Standing at the mouth of the cavern, Leo surveyed the towering heaps of radioactive debris he had dragged home over the last two hundred twelve years. The back-and-forth hauls had been tedious — exactly the kind of monotony he relied on to hold his thoughts together. He let the sight lift his spirits for a moment, then drifted to a more tantalizing thought:
'How long until the next crystal forms?'
If he could witness the birth firsthand, perhaps he could learn to hasten the process. The idea of busyness — of having a genuine project — warmed him more than the radiation ever could.
"At least there's something to look forward to," he murmured, ambling toward the alcove where he was certain the Radiant Crystal would be waiting — only to glance down, notice the bare crook of his arm, and feel a jolt of alarm.
"Old fool," he muttered, a flash of irritation cutting through the calm. His memory, honed by fifty millennia, offered the answer at once: he had set the crystal down, just temporarily, on the spot where he'd piled up irradiated materials in the Mariana Trench.
He didn't waste another breath. With a crack of displaced air, he launched himself from the cavern floor, the shockwave toppling nearby mounds of debris and sending a cascade of glowing fragments skittering into the dark.
'How could I forget?'
Leo tore across six thousand kilometers in the time it took a thunderclap to fade. He skidded to a sudden halt, instinct reining him in. Something ahead pulsed — not just with Radiant energy, but with unmistakable life.
Two kilometers distant, a shimmering bank of blue-white mist clung to the landscape. But it wasn't mist. His senses whispered the truth: the haze was a living cloud, billions of organisms packed so densely they seemed to inhale and exhale as one.
Heart pounding, Leo peered through the glow. The once-barren Mariana Trench had become a Radiant biome. Vines and luminous fronds snaked up jagged walls, their colors shifting in slow waves — indigo, violet, ember-red. Interwoven roots spanned the chasms, each strand pulsing with light, like blood racing through alien veins.
'What… is this?'
With a cautious step, he crossed into the edge of the glowing fog. It parted smoothly around him, curling away as if welcoming a long-lost traveler. He moved slowly, reverent, until a glimmer at his feet caught his eye — a single, delicate blue mushroom pushing up through the poisoned soil.
He sank to his knees. Trembling, he cupped the fragile stem, fingers digging into the earth that cradled it. For a long moment, he could only stare. Just meters away, an entire forest was rising, light-infused, alive. Centuries of buried feeling surged to the surface — his multiple hearts thundered, his vision blurred, and before he could stop them, tears spilled unbidden down his cheeks.
For the first time in 50,212 years, life had returned. For a heartbeat, Leo felt something he thought he had lost forever: pure, unshakable joy.
Then a single tear slipped from his cheek. It hit the soil around the tiny blue mushroom.
The cap twitched. Darkened. Swelled. Blisters bubbled across its surface, turning the blue to inky black. Panic jolted through him. He yanked his muddied hands away, frantically wiping his face as if he could erase the contact, undo the damage.
But the fungus kept changing.
A slit split open along the cap, widening into a snarling maw lined with needle-sharp fangs. Then it made a faint, squeaky alien sound.
'I carry the planet's poison inside me,' Leo realized, horror crashing down on him.
Was that why the crystal had stalled in his presence? Why the living fog parted at his approach — not out of welcome, but out of fear?
The mushroom ballooned, swelling to the size of a boulder, then bounded away on rubbery stalks, vanishing into the luminous forest.
"No!" Leo surged after it — only to freeze mid-stride, a terrible realization clawing into his gut. One more careless step, and he might poison everything.
He forced himself still. Shaking, heart pounding, breathless — even though he no longer needed air — trembling on the edge between awe and dread.
The next moment, his naked figure disappeared.
***
Light-years beyond the Milky Way, a starship the size of a small moon drifted in deep space, its T-shaped silhouette a stark cutout against the void. Along the broad cross-beam, hangar bays gaped at each wingtip, nurturing craft of every class. Between them, rows of weapon batteries and shield emitters lay in patient silence, while oversized sensor dishes—like wary ears—scanned the dark for the faintest murmur of life.
The ship's narrow spine plunged beneath the wings, a heavily armored tower holding the command bridge, fusion cores, and warp drives capable of rending spacetime open. Inside that bridge, the primary crew worked beneath a panoramic canopy of stars, overseen by a robed figure seated in the captain's chair.
A console chirped in an alien tongue; a navigator glanced down, fingers dancing across holographic keys before straightening to face the captain.
"Captain, anomaly detected—sector 2C-03, Yklim Cluster. Transmitting the data now."
The captain, cloaked in black, considered the report for a beat, the hum of machinery filling the pause. At last, a deep voice rumbled through the bridge.
"Lock in those coordinates."
"Affirmative."
As the crew dispersed to their stations, the captain's gaze lingered on the swirling starlight beyond the glass. An isolated galaxy—one uncharted and ignored until now.
"Curious," he murmured.
Engines the size of cities thundered to life, and the colossal vessel slipped into hyper-warp, streaking toward the enigmatic signal at the edge of the universe.