The ancient creature’s enormous eyes burned faintly through the darkness, like distant moons rising beneath the ice. Unlike the first creature—massive, translucent, hesitant—this one carried weight in its presence. The air thickened. The ice floor trembled with each subtle shift of its vast shape.

Aria whispered, “Captain… permission to panic?”

“Denied,” Mira murmured, though her voice was thin.

Elias took an involuntary step back. “It’s… colossal. Much larger than the first. That first creature? It’s practically a child in comparison.”

The smaller giant—even though it was still meters long—had lowered itself like a submissive animal. Its limbs tucked in. Its eye dimmed, flickering nervously.

The old one’s approach silenced everything. The lesser creatures, the dormant clusters—they all froze, as if afraid to breathe.

Jonah watched his seismic scanner shake violently. “This thing is… enormous. The wave amplitude is off the charts. It’s moving entire sections of the cavern without touching them.”

The new pulse came again.

THOOM.
Slow. Deep.
The kind that vibrated bones.

Then another.

THOOM.

Then—

Tap — pause — tap-tap.

The exact rhythm Mira had used.

But not echoing it.
Answering it.

Mira stared, shocked. “It’s—you’re telling me it’s replying? Using my own pattern?”

Elias’s breathing quickened. “Not mimicking. Not copying. Responding. That means comprehension.”

“It understands?” Kade whispered.

“It understands,” Elias repeated, “and it wants to be understood.”

Aria’s voice cracked. “That’s great, but why does it feel like something’s judging us?”

Because it was.

The ancient creature’s gaze settled on Mira and Mira alone.
A low vibration hummed up through the floor beneath her feet—gentle at first, then firmer, more deliberate, like a finger pressing to a pulse.

Aria raised her weapon instinctively. “Stay back from her!”

“Aria,” Soren hissed, “if you fire at that thing, you’ll start an extinction-level event.”

Aria didn’t lower her rifle, but she didn’t shoot.

The tremor beneath Mira’s hand changed rhythm. No longer her signal. No longer the earlier pulse.

A new pattern emerged.

Slow. Extended. Like a code formed over centuries.

“…Is it… asking something?” Jonah guessed.

Elias knelt, putting his gloved fingertips to the ice.

The pattern changed again—this time sharper, like a warning.

“No,” Elias whispered, eyes widening. “It’s not asking. It’s… testing her.”

“Testing me?” Mira asked.

“For what?” Kade asked, voice barely audible.

Elias hesitated, swallowed, then said the only answer that made sense:

“For intent.”

As if in response, the ancient creature leaned forward—just a fraction—but enough that the cavern groaned under its mass. Its pupils constricted into thin slivers of blue and black.

It was studying Mira with terrifying intelligence.

Aria stepped in front of Mira. “You want her, you go through me.”

“Aria—” Mira pushed her gently aside. “No. It’s trying to communicate. If we misinterpret this, we die. All of us. Stay where you are.”

Aria shook her head but obeyed, though her hands trembled around her weapon.

The cavern fell into a deep, suffocating silence as the ancient creature lowered one gigantic limb—translucent and ribbed with lines of glowing veins—toward the ice.

The limb stopped mere meters away.

A thin, delicate tendril sprouted from it, barely thicker than a hair. It brushed the ice surface lightly.

A high-frequency vibration spread across the cavern, almost too faint to perceive.

Jonah’s visor fuzzed with static.

Soren winced. “My comms—something’s interfering—”

“No interference,” Elias said breathlessly. “It’s transmitting. Directly. Through vibration.”

The ground beneath Mira pulsed with a new, steady beat.

Not threatening.

Not echoing.

Communicating.

Mira pressed her palm to the ice.

The tremor intensified—as if excitement flared in the ancient creature.

Elias whispered, “It recognizes you. You gave the first signal. It’s… focusing on you.”

“Why her?” Aria demanded.

Before Elias could answer, Mira spoke quietly:
“Because I talked first.”

Silence.

Mira closed her eyes. Then, slowly, she tapped the ice—

Tap — pause — tap-tap.

The cavern held its breath.

The ancient creature did not imitate the pattern this time.

Instead—

A slow, rolling thunder of vibrations spread across the cavern floor.

Jonah paled. “Captain… it’s giving us something back.”

“What?” Aria snapped.

Jonah stared at the seismic display.
“I—I don’t know. It’s a long pattern. Complex. Almost like… coordinates. Or a warning.”

