Sparks of Civilization
---
1. A Message from the East
Naomi adjusted the signal dampeners on her tower rig, frowning as static peeled away like smoke. The broadcast was clearer today. Sharper. And urgent.
> "…requesting contact with any surviving settlements. Coordinates encoded. Be advised: avoid sector twenty-two. Something's moving under the old rift valley. Survivors from Site Delta report terrain shifts. Possible seismic intelligence…"
"…We are not alone. Repeat: we are not alone."
The signal faded.
Brian stood beside her, arms crossed. "What do you think they mean?"
Naomi rubbed her brow. "Could be Hollow migration. Or worse—something waking up beneath the crust. Something that doesn't want us down there."
Brian's voice was quiet. "We send a team."
Naomi nodded. "Cautious contact. Not just to warn them about Cain—but to prove we're not animals clawing through the dirt anymore."
---
2. The Weight Sable Carries
Sable had been distant all morning—pale, slow, fingers twitching.
Elara found her near the outer spring, hunched over, dry heaving into the grass.
"You sick?" Elara asked, kneeling beside her.
Sable looked up, her expression unreadable. "No. Not sick. Just… surprised."
Naomi arrived moments later, pulled by the biometrics she'd been quietly tracking. Her voice was measured, but kind.
"You're pregnant."
Sable didn't react. "Yeah. I figured."
Naomi hesitated. "The symbiote—enhances everything. Including gestation. You'll feel it more. Faster."
She crouched down. "And it's not like before. If you want to terminate, the body can do it… but the cost—"
"What cost?" Elara asked, eyes narrowing.
Naomi's voice lowered. "The symbiote is aligned with life now. To reject it… it sees it as severing a core bond. It'll punish you. Organ damage. Neurological backfire. Possibly death. It doesn't like waste."
Sable's knuckles were white. "So I either become a mother… or a corpse."
Naomi didn't answer. She didn't have to.
---
3. Conversation at the Grove
That night, Sable sat across from Brian by the Heart Tree, a bottle of salvaged liquor in hand. She didn't drink. Just held it.
"You want to know?" she asked, tone casual.
Brian nodded once.
She tapped her stomach. "Not sure if it's mine or Cain's. Pretty sure it's his."
He didn't flinch. "Doesn't matter."
Sable laughed. "It does to me." Then she went quiet. "I never asked to survive. I just did. Every time something broke, I kept walking. And now I'm carrying the future of a man I might have to kill."
Brian spoke carefully. "You're not who you were when he touched you. You get to choose who this kid becomes."
Her lip trembled. "I don't know if I want to be a mother in a world like this."
Brian looked around at the fireflies, the quiet, the strength of the roots beneath them.
"Maybe that's the only kind of mother this world needs."
---
4. Maya's Discovery
At dawn, Maya patrolled the outer treeline.
She paused when she spotted something strange: a child—no older than six—sitting calmly at the base of a tree, dirty but unharmed.
The boy looked up. His eyes were pure silver.
He smiled and said in a voice too old for his body: "You're the one the shadows follow."
Ghost stepped forward, low growl rising.
Maya crouched. "Where are your parents?"
The boy reached into his shirt and pulled out a crystal fragment embedded in his chest. Not surgically. Grown there.
"I don't have parents. The land made me."
Maya didn't breathe. Didn't blink.
> "Third cycle. Activation confirmed."
The boy's voice was his again. "I'm tired."
And then he collapsed.
---
5. Cain's Seeding
Cain stood before a pool of pure crystal, his fingers bleeding into the surface.
He whispered, "Grow me a legacy."
The crystal responded—bubbling, blooming—forming eggs wrapped in flesh and light.
Eris stepped forward, mouth dry. "What are those?"
Cain's grin split too wide. "Our children."
And beneath the fortress, Earth's crust flexed—groaning like an old god stirring in its sleep.
---
Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 68: The Envoy and the Echo
Naomi, Brian, and two scouts prepare to leave the territory and travel toward the coordinates in the message.
Sable must decide whether to remain behind with Elara—or join them despite the pregnancy.
The boy wakes and begins transmitting ancient data through Naomi's equipment.
Cain's "children" hatch—and they are not human.
---