I stepped out of a side structure, likely a repair station based on the power, tools still humming on standby, when Amelia’s voice broke over the comms.

“Everyone—” there was the faintest hitch, “regroup at my location. Now.”

The words were steady enough, but beneath them was a quickness in her breath, the kind that betrayed someone fighting to keep calm.

“We’re on our way,” I replied, and with a look to Henry, he fell in step beside me as we followed the map coordinates toward the colony’s industrial core.

That’s when we saw it.

At first, I thought it was just another piece of equipment like some mining tower. But then I realized the scale of it.

The thing was massive, like a monolithic structure for some old god.

It rose out of the earth like an obsidian blade, matte and absolute. Light didn’t even reflect off its surface. It didn’t glint. It didn’t even cast a clear shadow. It just… absorbed.

And on top of that, I could feel it before I even reached it. There was this low vibration that hummed through my chest, like my heartbeat had found a second rhythm.

As I drew nearer, I eased my rifle down, finding nothing in sight. Still, my fingers stayed wrapped around the grip. Something in the air felt off, like we weren’t alone.

Ella was already there, crouched near the base of the structure, her scanner sweeping slowly along its side. She didn’t look up when we arrived. Just stared at her readout, brow furrowed.

Amelia broke the silence. “Ella. What are we looking at?”

The scientist shook her head slightly, eyes never leaving her device.

“I’ve scanned it multiple times,” she said. “And according to every reading I have…it’s not here.”

Henry blinked. “Not here? I mean, I see it.”

“So do I,” Ella replied. “But the instruments don’t. It’s like… It’s out of sync with our world. It’s not emitting light, not reflecting it, not giving off any heat at all. It’s just… phasing in.”

I stared up at it.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing about it made sense. It wasn’t wrong in a way you could describe. It was wrong in the way silence is ominous when you expect noise. The way a room feels colder after a dream you can’t remember.

Owen stepped closer, his eyes locked onto the thing as if it held them in its grasp. With a hesitant voice, he spoke up. But just barely. “S-so… what should we do?”

Ella stood, her gaze still fixed on the monolith. “It’s physical. That much I’m sure of. It feels like it ruptured through the surface. I'm thinking it was probably buried here for centuries, maybe longer. But I need to run a ground-penetrating radar scan. If we’re lucky, the facility nearby should have one. But either way… we need time.”

Her eyes drifted toward the horizon, where the last light of day was quickly fading.

“And we need shelter,” she added. “Sun’s going down, so we should set up camp before dark.”

“I’ll check the nearby buildings for food,” Benjamin offered, already turning toward one of the storage units with the kind of quiet resolve that didn’t ask for permission.

“Alright,” Amelia replied, then turned to the rest of us. “Let’s set up camp here for the night. Ethan, help Benjamin with the meal. Henry, Atlas, make sure the perimeter’s clear.”

We moved into motion without a word. After everything we’d seen, the idea of sleep felt distant, but the routine helped. It gave our tired minds something to do. Something to focus on besides the monolith looming behind us like a silent judge.

Benjamin didn’t take long. “Found supplies!” he called out from within a squat, boxy structure near the edge of camp.

Moving to help with camp, we spent some time pitching our tents in a tight semicircle nearby. Tarps. Ground pads. Power cells. It wasn’t much, but it would hold for a night.

Ella was off to the side, half-buried in wires and sensor rods. She’d scavenged a ground-penetrating radar rig from one of the science depots and was already mapping the subsurface terrain.

I watched from the makeshift table—just a few metal barrels stacked with a salvaged flat top—resting my arms across my knees.

“What do you think about calling it a night?” I asked as I watched her move from one point to the next.

“Just a couple more points to scan,” she replied without looking up. She drove another probe into the dirt with a soft thunk.

“Alright, have fun,” I said, pushing myself up and heading to the tents.

I powered down my suit, the systems hissing as pressure lines disconnected. A faint chill touched my skin as I peeled out of the exoskeleton and stepped into the Martian night air. 

By the time I joined the others around the firepit—little more than a set of heating coils arranged beneath a flickering light—we’d already started digging into whatever Benjamin and Ethan had managed to throw together.

Dehydrated rations. Rehydrated stew. Protein bars with all the appeal of compressed gravel.

But it was warm.

“These rations aren’t too bad,” Henry said between bites, lifting his bowl. “Reminds me of the old stuff my dad kept in his storm shelter. Same weird texture.”

“Yeah, not exactly gourmet,” I replied, “but right now, I’ll take anything that isn’t freeze-dried disappointment.”