The ancient creature took a single step forward.

BOOM.

A second step.

BOOM.

Ice dust rained down. Frost cracked along the cavern's upper arches.

The smaller beast—the one they’d seen earlier—backed even further away from it, curling onto itself.

Elias inhaled sharply. “The little one is terrified of the old one. They’re not acting as a pack—they’re reacting as prey. This ancient one is a different class entirely. Maybe a different species. A dominant one.”

Aria whispered, “Then what does it want?”

The answer came not from the creature…

…but from Mira.

“It wants to know why we’re here.”

Everyone turned to her.

“How do you know?” Soren asked.

“Because the pattern it used—its sequencing—it’s interrogative. Like… a question. A challenge.”

Elias whispered, “Then answer it.”

Mira lowered her head, thinking. Every instinct screamed that a wrong rhythm, a wrong beat, could be misinterpreted as threat. Or submission. Or hostility.

She tapped the ice again.
Slow. Deliberate.

Tap — tap — pause — tap.

Elias’s breath hitched. “You told it… we’re explorers.”

The cavern vibrated softly.
The giant’s eye widened.
Another pulse spread.

Jonah’s scanner beeped.

“What now?” Aria demanded.

“It’s… it’s sending us new data.” Jonah frowned. “This is… directional. Almost like—”

Before he could finish, the ancient creature moved its colossal limb.

Then—

It dragged the limb across the cavern floor.

A long, slow, scraping motion.

The ice rippled outward.

Revealing something.

A map.

A glowing, vein-like map embedded beneath the ice itself.
A network of tunnels, deeper chambers, enormous hollow structures branching down into the planet like arteries.

Elias staggered back. “Oh my god.”

“What is that?” Kade asked.

“The planet,” Elias whispered. “It’s showing us the planet’s internal network. Their ecosystem.”

Soren swallowed. “Why? Why show us this?”

Mira stared at the ancient creature’s unblinking eyes.

“Because we’re inside its territory,” she said. “And it wants us to understand where not to step.”

Aria stiffened. “Meaning…?”

Mira exhaled.

“…meaning we’re standing on something important.”

The ground beneath them suddenly glowed brighter.

Blue veins flared.

The ancient creature’s eye shifted toward the far wall—toward a deeper tunnel that branched downward like a massive throat.

It tapped the ice with its limb.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Aria gasped. “The knock pattern. The same pattern we heard from the surface.”

Elias nearly choked. “It was calling us. From the beginning.”

“Calling us?” Kade snapped. “For what?!”

Before anyone could answer, the ancient creature released a deep, resonant pulse.

The ground shook violently.

And slowly—

Terrifyingly—

A massive shape began to rise from the tunnel behind it.

Not breathing.
Not moving.
Just… rising.

Aria stumbled back. “What—what is that?! Something else?”

“No,” Elias whispered.

The ancient creature stepped aside, giving the team a clear view.

“That,” Elias said, “is a nest.”

A nest.

Made of ice and bone-like structures woven into a giant lattice.

Inside it—

A shape larger than anything they had yet seen.

Unmoving.

Dormant.

Not dead.

Sleeping.

Jonah whispered: “Oh god… whatever that is… the ancient one is guarding it.”

Mira’s stomach twisted.
Not fear.
Realization.

“They’re not monsters,” she said softly.

Aria stared at her. “Then what are they?”

Mira looked up at the towering creature watching over the enormous sleeping thing.

“Parents,” she whispered. “They’re parents.”

The cavern trembled once more.
The ancient creature lowered itself toward the sleeping colossus.

Then—

The ground beneath Mira pulsed with one final message:

Protect.

Elias gasped. “Mira… it’s warning us. Something is coming.”

Aria’s visor flickered violently.

A new seismic reading lit up Jonah’s scanner.

Another vibration.
Far away.
Approaching fast.

Not one of the creatures.

Something else.

Something unnatural.

Jonah whispered: “…That’s machinery.”

Mira stood, heart hammering.

“Everyone,” she whispered, “get ready.”

Above them—
far above—

their drilling beacon was still active.
Their base pod still transmitting.

And something had heard it.

Something not from this ecosystem.

The ancient creature stared at Mira.

Its voice—if it could be called a voice—vibrated through the cavern, deep and mournful.

A warning.

A plea.

Something else is coming.