Prologue and Chapter 1

A Chapter by Mike B

PROLOGUE: THE LAST GIFT

The Erythians stood in their crystalline chamber, luminous figures aglow against the ship’s translucent walls. Earth gleamed below�"a primal crucible teeming with prehistoric life, its jungles roaring with megafauna, its oceans churning with ancient leviathans, a world trembling on the edge of birthing humans. T’varis, their leader, raised a trembling hand, his voice cracking like static: “Our gift will outlive us.”

Once, they’d ruled the stars�"minds sculpting worlds from quantum threads, glowing cities adrift in the void. They’d conquered biology, energy, time itself, their perfection a crown forged in brilliance. But entropy cared nothing for their triumphs. Genetic mastery bred a flawless, frozen race�"immortal, yet stagnant. Their spires dimmed, their future bled into nothingness.

Kaelis, a young scientist, pounded the console, her eyes blazing. “We’re too late,” she snapped, glaring at the Luminaris�"a dodecahedron pulsing in T’varis’s grip, its glyphs flaring with alien light. The council had fractured�"some called seeding this brutish planet blasphemy, others survival. T’varis clutched the artifact, its hum a desperate pulse. “For them,” he whispered, gazing at Earth’s raw potential. A shadow rippled�"energy crackling. Kaelis spun�"a pulse of pure light seared through her, silencing her cry. “They’ve found us,” T’varis rasped, as the ship buckled. “Time’s up.”

Prologue Part II: The Seeding

Two million years ago, Antarctica steamed�"a tropical rainforest, its canopy alive with mist and primal roars. T’varis’s craft blazed through Earth’s atmosphere, a fireball crashing into the lush sprawl. He staggered from the wreckage, vines snagging his boots, the Luminaris glowing in his hands�"glyphs igniting like captured stars, a blueprint for minds yet unborn, their last hope to preserve their knowledge.

He knelt, pressing the artifact into the warm earth. The ground quaked, roots curling over it, sealing the seed for when humans would walk this world. “For them,” T’varis murmured, his light fading, glyphs pulsing one last time. T’varis collapsed, his gaze on the buried Luminaris. The jungle swallowed him, pregnant with secrets for a waiting Earth.

Above, the enemy fleet�"dissenters who’d sworn to stop this blasphemy�"scanned the crash: scorched trees, no life signs. “They’re gone,” their commander rasped, engines flaring as they abandoned the solar system, their cities soon to wink out in the void.

But the gift endured�"buried, silent, waiting.

Until now.

CHAPTER 1: WHITEOUT

Wind screamed like a dying beast, slamming against the aircraft’s frame as it tore through the skies above Antarctica. The plane jolted again�"sharp and sudden�"rattling bolts and nerves alike. Outside, a wall of blinding white swallowed the world.

Blake Edwards gritted his teeth and gripped the overhead handle. The co-pilot’s knuckles were pale on the stick, sweat tracing frozen trails down his temple. “Visibility’s down to twenty meters,” he muttered, eyes scanning the vortex ahead.

Blake barely heard him. His gaze was locked on the void outside. Somewhere beneath that endless maw of ice and fury, an anomaly waited. The satellite images were fuzzy�"an irregular heat bloom under ancient permafrost, too symmetrical, too deliberate. Something the Earth wasn’t supposed to hide.

They told him it was suicide to fly into this storm. Maybe it was.

He’d done worse.

He closed his eyes for half a second, and the hum of the plane faded into memory�"another storm, another edge of the world.

Two years ago. Northern Sudan. The dig site had gone quiet just before sundown. No radios. No shouts. Just wind. Blake had stepped into the tomb alone, torchlight bouncing off carved walls. It wasn’t the cobra that made him pause�"it was the door. A seamless slab with pre-dynastic symbols no one had ever recorded. He'd been a breath away from solving a mystery lost to history�"until the explosives went off. Mercenaries. Hired by someone who wanted the tomb to stay buried.

He still heard the screams sometimes.

Back in the cockpit, lightning forked across the sky, and the plane dipped hard. Blake opened his eyes. This time, he’d be ready. This time, no one was getting there first.

“Brace!” the pilot barked. A downdraft slammed them, yanking the plane earthward. Blake’s stomach lurched as the instruments went haywire. Altimeter spinning. Compass dead. Static screamed from the radio.

Through the storm, a shadow loomed�"dark and jagged�"rising like a monolith from the ice.

“There!” Blake shouted, pointing. The base.

A structure carved into the white abyss. Man-made. Isolated. Waiting.

The wheels hit the ice with a bone-jarring crunch. Skidding. The wings rocked dangerously. For a heartbeat, Blake thought they’d flip.

Then… stillness.

The wind howled, but the plane held.

Blake exhaled slowly. His pulse thundered in his ears.

“Welcome to Antarctica,” the pilot muttered, already regretting every second of this flight.

Blake shot him a crooked grin as he slung the pack over his shoulder. “You guys really roll out the red carpet down here.”

Blake grabbed his pack. He didn’t look back.

He stepped into the storm, into the cold teeth of a continent that wanted him gone.

The wind hit like a wall, tearing at his parka and biting through his gloves as he trudged toward the waiting snowcat. The world around him was a kaleidoscope of white�"sky and ground fused in the blur of the blizzard. He paused a moment, breathing through his scarf, and looked back at the plane.

He’d been to forgotten ruins and jungle-cloaked pyramids, but this place�"it felt different. Not just ancient. Predatory. As if the very ground remembered being something else. As if it were waiting for him.

He thought of the Sudan tomb again. The blast. The scream of collapsing stone. He still had a scar under his ribs from that day, a jagged reminder that secrets came with a cost. But what he’d glimpsed there�"the impossible geometry etched into the walls, the inexplicable magnetic field pulsing from the slab�"had led him to a single conclusion: someone had been here before humanity. And they’d left breadcrumbs.

This place was one of them.

Snow crunched beneath his boots as he reached the vehicle. A shadow passed over the landscape, too brief to identify. Blake turned slowly, heart thudding.

Nothing. Just the wind.

But he knew better.

Something was beneath them. Something ancient. Something that had been waiting a very long time.

Beneath his boots, the ice groaned.

Something had woken.