Things were not going well on Earth when we finally were given permission to join The Order. Our food rations had become scarce, and starving had become somewhat of an epidemic. Some parts of the world had even resorted to cannibalism, and our entire system of nations had been completely compromised. There were still division of race and ethnicity, but since moving underground the borders of our nations had become blurred.

Since the discovery of the Seratin, religious disagreement was virtually nonexistent, and many countries that were once at war became allies as a byproduct of this newfound spiritual unity. This allowed the people who were once considered Americans to seek us out in hopes of collaboration once word got out that Earth would be sending a team to Triton. My country, formerly known as Russia, had always been in competition with the Americans in terms of space exploration. While we did send the first man to space, it was the Americans who ended up being the first nation to actually land someone on the moon. My country, however, were the ones who landed the team on Mars and made the discovery of foreign life. The Americans knew we were just as capable as them, so they reached out to us and together we formed an alliance that would eventually become known as SouthPoint.

SouthPoint’s main base was located in a neutral location to both parties, and only housed a small team from both contributing nations. Although the exact location of places became unclear once we moved below, the base was believed to be located underneath the land of North Korea, whose entire population completely vanished after The Darkening. To this day no one knows what exactly happened to them, but given their history, it’s not completely inconceivable to think that some sort of self-induced mass genocide wiped out their population as a radical response to the sun burning out.

When we first arrived on Triton and awoke from our seven-year hibernation, things were weird, to say the least. Here we were, over two point seven billion miles from the planet we called home, and over seven years had passed since we fell asleep. We contacted SouthPoint back on Earth to inform them of our safe arrival and to be debriefed on all that happened during our absence. Alexa and Parker were able to talk to their loved ones via radio and assure them that everything had gone as planned, but I had no real family left on Earth, so I began routine inventory checks.

In a way, I was thankful for that. Having no ties to Earth made it easier to leave, but I always felt sorry for the other two who had left everything at such a young age. They would no doubt be recorded as heroes in Earth’s history for all the years to come, but at what price? Regardless, the decision was theirs and they chose to come to Triton and find the Luminescence.

The difficult part about finding it, however, is that no one knew exactly what it was. The Seratin spoke in great detail and brought clarity to many things with the sole exception of The Luminescence. Any mention of it in the Seratin only seemed to generate more questions than answers, as it was described almost exclusively in vague terms. The few times it is mentioned, the words are used only to explain what it is capable of and how it will “bring light to the blind.” While this information was interesting, it had proven to be of no real use when actually searching for The Luminescence. For instance, we still had no idea about what it actually was. Was it some sort of magic stone? Or perhaps it was something new, the kind of thing that we can’t imagine simply because we’ve never seen the likes of it before? There were many opinions, but far too many hours have been wasted by the people of Earth arguing over something that they may never truly know. We had spent over a year searching a barren moon of the farthest planet for something we didn’t know anything about, so Alexa’s words on day four-hundred and fifty-two were long awaited.

“Abram, can you hear me? You’re going to want to see this,” Her voice called to me over the radio. Had she found something? Was she in trouble? There were so many different possibilities of what it could be, and honestly, I was just eager for something to break the monotony of my day. So, without giving too much more detail she gave me her coordinates, and I went to meet her.

When I was able to join her, I found her sitting down at the entrance to what looked like an underground tunnel. She motioned for me to come closer as she directed a light down the mouth of the tunnel. Our flashlights were military grade, but even they were no match for the darkness that emanated from it. We took one step into the tunnel and immediately became overwhelmed by a flash of light. The light subsided quickly, but not before I attempted to take note of the tunnel’s basic layout. It was wider than it appeared on the surface, but as far as I was able to see during the brief moment of light, it never diverged into more than one path. I checked my watch frequently on Triton’s surface, and although it seemed like we had been walking for hours, as we approached the end of the tunnel I noticed my watch reading that it had only been about ten minutes since I met Alexa.

Time has a strange way of being manipulated when emotions, like fear come into play, and scared was an understatement for how I was feeling. I was sure Alexa was scared too, but as we approached the end of the tunnel and saw the dim light radiating from behind the stone, neither of us hesitated to try and move it away. We could see the light shooting out from the cracks around the stone, but neither of us were prepared for what was hidden behind it. Because once we moved away the stone and allowed our eyes to adjust to the overwhelming light, we understood the Seratin’s words. We understood that “the knee of every being both human and divine will bow to the unfathomable light of The Luminescence.” But even seeing it failed to prepare us for what that light was capable of. Once we finally laid eyes upon the Luminescence, we saw everything. For the first time in our lives, we saw the truth.