For now, the world was quiet.

Too quiet.

Mira stepped onto the surface first, her boots sinking softly into the snow. The temperature-regulation reading on her HUD flashed briefly—–74°C—before stabilizing. Cold enough to freeze bare skin instantly. Cold enough to kill them in minutes if their suits failed.

Behind her, the others disembarked, their armor catching the pale light:
Aria’s tactical blues.
Jonah’s yellow engineer markings.
Soren’s white medic crest.
Elias’s green science modules.
Vincent’s gray recon suit.
Kade dragged out one final crate, shimmering from the inside—tools for drilling, sample containment, and structure assembly.

The moment Mira’s boot touched the surface again, a faint tremor brushed through her feet. She stopped. Looked down. The ice didn’t crack… but it shifted, as if breathing.

Aria noticed immediately.

“Captain,” her voice crackled through comms, “did you feel that?”

“I’m aware,” Mira responded.

Jonah exhaled loudly. “Great. We’ve been here five minutes and the planet already hates us.”

Elias crouched, tapping the snow with gloved fingertips. “It’s natural ground settling. Nothing more. The ice is kilometers thick. Movement is expected.”

Aria murmured, “That didn’t feel natural.”

Mira didn’t disagree. But she didn’t acknowledge it either.

“Let’s get the station operational,” she ordered. “Jonah, Kade—deploy Base Pod A.”

The two engineers got to work immediately, activating the compact cube that unfolded like a blooming metal flower. Walls expanded outward, locking into place with hydraulic clangs. Within minutes, a frame of the temporary research shelter stood against the white horizon.

Wind screamed past them, carrying fine ice crystals that scattered like glitter across their armor.

Soren checked his datapad. “Storm activity rising. We have… maybe six hours of stable conditions.”

“So we finish before that,” Mira said.

Aria scanned the perimeter. “I’ll take eastern watch.”

Vincent lifted his long-range scanner. “North ridge for me.”

Elias adjusted his visor. “I want soil and ice samples immediately. If microbial density is consistent with what we detected in orbit, deeper layers might hold more.”

“Then begin testing,” Mira nodded. “Jonah—power up the seismic array.”

Jonah groaned but obeyed. “If something explodes, I’m blaming Elias.”

Elias hummed. “Noted.”

The crew dispersed.

The moment Aria stepped ten meters away from the group, the tremor pulsed again—slightly stronger. She froze. Her visor detected nothing. Her sensors detected nothing.

But her instincts?
They detected everything.

“Captain,” Aria said softly. “The ground is reacting.”

“Reacting?” Mira echoed.

“Yeah. Like… something’s moving underneath.”

Mira paused. “Aria, return to center point. We’ll evaluate soon.”

Aria didn’t move for a moment. She kept staring at the ice.

She didn’t like how it stared back.

Elias set up his portable lab, the compact structure unfolding into a sleek metallic station with holographic modules. He kneeling, scraping up ice and feeding it into a sealed sample scanner.

The display flickered.

Green dots.
Hundreds of them.

“Microbes confirmed,” he announced. “Stable. Extremely cold-tolerant.”

Mira approached. “Anything larger?”

He hesitated. “No. But…”
His voice lowered.

“These microbes appear to react to vibrations.”

Mira stiffened. “Meaning?”

“They move in patterns. Almost like… responding.”

“That’s not possible,” Soren argued, joining them. “Microbes don’t react like animals.”

Elias swallowed. “Not unless they’re part of something larger.”

Before Mira could question further, Jonah shouted from across the camp:

“Uh—Captain? You might want to see this!”

They rushed over.

Jonah stood over the seismic scanner, eyes wide. The device’s screen pulsed with small waves—gentle, rhythmic waves.

“We’re picking up tremors,” Jonah said. “Consistent. Repeating. Like a ticking clock underground.”

Mira frowned. “Plate movement?”

“No,” Jonah whispered. “Captain… plate movement isn’t this… perfect.”

Elias leaned in, studying the rhythm.

Pulse.
Pulse.
Pause.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Pause.

“It’s too consistent,” Elias said. “This isn’t seismic activity. It’s patterned. Almost like—”

“Breathing,” Aria interrupted, stepping close.

A soft hush fell over the team.

Mira looked around. “Where’s Vincent?”

“North ridge,” Kade said. “He should be in range.”

But Vincent hadn’t spoken in several minutes.

“Vincent? Report,” Mira said.

Static.

“Vincent, do you copy?”

More static.

Aria didn’t wait. She began sprinting across the ice. “I’m going to him.”

Mira cursed under her breath. “Stay in visual range!”

The others followed at a distance. Their boots thudded softly against the frozen ground.

They found Vincent standing at the ridge.
Staring downward.
Completely still.

“Vincent!” Aria grabbed his arm. “What happened?”

Vincent didn’t answer at first.

Then he pointed.

Down the ridge, the ice was cracked.

But not randomly.

A perfect circle.
Thirty meters wide.
Edges sharp.
Edges deliberate.

The team stared in stunned silence.

“…That wasn’t there before,” Kade whispered.

“No,” Vincent murmured. “It formed when I stepped here.”

He stepped closer and the team followed cautiously.

The circular shape was flawless.
Symmetrical.
Too symmetrical.
And at the center, thin lines extended outward like veins forming a pattern.

