The world hadn’t finished shaking.

The plume of shattered ice still drifted down like glittering snow when Mira forced her boots to steady themselves on the trembling ground. The explosion from beneath had thrown them all off balance, and for a few terrifying seconds the surface of Glacien X behaved like liquid—rolling, heaving, rejecting them.

A slab of ice the size of a shuttle door remained suspended in the air for a heartbeat before crashing down a few meters away, cracking open like glass.

“Everyone status!” Mira barked, trying to steady her breathing.

Aria coughed, pushing herself up from a kneeling position. “Intact.”

Elias groaned. “I’m—okay—helmet alarm’s red, but systems are holding.”

Jonah raised a shaky hand from where he’d landed flat on his back, seismograph still somehow clutched against his chest. “I—I think I survived pure chaos.”

Kade grunted as he stood. “Still here.”

Vincent didn’t speak at all. He was already staring at the center of the blast.

And Mira understood why.

The circular fissure they had discovered—the perfect geometric ring—was no longer a shallow depression on an endless sheet of white.

It was now a hole.

A deep one.

A pit leading into the ice, its inner walls glowing faintly blue, layered like ancient frozen strata carved with unnatural precision.

Aria whispered, “This wasn’t from pressure release… This was a breach.”

Jonah wiped frost from his visor. “No natural formation makes… whatever that is.”

Elias stepped closer. Too close. Mira grabbed his shoulder.

“Elias. You fall in, I’m not diving after you.”

He blinked, then nodded. “Sorry. I just… I’ve never seen ice behave like this. The blast radius should be chaotic. But those edges—those rings—are…” He swallowed. “Circular. Symmetrical. Like they were cut.”

Soren crouched near the rim, shining a wrist light down into the blue-lit descent. “This drop is at least twenty meters. Maybe more.”

Vincent shifted uneasily. “Whatever caused this… it wanted out.”

Silence.

Then—

Knock.

A single, deep, hollow thud rose from somewhere far below.

The sound echoed up the walls of the pit like a heartbeat replayed through metal pipes.

Soren immediately stood. “No. No no no. That’s the same rhythm. Captain—”

“I know,” Mira said quietly.

Another sound followed.

Not a knock this time.

A dragging noise.

Long.

Slow.

Wet.

Something was moving beneath the ice, scraping along the interior of the pit like a massive limb sliding upward.

The team instinctively stepped back.

Elias whispered, “That… that can’t be an organism. Nothing that size should survive under a frozen crust—”

But Mira wasn’t listening anymore. She was staring at the walls.

Because the walls were shifting.

At first, she thought the light played tricks on her visor. But no—the icy blue layers were… trembling. Rippling.

Like something beneath the layers was pressing outward.

Mira exhaled slowly. “Pull back ten meters. Now.”

They obeyed—or tried to. Vincent didn’t move.

Aria noticed first. “Vincent. Hey—Vincent—”

He didn’t react to her voice.

Instead, he leaned forward, staring hard into the pit as if listening to a whisper only he could hear.

Mira gripped his shoulder. “Vincent. Step back.”

He finally spoke.

Softly.

“It’s calling.”

The wind paused.

Mira stared at him. “What did you say?”

Vincent’s visor tilted slightly. “I heard it again. Not words. A… pulse. Like someone knocking on a locked door from the other side. Asking to be let out.”

Before Mira could respond, Jonah’s seismograph crackled violently, the readings flucturating as if the machine itself panicked.

Jonah stared at the display. “Captain… something’s shifting deeper down. Something big. Like—”

He froze.

“…like it’s turning over.”

A sharp line of cold sweat formed at Mira’s temple.

“That’s enough,” she ordered. “We regroup at Base Pod A. We need stable ground, diagnostics, and shelter before—”

A sudden tremor split the ground behind them.

Not from the pit.

A new crack burst open fifty meters to the west—sharp, clean, precise.

Aria spun toward it. “Captain—another circle!”

They sprinted to it.

A second ring—smaller than the first, but just as perfectly shaped—etched itself into the frost. Thin glowing lines branched outward from the circle like veins or roots beneath glass.

Elias’s voice cracked. “That… that’s not right. The pattern—it’s the same branching network we saw in the microbes’ vibration response. But scaled up. Colossal.”

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

The sound now echoed from both the first pit and the newly formed circle.

