In a forgotten corner of the universe — a place so distant it no longer appeared on star maps, so insignificant it escaped even the Empire's relentless eye — there spun a dying world.
A dwarf red planet.
Smaller than the moon of Old Earth.
Dead. Cracked. Abandoned.
And yet… something remained.
There, surrounded by jagged valleys and skies the color of old rust, stood a single structure — a building not made of alloy or crystal or imperial steel.
But of stone.
Stone carved by claw and hand.
Stone weathered by wind that hadn't blown in a thousand years.
Stone placed by something that remembered when fire first touched blood.
It had no windows. No doors.
Just walls, cracked with time — and a feeling that reality bent slightly around it.
"They Knelt"
Before this ancient ruin knelt a gathering of creatures that did not belong together.
A congregation of the forgotten.
There were things with insect shells and gill slits.
Beasts wrapped in robes, their faces hidden behind iron veils.
Smoke-born wraiths with voices like static.
And towering brutes with skin like magma.
- A four-armed, crimson-hued creature stood at the front, balanced on three thick legs, six silver-ringed eyes blinking in rhythm. Its tongue spoke perfect High Imperial, though its mouth was filled with needle-teeth.
- Behind it, a feathered serpent coiled around a levitating stone. It did not blink. It did not breathe.
- Beside it, a pale woman floated an inch above the ground. Her eyes were hollow. Her voice, when it came, sounded like it had echoed from the void.
And among them — humans knelt too.
Some armored in broken Imperial armor.
Others draped in silence, heads bowed like prisoners before judgment.
No banners. No words. No orders.
Only reverence.
They all knelt before the building.
But in truth, they were not kneeling to the stone.
:The One Who Stood
At the center of it all — alone, unmoving — was a figure.
It did not kneel.
It stood barefoot in the red dust, beneath skies cracked with forgotten lightning.
**Humanoid in shape, but not quite human.**
Its presence felt... heavier. Sharper. As if it had been sculpted, not born.
Eyes that shimmered like collapsing stars.
Hair the color of dusk — violet, flecked with glowing threads of light.
Its skin was marked not by scars, but by sigils — symbols that twisted subtly the longer one looked.
It looked young.
It looked eternal.
And though hundreds knelt — predator and prey, soldier and sage — it stood.
Not proud.
Not defiant.
But simply… meant to.
As if the universe itself had no say.
And none dared to ask why.
One million years later
It happened on a day like any other — which meant it was dark, brutal, and without hope.
Jackob was digging, as he always did.
Alone in a narrow tunnel, deep below the main shaft.
The only sounds were the clink of his rusted pick and the slow hiss of his breath through the ragged cloth mask.
The stone was dry today.
Dead.
He'd found nothing for hours, and the pain in his stomach told him he wouldn't eat again unless he got lucky.
His hands were cracked.
His vision blurred from the dust.
He struck the wall again.
And then… the pick stopped.
**Clink.**
Not the sound of breaking stone.
Not the brittle crunch of red ore.
This was softer.
Hollow.
**Different.**
He dropped the tool and dug with both hands, scraping the dust away in greedy strokes.
And then he saw it.
The Thing That Didn't Belong
It was small — barely the size of his fist.
**Smooth. Cool. Purple.**
Not the blood-colored mineral they were forced to gather.
Not stone. Not metal.
It shimmered faintly, like it held light inside it — pulsing slow, like a sleeping heart.
It was shaped like an egg.
Not perfectly round — slightly stretched, uneven, as if grown instead of carved.
It didn't match anything Jackob had ever seen.
And that alone was enough to make him afraid.
He looked over his shoulder.
The tunnel was still empty.
If he brought it to the Overseers, they might beat him for wasting time. Or worse — take it, keep it, sell it to someone who understood what it really was.
So Jackob did something he had never done before.
He stole.
Chapter jsp:The Choice
He wiped the dirt from the egg-shaped stone and pressed it to his chest.
It was warm now.
Almost… breathing.
He shoved it into the cloth pouch at his hip, wrapping it tight in the corner of his shirt.
Then he covered the hole he'd dug, picked up his rusted tool, and went back to work like nothing had happened.
But something had happened.
For the first time in seventeen years, Jackob didn't feel like a rat digging to survive.
He felt like someone with a secret.
And secrets…
Secrets were dangerous down here.