For a moment, there was only silence.
A silence too deep to belong to the living.
The crimson haze of the storm had faded, leaving a wide crater in its wake. Eris and Liora stood at its edge, their visors flickering under the harsh glare of the Martian sun. The air was thin and still, but beneath their boots—they could feel it.
Thump… thump… thump.
A heartbeat.
The ground trembled in rhythm, faint but undeniable. Eris crouched, pressing his gloved palm into the dust. "It's alive."
Liora's voice came through the comm, strained. "No. That can't be—"
"It's not the planet," he said quietly. "It's something inside it."
The wind picked up again, carrying with it the smell of burning metal from their ruined ship. Behind them, Kai and Nova were already trying to salvage the communications module, shouting orders through static.
But the deeper rumble beneath their feet drowned everything out.
The crater cracked open a little more.
Liora took a step back. "We need to move. Now."
Eris stood still, his gaze fixed on the fissure. "No… wait."
A blinding light burst from the crack, forcing them to shield their eyes. When it faded, they saw something rising from beneath the surface—a massive structure of black stone and silver veins, pulsing like an enormous heart.
It wasn't built. It was grown.
The structure was alive, each pulse sending shockwaves through the red soil. Strange symbols glowed along its surface—similar to the markings on the crystal embedded in Eris's chest.
Liora stared, frozen. "That's the source, isn't it? The reason the crystal came here."
Eris nodded slowly. "And maybe why it was created."
The heart-beat quickened. A deep hum filled the air, vibrating through their bones. Around the structure, shards of glass-like matter began rising, floating upward into the thin Martian sky like glowing embers.
From the comm, Kai's panicked voice cut through.
> "Eris! The readings are off the charts—whatever that thing is, it's destabilizing the crust!"
Nova added, "If we don't launch soon, Mars is gonna implode!"
Eris looked at Liora. She already knew what he was thinking.
> "Don't even think about it," she warned. "We're not staying."
> "If we leave it unsealed, it might destroy more than Mars," he said. "That energy—it's linked to Earth now. You heard what the Herald said."
> "Then we find another way. You can't fight a planet's heart."
He turned toward the pulsing structure, the blue light of the crystal in his chest flaring in response. "Maybe I don't have to fight it. Maybe I just need to understand it."
The ground lurched violently, throwing them off balance. Cracks spread in every direction, and pillars of molten dust erupted skyward. The heart of Mars was waking up—and it was angry.
Kai screamed through the comms again, "Eris! Get back to the ship, now!"
Eris took one last look at the structure. Then he grabbed Liora's arm. "Fine. But this isn't over."
They sprinted through the falling debris, the sky burning above them. The sound of collapsing stone and roaring flame echoed across the desolate plains.
When they reached the ship, Nova had already fired up the engines. The entire hull shook as they blasted off the surface—just as the ground below caved in, swallowing the ancient heart in a storm of molten red.
From orbit, they watched Mars convulse—rings of energy spreading outward like ripples in space.
Liora whispered, "It's not dying…"
Eris stared at the glowing planet. "No. It's becoming something else."