Amelia chuckled, sitting beside us, the campfire light glinting in her visor as she leaned back on her arms. “We’ll earn a real meal when we get back. For now, let’s survive the mystery and try not to starve.”

There wasn’t much else to say after that.

The laughter faded as the wind carried on in the distance, brushing against the outer domes like a breath held too long. The monolith stood beyond the lights of our camp, silent and unmoving. No one seemed to want to talk about it, as if just speaking of it could cause something. 

After dinner, I took first watch. My time was spent in utter silence as I watched the quiet buildings around us, but nothing moved. Just the low hum of the camp, and the faint vibration of the monolith bleeding into the back of my skull if I stood still long enough.

When my shift ended, I walked over to Ethan’s tent and nudged it with my boot.

“Your turn,” I murmured, and his groggy grunt was all the reply I got before he rolled out, bleary-eyed and muttering to himself.

I stepped into my own tent, peeled off the outer layers of my undersuit, and lay down.

For a moment, I just watched the monolith through the open flap, its surface smooth and featureless, yet impossible to ignore. The darkness around it seemed to bend, like even light was reluctant to linger too long in its presence.

I closed my eyes.

But sleep didn’t come easily.

Because something about that thing wasn’t right.

And I think… it knew I was watching.

At some point, sleep must have taken me. But if it did, it didn’t feel like rest. Not even close.

I was weightless.

Suspended in an endless void, where shadows moved like dancers in a fluid, almost hypnotic, dance. They spiraled and twisted through the air, forming shifting patterns I couldn't decipher. They didn’t obey gravity. They didn’t follow anything.

And then came the sound.

A thunderous wave of it, like a thousand war horns erupting all at once. It was pure pressure. It rattled my bones, tore through my chest, and left only silence in its wake. 

And then... it was there.

The monolith.

It didn’t walk. It didn’t rise. It just was, sudden and immovable, like it had always existed and only now was I catching up. My breath caught in my throat as it loomed over me, with its impossible scale.

The world twisted.

The ground blurred beneath my feet, and the air folded in on itself. I was pulled forward, weightless again, until I stood inches from the surface. Then my hand moved on its own, reaching out to touch its surface. 

And it was warm.

Not the heat of danger. It was the kind of warmth you only noticed in contrast, like what you would feel near a fire after being cold too long. It wrapped around my fingers, crawled up my arm, filled my chest like breath.

Then Everything snapped to darkness, and then back again as I jolted upright.

Air caught in my lungs as my eyes shot open. My heart felt like a drum pounding a thousand times a second as the realization of my surroundings set in.

I wasn’t in my tent, nor was I lying down.

I was standing outside, with the monolith directly in front of me.

And my hand… was in it.

The surface of the monolith had swallowed my palm whole, with there being no seam. Just fused, like my body and this thing no longer knew where one ended and the other began.

Panic exploded through me.

I pulled back with everything I had. But no matter how hard I pulled, Nothing happened. Then out of nowhere, a low hum began to rise from within the structure, reverberating through my arm up into my chest and then my skull.

Then came the heat.

Not the warmth of a fire in the dark, but like I was tossed into the flames as they consumed me.

It spread in pulses—each wave hotter than the last—like molten metal crawling under my skin. I screamed, though I couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t think. The pain became everything. My vision blurred at the edges, black creeping in like ink dropped in water.

And then it released me–

I stumbled back, gasping, falling to my knees. Clutching my arm. Waiting for the inevitable blisters and blood.

But there was nothing.

My hand was completely whole and Untouched.

Not even a mark.

Then the ground shifted beneath me.

A tremor. No—a convulsion. The Earth didn’t just shake. It twisted, as if something beneath the surface were waking up.

Cracks split the monolith’s surface, glowing faintly for a split second before fracturing outward in jagged, spiderweb veins.

And then it broke.

Like glass.

The surface collapsed in on itself, turning fluid and rippling like disturbed water.

And from that collapse… something poured out.

A thick, black liquid. Viscous and Endless. It gushed from the heart of the monolith like the lifeblood of a long-forgotten creature. Crawling over the ground in a thousand slithering rivulets.

I ran, or tried to.

The ground buckled beneath me, rising and falling like breathing lungs. Each step felt like fighting gravity, like the rules of physics had been rewritten and no one told my legs.

The tide of black surged closer.

It wasn’t just a flood; it was a devouring force leaving nothing but emptiness where it passed.

The cold hit first. Then the pull.

My vision dimmed as the tide washed over me.

The last thing I saw was the cold metal of the dome above me, revealing the void of space beyond. 

Then darkness swallowed everything.