THE SENTINELS OF THE FLAMING MOONS

Chapter I: The Ghost in the Floorboards

My name is Dave Mitchell, but in the small, rain-slicked towns of the Colorado Rockies, they just call me “Mountain Dave.” They see a man who walked away from a career in law to live in a cabin that smells of cedar and old paper. What they don’t see is the man I used to be: a crypto-linguist for the Navy, trained to find the signal in the noise, the code in the chaos.

I wasn’t looking for a miracle when I stepped into that derelict cabin in the Sentinel Peaks. I was looking for architectural salvage. But beneath a rotting floorboard, wrapped in oilcloth and stained with a century of pine resin and something darker—dried blood—I found a leather-bound journal.

The name on the inside cover was Henry Blackwood. The year was 1897.

At first, the entries were mundane: cattle counts, weather patterns, the price of grain in Sisters, Oregon. But as I flipped through the brittle pages, the handwriting began to fracture. The precise script of a rancher descended into the frantic scrawls of a man witnessing the impossible. Sandwiched between records of the autumn harvest were crude, terrifying sketches. They depicted massive shadow figures—creatures with impossible musculature—standing alongside geometric symbols that defied any known astronomical chart.

Blackwood wasn’t recording sightings. He was documenting a first-contact event.

Chapter II: The Flaming Moons

As a decoder, I knew Blackwood’s “lunacy” was actually a sophisticated protective cipher. He used topographical descriptions of his ranch as mnemonics. When I cross-referenced his notes with local weather reports from 1897, everything matched. The man was grounded in reality, which made his supernatural claims terrifyingly credible.

He wrote obsessively about the “Flaming Moons.” He described them as silent, reddish-orange orbs that appeared on set dates on the horizon. They weren’t celestial bodies; they were organized arrivals.

“They are here, sent by the moons,” the final entry read.

I fed Blackwood’s angular calculations—his precise recordings of declination and azimuth—into modern topographical mapping software. As the data converged, the screen glowed with a single vector. It pointed to a remote, high-altitude gorge deep within the Sentinel Peaks. A place where the maps ended in “unexplored” gray zones.

I traded my carpentry tools for a parabolic microphone array, thermal cameras, and a Navy-grade frequency scanner. I wasn’t just a mountain loner anymore. I was a hunter of the truth.

Chapter III: The Gateway of Slabs

The air temperature dropped ten degrees the moment I crossed the ridge into the gorge. It was a vacuum of sound—no birds, no wind, just a heavy, pressurized silence. Following Blackwood’s map, I found the first physical proof of his journal.

Blocking the entrance to the inner canyon was a rock cairn, seven feet high. This wasn’t a haphazard pile of stones. The basalt slabs, weighing hundreds of pounds each, were fitted together with a precision that suggested immense, intelligent force.

Beside the lowest slab, pressed into the damp earth, was a single footprint. It was twice the size of a human’s, the toes splayed with the weight of a creature that must have tipped the scales at eight hundred pounds. The imprint was crisp. It was fresh.

Twenty feet past the barrier, I found the warning: a bleached elk skull with a single, massive, clean puncture hole through the frontal bone. It was a message. This is the boundary. Beyond this, you are judged.

Chapter IV: The Rhythmic Heartbeat

I established a covert surveillance camp nestled in a rockfall overlooking the valley floor. The basin was an inverted bowl of ancient cedar and glacial meadows. At its center was a nearly perfect circular clearing—the rendezvous point Blackwood had mapped.

As the sun dipped behind the peaks, my parabolic mic picked up a sound that made my skin crawl. It wasn’t an animal growl. it was a low, rhythmic thrumming—a steady vibrational heartbeat emanating from deep underground.

I pulled out the journal. Blackwood had recorded this exact phenomenon in the fall of 1897. The thrumming wasn’t random; it was a timer. The rhythmic pulse was perfectly synchronized with the astronomical dates. The creatures weren’t just waiting for the lights; they were keyed into a geological signaling device established centuries ago.

Suddenly, the thrumming stopped. The vacuum of sound returned, more terrifying than the noise.

I moved. I had to see the center before the event began.

