The sky was on fire.
Not red. Not orange. White.
A sterile, searing white that bled across the Martian atmosphere like the iris of a dead god opening for the first time in eons. Light fell in sheets, silent and unmerciful, cascading across the canyon as if trying to erase it.
Atlas didn't move.
He couldn't.
He lay in the ruins of the underground chamber, half-buried in obsidian rubble, his ribs screaming with every breath. The shard—Oroboros—had fused to his chest, branding him with a symbol that pulsed like a second heartbeat. His skin had gone cold. Too cold for Mars.
And beside him, the man who claimed to be his brother bled through metal and memory.
"You're not real," Atlas muttered through blood-soaked lips.
The man laughed softly, one hand bracing against a shattered slab. Sparks hissed from torn wires embedded in his spine.
"You think reality cares what you believe?" he rasped.
Atlas forced himself up to one elbow. "I saw your face. In the vision. The one devouring the stars."
"That wasn't me."
"Then who—"
The man leaned closer, eyes glowing faintly blue. "It was you. Just a little further down the spiral."
Atlas recoiled.
"Time loops, brother. You've heard that much by now, haven't you? But it doesn't loop perfectly. It decays. Each pass gets hungrier. You think you're special because the Vorr didn't kill you? You're the last because you're the closest to the edge."
Atlas tried to rise, staggering to his feet. "Who are you?"
"Name doesn't matter," the man coughed. "I lost it a dozen cycles ago. Time eats names first. But I'll tell you this—when the Warden realized what the Seeds really were, it didn't try to save the galaxy."
He looked up at the blinding light above.
"It tried to quarantine it."
A new tremor rumbled through the ground.
From the surface above, a long, inhuman scream rippled downward—carried not by air, but gravity itself. Atlas's vision blurred. Nyra's voice buzzed faintly in his ear, breaking through static.
"Atlas! The thing that came through the Saturn Rift—it's here. It tunneled through Mars. Straight down. There's no propulsion signature. It warped through mass."
Atlas limped toward the broken stairwell. "Can you see it?"
"Yes. And it sees you."
Outside, the sand shifted unnaturally. Not blown by wind—dragged in ripples. Mars's surface convulsed like the skin of a dying animal. Something was burrowing. Something vast.
Atlas turned to the broken man. "You said you were my brother."
"I am."
"Then help me stop this."
The man shook his head. "There is no stopping it. Only delaying. Only choosing which version of yourself inherits the nightmare next."
Atlas clenched his jaw. "I'm not him. I don't become that thing."
"Maybe," the man rasped. "But now you wear the shard. And it remembers."
Another shockwave hit—this one vertical. A geyser of dust erupted through the stone ceiling as something breached the underground chamber. Metal shrieked. Reality bent.
Nyra screamed through the comm: "It's here!"
The roof exploded.
And the creature descended.
It had no face. Only a crown of shifting bone and light. Its limbs unfolded in fractal segments, dozens at once, each bending in directions that disobeyed physics. Its core was a void—a perfect, gravitational eye that pulled heat, matter, and thought into itself.
It didn't roar.
It existed.
And everything else bent around it.
The broken man didn't move. He raised one hand.
"I'll buy you ten seconds," he whispered.
Then he vanished in a burst of light—no teleportation. No tech signature. Just gone, like he'd been unmade.
The creature paused.
And then, it turned its attention to Atlas.
For one horrific second, he couldn't breathe. The thing looked through him, not at him, and somewhere inside his skull, he heard its voice—not in words, but pressure.
Not hunger.
Recognition.
The shard pulsed in his chest.
Welcome back.
Atlas turned and ran.
Up the spiral, half-collapsed stairs. His lungs burned. His legs screamed. Behind him, the chamber imploded—not from impact, but from absence. The creature erased space just by moving.
Nyra shouted in his ear: "Emergency evac route is 140 meters north of your position—look for the beacon spike!"
Atlas burst out of the underground stairwell just as the ground gave way behind him. Chunks of Martian bedrock collapsed into a sinkhole hundreds of meters wide. The white light behind him—no longer sterile—now pulsed in bloody hues.
"I'm moving," he panted. "Tell me you've got a ride."
"A shuttle's inbound. Four minutes out."
"Too long."
"You don't have four minutes. You have thirty seconds."
He kept running.
Then something clicked in his mind.
He wasn't running just to escape.
The creature was following him.
"Nyra," he gasped. "Is there anyone else near this sector?"
"No," she said, confused. "Why?"
"Then I'm bait."
Another pulse. The dunes behind him inverted, folding into the ground like origami, collapsing space like someone flipping a tablecloth. Atlas hit a slope and tumbled. Red dust filled his mouth. The shard flared in his chest.
The creature surged closer.
Then suddenly—
A shockwave.
But not from behind.
From above.
A beam of sapphire fire slammed into the void creature, pinning it to the surface. The ground ruptured in a ring. Atlas shielded his face just as a sleek, obsidian ship descended—blades extended, guns glowing white-hot.
The canopy opened mid-flight.
"Get in!" a voice shouted.
Atlas didn't hesitate. He dove forward, landing in the cockpit as the ship flipped mid-air, doors sealing shut. Inertia slammed him back.
The pilot turned to him.
Young. Scar on her cheek. Eyes like tempered steel.
"You're heavier than I expected," she muttered. "The shard's already bonding."
"Who are you?" Atlas choked out.
"I'm your retrieval agent."
"I didn't order a retrieval."
She gave him a dry look. "Didn't say you did."
Outside, the creature began to move again. The beam pinning it cracked—and the void around it trembled.
Nyra screamed through the cockpit speakers. "It's warping again—Atlas, it's trying to sync with the relay web!"
The pilot turned grim.
"If it links with the Relay, it'll overwrite the entire SolNet. Every AI, every drive system—gone. Civilization goes dark in under three hours."
Atlas stared through the viewport as the creature unfurled once more.
"Then take me back."
"To where?"
He looked at the pilot.
"To the Warden."
The ship rocketed into the upper atmosphere.
Behind them, the void creature stopped chasing.
Instead, it turned—and began ascending into orbit.
Not to follow.
But to reach the Relay Ring.
And rewrite everything.