like a series of never-ending wounds. There is no standing water, no streams. The only vegetation consists of small grasses and shrubs, their limbs so twisted and writhing that, in the light of the moons, moving with the wind, they almost seem like creatures reaching, begging for any liquid to stave their thirst, to end their suffering.

  The vast outline of mountains where the moons have risen extends from North to South, almost like the spine of some sleeping monster. Roughly ten kilometers west of the mountains, within a vale facing west toward the waste, an outcrop of thirty-nine white and grey marbled stones arrayed in a half circle (roughly seven hundred thirty-nine meters across), with a large dark monolith at its center, can be seen coming into view as the moons continue to rise higher into the sky. Each of the stones within the half circle is identical in size to its neighbor: thirty meters high, twenty meters across, five meters deep, with ten meters spacing each stone from the next. Intricate symbols and carvings adorn the east side of the stones, while the face on the west side is a highly polished concave inner surface facing a dark object at the center of the half circle. Unworldly and alien are descriptions befitting the stones in their arrangement and comparison to all within the waste. However, if the stones are unworldly, then the object in the center can only be described as ethereal. Thirty meters high, twenty meters across, and five meters deep, the pitch-black monolith stands. No dust shows, no other color marks its surface. The light from the moons does not show a shine, sparkle, or reflection—nothing that would show something is there at all. It is only the outline of nothing that gives it its shape. Through the vale to the waste, the stones are the only oasis within the desolation, the only evidence that beings of intelligence and purpose once existed here.

  Wind-borne sand and silt from the waste wash through the vale. As time passes, the shadows of the stones shift with the moons' movement through the sky. Within a rocky outcrop of boulders some thirty meters southwest of the ring, a deep breathing rumble, almost like a purr, emanates from a large dark crevasse. A dark murky shape within can be discerned, the outline bespeaking a creature of terrifying size. As the moonlight begins to angle away into the west, the tapetum lucidum of the creature’s eyes suddenly shines like yellow lamplights in the dark. Turning, moving fast, then slow, the creature's outline seems to show it almost pacing, then looking at the stones, pacing, then looking at the moons, and then pacing again, as if waiting for some event to happen. Then it just stares at the moons as they move further west, almost as if it could will them to move faster.

  It is not until the moons peek high into the sky, their light impinging onto the concave mirrored sides of the marbled stones, reflecting the light directly onto the monolith, that the dynamic within the vale alters drastically. The black emptiness of the monolith gives way to a rippling shimmer over its surface, followed by a low guttural pitch emanating from it, the vibrations spreading from its base into the ground. As if this is what it was waiting for, the creature's breathing seems to cease with the coming of the sound. Its eyes look away from the stones to the western edge of the waste, where on the horizon, a dust cloud like a small explosion appears, expanding rapidly and drifting toward the vale carried by the winds from the West.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The further the moons drift west, the light reflected to the monolith from the stones intensifies. In response, the sound emanating from it increases drastically, with added distorted harmonics. The sand on the floor around the stone ripples and dances in cymatic patterns extending out towards the mouth of the vale in the direction of the waste. The ripples on the monolith are now erratic waves, a bluish-purple corona now radiating from its edges. The monolith's feature now seems to distort as the entire surface vibrates.

  The dust cloud in the West seems to grow larger and travel more rapidly in response to the increased sound from the vale, as if the sound is an acoustical piper drawing it in. Plumes of dry ground erupt along the edges only to have the wind from the west engulf it into the rapidly growing mass. Expanding, contracting, then expanding again, yet still gaining ground, it is then when the cloud is within twenty-four hundred meters of the vale that the wind starts to shift from the west to the east, the edge thinning as it is blown back. From within, a deep rumbling sound can be perceptibly heard over the wind and the discordant sound of the stones. Within the thinning clouds of dust, large dense tendrils separate from the main dust cloud as the main mass is blown back. Around the tendrils, the sound of impact accompanies more earth being thrown in the air, keeping whatever is within enshrouded in its own island of dust and debris while moving toward the vale.

  As the wind from the vale to the west increases, a shape can now be seen from the lead mass of the tendrils. Black, serrated, bobbing up and down as well as back and forth in time with the continued kick-up of the dust, a two-meter horn enshrouded within moonlight beams and dust blowing around it emerges. The blanket of dust is blown away, revealing the creature as it continues to move forward. Roughly eight thousand kilograms and measuring close to fifteen meters from snout to rear, four point six meters from feet to the top of its back, its skin is thick and plate-like, with rough horn-like cartilage features covering its body. The large head of the beast has a massive maw easily able to eviscerate its food and swallow it whole. Towards the ridge of the nose on either side, two large slitted and watery red eyes are dulled on each side of the head as the beast's nictitating membranes are closed against the dust, giving it an almost drawn, non-seeing form of locomotion. Four thickly muscled limbs ending in large foot pads adorned with three claws on each send tremors into the ground and cause dust to constantly be sent into the air with every step it takes. Combined with the mist coming from its breathing in the cold dry air, it is an intimidating juggernaut wreathed in steam. One creature alone would be enough to destroy an army before it. Just one. Following its lead, fifteen others just like it broke through the dust surrounding them, heading for the vale.