Chapter V: The Obsidian Key

In the heart of the clearing stood the Great Circle of Cedars. Twelve-foot-wide petrified stumps formed a perimeter around a central altar. Its surface was scored with the same geometric markings from Blackwood’s journal—topographical and numerical data etched into the wood with terrifying mathematical perfection.

The air tasted of ozone—the sharp, metallic tang of high-energy discharge. In the hollow of the central stump, my thermal camera flared. Something was radiating intense heat in the freezing night.

It was a piece of dense, polished obsidian. Geometrically perfect. A relic.

I made a choice that changed everything. I reached out and took it.

The moment the obsidian left the stump, the magnetic pressure of the valley dissipated. I felt a surge of cold dread. This wasn’t just a marker. It was a key, and I had just taken it from the lock.

Chapter VI: The Arrival

A mournful, modulated howl erupted from the ridge. It was answered by dozens of others. The “Hidden People” were no longer patrolling; they were converging. Their vocalizations were complex, rhythmic, and directed upward.

The sky began to shimmer. Not with heat, but with a massive column of electric blue energy that seemed to fracture the atmospheric pressure. Descending through this column were the Flaming Moons—spherical, metallic, reddish-orange objects.

They hovered fifty feet above the Great Circle. This was a scheduled aerial rendezvous, a technical exchange between the ground-dwelling sentinels and an unknown aerial power.

The creatures emerged from the shadows. They were massive, covered in thick, dark hair, but their movements were disciplined, almost military. They knelt as the orbs deposited small metallic cylinders into the center of the clearing.

But then, the lead creature—a mountain of muscle standing nearly nine feet tall—stopped. It looked at the empty central stump. Its head snapped toward my position on the ridge.

Chapter VII: The Three-Way Standoff

I had ninety seconds.

The creatures moved with terrifying efficiency, flowing across the granite terrain. I scrambled backward, my heart hammering against my ribs. I pulled the obsidian relic from my pack, realizing it was the only thing they wanted.

The lead creature stopped fifteen feet from me. Its eyes were dark, ancient, and filled with a cold, calculated intelligence. It held a second obsidian relic in its hand—a twin to the one I had stolen. It made a distinct gesture: a plea and a demand.

But as I reached to return it, I noticed something that froze my blood.

In the mud near the ridge were new tracks. They weren’t the barefoot imprints of the Hidden People, nor were they my heavy hiking boots. They were the crisp, thin-soled outlines of highly specialized tactical footwear. Military grade.

I looked up. High above the Flaming Moons, almost invisible against the stars, was a tiny, silent silver eye. A high-altitude drone.

I realized the ultimate tragedy of Henry Blackwood. He wasn’t just documenting a myth; he was documenting a scheduled technological vulnerability. And now, the government wasn’t just watching the creatures—they were watching the exchange.

Chapter VIII: The Sentinel’s Pact

I didn’t return the obsidian. Instead, I used it to communicate.

I held my pack open, showing the creature my GPS unit and my frequency scanner. I pointed at the ascending orbs, then at the sky, mimicking the flight path of the drone. I used the universal gestures for “watcher” and “threat.”

You are not alone. Others are watching the arrival.

The creature’s posture shifted. The demanding aggression evaporated, replaced by a profound, calculating fear. It understood. My warning validated their deepest historical fear: the encroaching technological threat that had been closing in since Blackwood’s time.

The creature extended its hand, offering the newly delivered relic from the exchange. A trade. My silence and my warning for my life.

I placed my stolen stone into its massive palm. The deal was closed.

Chapter IX: The Race to the Truth

The retreat was a blur. Guided by the creature’s silent pact, I bypassed the stone gateway, but the evidence of the “Third Party” was everywhere. I found discarded signal-jamming equipment and more tactical footprints.

The Hidden People were an organized civilization under threat of exploitation, and I was the only human who knew the full scope of the three-way standoff.

I broke the treeline and reached my vehicle. I looked back one last time. The gorge was silent, the blue light gone, the Flaming Moons returned to the stars. But the drone remained—a silent, silver ghost in the sky.

The Blackwood Journal is now secured in a lead-lined box, buried once again, but its contents are being digitized and sent to those I trust. The mountains hold secrets far older than humanity, and the “Hidden People” are no longer the only ones guarding them.

The exchange is scheduled to resume. The watchers are in place. And now, so am I.