Soren’s breathing quickened. “Captain—how many of these things are down there?”

“No idea,” Mira said. “And I’m not waiting to find out.”

Then Jonah’s device beeped loudly.

“Cap—I’m reading movement between the circles. Something connecting them.” He zoomed into the data. “Multiple somethings.”

More cracks formed—thin lines crawling outward from the new circle, linking toward the first like icy veins under skin.

Aria cursed. “It’s building a network.”

Elias looked nauseous. “Like a nervous system.”

Vincent exhaled shakily. “It’s waking up.”

They had seconds before the connection completed.

“MOVE!” Mira shouted.

They turned—just as a shockwave burst from beneath the new circle, sending up another plume of ice fragments.

The surface heaved.

The lines between the circles glowed bright blue—

—and began spreading toward the team like branching roots.

Jonah stumbled. “What is it DOING?!”

Elias grabbed him. “It’s sensing us—following sound—heat—movement—”

Aria’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s hunting.”

The cracks accelerated.

Too fast.

Too precise.

They weren’t random fractures—they were tracking the group’s footsteps, mimicking the exact path they took earlier.

Mira’s heart slammed against her chest.

“Everyone—RUN TO BASE POD A! NOW!”

They ran.

The veins followed.

Glacien X’s surface split open in trails behind them—pursuing them like lines drawn by something just beneath the ice.

The base pod came into view—half assembled, lights glowing faintly within.

But before they reached it—

WHAM—

A slab of ice jutted upward right in front of Aria, blocking her path. She skidded back, cursing.

“Captain—!!”

More slabs rose like teeth pushing up from under the crust.

The ground was transforming.

Mira scanned rapidly. “East flank! Go around—move!”

They sprinted, dodging uneven slabs as the cracking network grew more frantic. They were being corralled—

—herded.

Something below wanted them positioned somewhere.

Vincent gasped, “It’s directing us!”

Aria snarled, “Over my dead—”

Something slammed beneath her feet.

The surface bulged upward.

Mira shouted, “ARIA—MOVE!”

Aria leapt aside—

—and an entire pillar of ice burst upward where she’d stood, shooting nearly four meters high before collapsing.

Soren screamed, “WHAT IS DOWN THERE?!”

Then—

Everything stopped.

Mid-run, the tremors ceased.

The ice went still.

Silent.

Even the wind quieted, as if the planet itself paused to listen.

Mira froze. “Why did it stop?”

Jonah’s seismograph flickered. “Captain… I’m getting… stabilization? It’s stopped moving?”

Vincent whispered, “No. It hasn’t.”

Mira turned. “What do you mean?”

Vincent lifted a trembling hand and pointed behind them.

Mira followed his gesture.

Slowly.

And she saw it.

The fissures between the circles had finished connecting.

The two perfect rings were now joined by a glowing network—veins of ice converging at the center point between them.

A single, oval-shaped structure formed at the junction.

Small.

Shallow.

Like a third circle beginning to open.

Elias whispered what they were all thinking.

“It’s making something.”

Mira took a step back. “We keep moving.”

But before she could turn—

BOOM.

A deafening knock slammed up through the new structure.

Followed by a low, rising sound.

A creak.

A groan.

A long, stretching noise like something trying to open a door frozen shut.

Aria’s voice broke into a whisper.

“Captain… something’s coming up.”

Mira grabbed her weapon, jaw tight.

“Form up,” she ordered.

The ground at the center of the network began to bulge.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Not an explosion like before.

This was controlled.

Purposeful.

Elias trembled. “That’s not just movement—something underneath is pushing upward with intent.”

Jonah whispered, “Like it wants to see us.”

Mira raised her arm.

“Everyone—steady. No sudden—”

CRACK.

The ground split open.

Not downward—

Upward.

Like a lid being pushed from below.

A piece of ice lifted—hinged—tilted—

And something dark moved beneath it.

Something smooth.

Something impossibly large.

Something breathing.

Mira’s breath hitched.

“Everyone,” she whispered, “fall back slowly—”

But no one moved.

Because the shape under the ice rose just enough for them to see a glimpse—

A curve.

A surface.

A structure beneath the frost that looked…

Organic.

Soren’s voice shook. “That—Captain—that looks like—”

He couldn’t finish.

Aria finished it for him.

“A spine.”