The dawn that followed wasn't dawn at all. The sun never broke through the haze; instead, Ares was lit by the pale residue of the Dominion's touch, a ghost light that clung to every surface and shimmered in every puddle of water. The city breathed smoke and silence.
Lira stood at the edge of the collapsed district, her uniform torn, her hair matted with dust. The air tasted of metal and ozone. Behind her, a handful of Raiders moved through the rubble, searching for anyone still alive.
She tried not to think about how few of them had answered roll call that morning.
"Commander," a voice called from the ruins of what had once been the market square. "We found a group, civilians. Maybe twenty, maybe more. They're in shock."
Lira nodded, forcing her voice to stay steady. "Get them water. Blankets if you find any. Bring the wounded here."
The Raider hesitated. "Here? The ground's still… glowing."
"I know," she said quietly. "But it's the only flat ground left."
The Raider saluted and disappeared back into the dust.
Lira turned her eyes toward the skyline or what remained of it. The upper levels of Ares had folded inward, towers bent like reeds under a heavy wind. The fracture in the sky was still there, faint now but pulsing, as if it were breathing with the city.
She pressed a hand against the comm on her wrist. "Any word from Central Command?"
Static. Then a faint voice. "…nothing… still dark… half the sectors offline…"
She lowered her arm. The noise of it, even broken, was almost comforting.
Nearby, two Raiders struggled to lift a fallen beam from a collapsed tunnel entrance. Beneath it, a woman cried softly, her leg pinned. Lira hurried over, adding her strength to theirs. The metal shifted, screamed, then gave way.
The woman was pale and shaking, her eyes wide with terror. "It came through the sky," she whispered. "It wasn't fire. It looked like fire, but it sang."
Lira crouched beside her, binding the wound with a strip torn from her own sleeve. "You're safe now," she said, though even as she spoke, she knew it wasn't true.
When the Raiders carried the woman to the makeshift camp, Lira looked around and took stock of what little they had. Twenty-three survivors. Six Raiders. Two crates of rations. Half a medical kit.
And a city that no longer obeyed the laws of the world.
The ground here was wrong, soft, luminous, as though something beneath it pulsed faintly with life. Every step left a fading imprint of light that slowly dimmed behind them.
She called a meeting beside the half-buried transit pillar. The Raiders gathered, grim faces, ash-streaked armor, eyes heavy with exhaustion.
"We can't rely on Command," Lira began. "The comm network's gone. Power's unstable. Until we know what's safe, we operate on our own. Our first priority is survival, food, shelter, and keeping the civilians calm."
One of the younger Raiders, Joran, rubbed his temples. "Calm? Commander, half the city's gone. People are seeing things, voices in the light, shapes moving where there shouldn't be any."
"I know," Lira said. "But panic will kill us faster than anything out there. We stay together."
Joran's jaw tightened, but he nodded.
They worked in silence after that. By midday, the survivors had cleared enough debris to build a small perimeter, not much, just barriers of scrap metal and broken stone, but it gave the illusion of safety. Children huddled near the remnants of a fire that burned blue instead of orange.
Lira moved among them, checking wounds, handing out what food she could. A boy no older than ten stared up at her, holding a cracked photograph.
"Is the sky coming back?" he asked.
She looked toward the pulsing light overhead. "Eventually," she said softly. "It has to."
The boy nodded, as if that answer was enough, and tucked the photo into his pocket.
As the hours dragged on, the quiet grew heavier. The hum from the sky hadn't faded, if anything, it had deepened. A low, rhythmic vibration that seemed to sync with every heartbeat.
Lira stood apart from the others, staring at the horizon. There, where the old harbor had been, something shimmered, a tower of faint light rising slowly from the earth. It wasn't solid, but it moved, like a reflection on water.
"Commander," Joran called quietly, stepping up beside her. "You see that?"
"Yes."
"What do we do?"
She watched the tower shift, spreading like a slow sunrise. "We survive tonight. We move at dawn."
"And if the light moves first?"
Lira exhaled, her breath misting in the strange, cold air. "Then we run. We keep running until there's nowhere left."
For a long time, neither of them spoke. The city moaned under the weight of its own ruin. Somewhere in the distance, a child cried.
Lira closed her eyes. She could still hear Ren's voice before the collapse, It's not destruction… it's translation.
Maybe he'd been right. Maybe the city wasn't dying at all. Maybe it was becoming something else.
She opened her eyes again and stared at the survivors, at their trembling hands, their dirt-streaked faces, their quiet determination.
"We make it through this," she murmured. "Whatever it becomes, we make it through."
Night fell again over Ares. The Dominion's glow dimmed but never disappeared, a silent promise above the sleeping ruins.
And far beneath the city, deep in the heart of the Dominion, something stirred, answering Lira's vow with a pulse of light.