Night returned too soon. The crew huddled close to the small fire Jonas coaxed from the damp wood, its flickering light barely pushing back the shadows pressing in from the treeline.
The silence was not natural. No chirping insects, no distant calls of nocturnal animals—only the faint crackle of fire and the sound of their own breathing.
Mara poked at the flames with a stick. "This doesn't feel like home," she muttered. "Earth isn't supposed to feel… hollow."
Liora nodded, hugging her knees. "It's as if the forest is holding its breath. Watching."
Jonas forced a grin, though the firelight revealed the tension in his jaw. "Come on. After everything on Mars, a little quiet forest spooks us? We're tougher than that."
But even as he spoke, a sound drifted through the trees—a low, drawn-out creak, like wood bending under enormous weight. Then another, closer. The fire sputtered as if choked by invisible hands.
Mara shot to her feet. "Tell me you heard that."
Eris didn't answer. He sat perfectly still, staring into the flames, lips moving in a silent murmur.
Liora leaned forward. "Eris? What are you saying?"
His voice was soft, distant, as though he were reciting a memory:
"The soil breathes. The stone remembers. The crystal calls."
The forest answered with a groan, a shudder rippling through the earth. Leaves rustled though no wind blew.
Jonas grabbed Eris by the shoulders. "Snap out of it!"
Eris blinked, shuddered, and finally looked at them. His eyes were darker than before, shadowed with something none of them wanted to name. "It's not me," he said. "It's the ground. It speaks."
The fire guttered out.
For a moment, they were wrapped in absolute blackness.
Then—eyes. Dozens of faint, glimmering eyes opening in the treeline, too high, too low, too wrong to belong to any earthly animal.
Mara's breath caught in her throat. "We're not alone."
The forest had been watching. And now, it was awake.