The light consumed everything. For a moment, Daniel thought he had gone blind—his visor filled with an ocean of brilliance, colors shifting in ways his mind struggled to name.
Then, images began to take form.
He wasn't on Mars anymore. He wasn't anywhere. He was inside the crystal.
Shadows moved across a vast void, and there—at the center—stood the cloaked figure. The same one that had forged the crystal in ages past. The hood hid its face, but its presence was suffocating, ancient beyond measure.
Its voice thundered without sound, echoing directly into the minds of the crew.
"Time has passed. Centuries have burned away. But now… the seal stirs."
Scenes unfolded around them like fragments of memory. The figure lifting the crystal into existence. The flight across the black expanse of space. The crystal embedding itself deep within the Martian crust, hidden and waiting.
The images shifted. Planets burned. Armies of shadows marched under stars unfamiliar to human eyes. And at the heart of it all—the cloaked figure raising its hand against a force that defied comprehension.
Dr. Marquez stumbled back, gasping. "We're seeing… history? No—something more. This is recorded consciousness."
The vision snapped again, faster, harsher. This time, the crew felt—not just saw—the weight of it. A great war. Gods and demons tearing through worlds. A last desperate act: the crystal hurled away, cast into hiding.
The cloaked figure's voice returned, softer now, like a whisper from the edge of eternity:
"One day, the descendants of dust will come. They will awaken what I could not destroy. And when they do… the true war will begin."
The vision shattered.
Daniel gasped, falling to his knees as the cavern rushed back into focus. The crystal still pulsed, but dimmer now, as though it had spent itself to show them this glimpse of its origin.
Silence hung heavy. No one spoke. Each of them struggled with the weight of what they had seen.
Finally, Commander Hayes found his voice. "We're not just explorers anymore," he said grimly. "We've stumbled into something far bigger than us."
Dr. Okafor's hands trembled. "If that was real… then this thing—it's not just a rock. It's a weapon. Or a warning."
The crystal gave one last faint pulse, like a fading heartbeat. Then it went still.
But the silence didn't bring comfort.
Because far above, on the surface of Mars, the tremors began again. Stronger this time. Louder. As if something else had awakened with the crystal.