The tremor pulsed again.

This time, everyone felt it.

A soft, deep echo vibrated through the soles of their boots.

Aria steadied her weapon. “Captain… that’s not ice movement.”

Elias knelt slowly, touching the edge of the circle with his scanner. It buzzed loudly.

He checked the reading. His heart stopped.

“Mira…”
He looked up at her.
“There’s heat coming from below.”

Jonah’s voice cracked. “Heat? Under solid ice? How?”

Elias swallowed.

“Something down there… is alive.”

The tremor grew stronger.

BOOM—
A deep, slow thud thundered from below.

The ice rippled outward from the circle, faint shockwaves blooming across the surface like the planet itself was inhaling.

The team stepped back instinctively.

Another thud.

BOOM.
The ice shivered.

Aria’s breathing hitched. “Captain… that sounds like—”

“Don’t say it,” Soren snapped.

“—a heartbeat.”

Silence.

Mira’s mind raced.

Heartbeats meant blood.
Blood meant circulation.
Circulation meant something big.
Something warm.
Something hunting.

She forced her voice to remain steady.

“Back away,” she said. “Slowly. Stay calm.”

The team stepped back from the circular fissure.

But then—

CRACK.

A sharp fracture shot across the surface—straight toward them.

They scattered, Mira grabbing Elias by the arm and dragging him back as the crack split between them.

More cracks erupted, forming a branching web that surrounded the perfect circle like a blooming flower.

Elias gasped. “It’s reacting to sound vibrations!”

Jonah shouted, “We need to get back to the station!”

But before they could retreat, a sound rose from beneath the ice.

Not the tremor.
Not the thud.
Not the pulse.

A deep, hollow echo.

Slow.
Rhythmic.
Deliberate.

Knock.
…
Knock.
…
Knock.

Elias froze. “Oh god…”

Aria whispered through trembling breath, “Captain… something is alive down there.”

Aria knelt near the drilling platform, one gloved hand pressed flat against the ice.
Her breath fogged inside her visor. “There it is again…” she whispered.

A faint tremor crawled up her arm—gentle yet deliberate, like a tap on a shoulder.

Jonah looked up from the seismograph, his eyes wide. “Aria?”
He already knew what that tone meant.

“I felt it,” she said. “And it wasn’t distant this time. It feels like it’s moving.”

Elias froze. “Moving?”
His voice cracked slightly, betraying the scientist behind the mask of calm.

Before Aria could answer, Mira strode over, boots crunching across the snow.

“Status?” she asked sharply.

Aria lifted her hand from the ice. “Captain… the tremors have a pattern.”

Jonah nodded, tapping the seismograph. “And whatever’s under us—it’s not shifting plate ice. The waveform is too clean, too cyclical. It’s almost like—”

“Like machinery?” Elias offered.

“Like intention,” Aria corrected quietly.

The group fell silent.

Wind hissed through the metal frames of the temporary structure. The generator thumped in a steady rhythm. But beneath it, something else pulsed.

Almost like… breath.

Mira exhaled, fog rolling from her lips. “We proceed. Controlled drilling only. No deeper than three meters.”

Jonah frowned. “Three meters won’t get us much.”

“It’ll get us enough to know if we should run or keep digging,” Mira replied.

Jonah sighed, adjusting his equipment. Elias secured the stabilizers. Aria stepped back, but not far—almost like she didn’t want to lose contact with the ice.

The drill spun up with a deep mechanical roar.

Snow mist billowed around it.
Metal teeth broke through the first thin layer of frost easily.
For a moment, everything seemed normal.

Then—

CRACK.

A sharp snap sliced through the air.

The drill jerked unnaturally to the left.

Jonah cursed. “That’s not possible—there’s no fault line beneath—”

Another crack sounded.

This time, softer.
Controlled.
Measured.

The ice beneath them began to split… but not outward like a natural fracture.

It spread in a line—smooth, precise, forming the edge of a circle.

Aria’s breath hitched. “Mira… the ground is drawing something.”

The crack curved, closing in on itself, forming a perfect ring about ten meters in diameter.

Elias stepped back, panic flickering beneath his training. “This isn’t random. Ice can’t split like that by accident. Not in a perfect—”

BOOM.

The drill slammed downward as if something beneath had pulled it.

Snow shot upward in a burst.

The entire circular section of ice sank—just an inch—but enough to make everyone stumble.

A low rumble rose from below.

Not chaotic.

Not geological.

Rhythmic.

A slow, steady, thunderous thump… thump… thump.

Like a heartbeat echoing up through the ice.

Jonah’s seismograph went wild.

Elias staggered backward. “What the hell is that?!”

The heartbeat grew louder—vibrating through the air, rattling the metal frames, pulsing in their chests.

Aria’s eyes widened, the reflection of the trembling ground shining in her visor.

She turned to Mira, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Captain… something is alive down there.”

Silence fell.

Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Mira clenched her jaw, staring down at the sinking circle of ice—its edges glowing faintly blue with friction or… something else.

“Everyone,” she ordered quietly, “fall back. Now.”

But none of them could look away from the trembling halo carved into the frozen ground.

The heartbeat continued—deeper, louder… closer.

And it was waking up.