2025-02-20 06:46:35The Storm Outside
The walls of the ship shuddered as something slammed against the exterior.
Kiera and Jace barely had a second to react before the ship’s emergency alarms screamed to life.
“HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.”
“EXTERNAL BREACH DETECTED.”
Jace spun to the console, his face pale. “They’re trying to break in.”
Kiera’s heart pounded.
Outside, the creatures were waiting.
Not attacking. Not clawing at the hull like mindless animals.
Waiting.
Kiera felt it.
A cold, gnawing sensation in the back of her skull.
They were waiting for her.
Jace grabbed a rifle, his voice tight. “We can’t stay here.”
Kiera barely heard him. Her skin was burning again. The veins in her arms pulsed with silver light.
Something inside her was waking up.
She clutched the edge of the console, breathing fast.
Then—
A whisper.
Not in her ears.
Inside her mind.
“Come home.”
Her vision blurred—
She wasn’t in the ship anymore.
For a split second, she saw something else—a massive chamber beneath Titan’s surface, filled with shadows that moved like liquid metal.
Then—a throne.
And on it, someone sat.
Not a creature. Not an alien.
A woman.
And when she turned toward Kiera—
It was her own face.
Then—
Kiera snapped back to reality.
Jace was shaking her. “Kiera! Focus!”
She gasped for air. The vision was gone.
But the truth had already sunk in.
Whatever was waiting beneath Titan—
It wanted her back.
The Descent
Jace barely had time to grab their gear before the hull cracked.
“MOVE!” he shouted.
They sprinted through the ship’s airlock just as the metal behind them caved inward.
Kiera turned just in time to see something slither through the opening.
Not walking. Not crawling.
Flowing.
Like liquid shadow.
Jace fired, but it vanished before the bullets could connect.
Kiera’s pulse raced. “We need to go underground.”
Jace hesitated. “You sure about that?”
Kiera nodded, her voice steady but cold.
“They’re not chasing us.” She swallowed. “They’re herding us.”
Jace’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. “Then we go down fighting.”
They sprinted toward the old research tunnels, cutting through the ice like veins beneath the dead colony.
As they descended, the air grew colder. The walls were thick with frozen black rock, unnatural formations that pulsed faintly in the darkness.
And the deeper they went, the louder the whispers became.
The Chamber of Echoes
The tunnel opened into a massive underground cavern.
Kiera and Jace froze.
They were standing on the edge of something ancient.
A city.
Half-buried beneath Titan’s ice, built from the same shifting, liquid-like metal as the creatures. Towers stretched into the darkness, pulsing with a dim, silver glow.
Jace whispered, “This was never a colony.”
Kiera took a shaking step forward.
The entire planet had been a lie.
Titan wasn’t dead.
It was sleeping.
And she had woken it up.
The Throne Room
Kiera barely felt her legs moving as she stepped into the heart of the city.
Jace kept his weapon raised, but even he looked overwhelmed.
Then they saw it.
The throne.
It was carved from the same black metal as the creatures, twisted and almost alive.
And sitting in it—
The woman from Kiera’s vision.
Kiera stopped breathing.
Because now, up close, she could see—
The woman wasn’t just similar to her.
She was identical.
The woman smiled. “Welcome home.”
Jace raised his gun, but the woman didn’t move. “Who the hell are you?”
She ignored him. Her silver eyes locked onto Kiera.
“You already know who I am.”
Kiera’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “No… I don’t.”
The woman tilted her head. “Then let me show you.”
She stood.
And Kiera’s entire body locked in place.
Pain exploded through her skull.
Her mind shattered into fragments.
And then—
She remembered.
The Truth
It hit her all at once.
Memories that weren’t hers. Visions of Titan before it was abandoned.
She saw herself—or someone who looked like her—standing on this very throne, commanding the creatures.
She saw a war—a war between Mars and Titan that ended with the destruction of her own kind.
She saw the moment the Core was sealed away—to keep her from waking up again.
And worst of all?
She saw herself leaving a message behind.
A message she had sent to herself.
Because Kiera wasn’t human.
She never had been.
She was one of them.
And she had been sent to Mars to forget.
Back to Reality
Kiera hit the ground hard, gasping for breath.
Jace grabbed her. “Kiera! Talk to me!”
She couldn’t.
The woman—her reflection—knelt beside her, smiling softly.
“This is who you really are,” she whispered.
Kiera shook her head violently. “No. No, I was born on Earth. I had a life—”
“You were placed there,” the woman corrected. “To keep you from remembering.”
Kiera’s hands shook.
The Core. The creatures. The visions.
It all made sense now.
She wasn’t just connected to them.
She was their leader.
Jace was staring at her like he had just lost her. “Kiera…?”
She looked up at him.
And for the first time—
She wasn’t sure if she was the same person anymore.
The truth had changed everything.
And now?
She didn’t know whose side she was on.
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