The storm over Ares had passed hours ago, leaving the camp shrouded in a pale gray stillness. Smoke curled from broken metal and blackened soil. The survivors worked in silence, patching torn shelters, scavenging from the ruins of vehicles. Every sound, the clang of tools, the whisper of wind, seemed to echo too long, as if the city itself were listening.
Lira stood at the edge of the camp, her clothes caked with ash, her hair tied back roughly. She had not slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the hole, that endless wound in the earth where Aiden had fallen, and the light that had swallowed him whole.
Now, the ground trembled.
It was faint at first, like distant thunder beneath the stone, but then came a ripple, a deep vibration that made the air shimmer. The survivors froze. Weapons were raised. Someone whispered, "It's another collapse."
But it wasn't.
From the dust and mist beyond the crater's lip, a figure began to climb. Slowly, impossibly. The shape of a man but wrong. The shadows bent around him, the dust pulling away from his steps. His coat, torn and stained, clung to a body that glowed faintly beneath the skin, threads of silver light tracing his veins like molten rivers.
Lira's heart stopped.
Aiden.
He stepped onto the broken stone, and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe. He looked almost the same, his eyes still that gray that once held calm reason but now they burned faintly from within, lit by something vast and quiet.
The others backed away. Someone muttered, "He shouldn't be alive."
Aiden's gaze swept over them, and for an instant, the world seemed to still. The wind hesitated. The humming stopped. Then, slowly, he spoke his voice low, rough, but carrying a resonance that wasn't wholly human.
"It's over," he said. "For now."
No one moved.
Lira took a step forward, her hands trembling. "Aiden?"
His eyes softened when he saw her. For a flicker of a second, warmth crossed his face but it was gone as quickly as it came. "Lira," he said, and hearing her name in that tone made her want to cry and run all at once.
"You were gone," she said, her voice breaking. "We thought..."
"I know."
He looked at the camp, the wounded, the broken machines, the faces staring back in disbelief. His expression darkened. "You held them together," he said.
She nodded weakly, but her throat felt tight. Something in him wasn't right. He stood too still, his presence too heavy. Even the air around him seemed charged, like the moment before lightning struck.
One of the men, Darek, stepped forward, gripping his rifle. "What are you?"
Aiden turned toward him, slow, deliberate. "The same as before," he said, but there was no conviction in it.
Lira shot Darek a warning look, but Aiden's attention drifted elsewhere, toward the horizon, where faint waves of light pulsed above the Dominion's ruins. He could still feel it breathing through him, a second pulse under his heart.
When he looked back at Lira, she saw it, the flicker of silver deep in his pupils, swirling like storm clouds.
"You came back," she said quietly. "But you didn't escape, did you?"
He said nothing. The silence was answer enough.
Then, suddenly, the camp lights flickered. Every electronic device sparked once, as though reacting to his heartbeat. Gasps spread through the survivors. A child began to cry. Aiden clenched his fists, forcing the glow beneath his skin to dim.
"I can control it," he murmured but his voice sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Lira stepped closer, close enough to feel the cold radiance coming off him. "Then prove it," she whispered. "Stay."
He looked at her, and for a heartbeat, he seemed almost human again. Then he turned toward the crater. "The Dominion isn't gone. It's waiting. It's changing. I felt it."
"And you?" she asked. "What are you becoming?"
Aiden hesitated. "Something that remembers what it means to be human," he said finally. "I hope."
The words lingered like frost.
He moved through the camp, and the survivors stepped aside. Some bowed their heads in respect or fear; others avoided his gaze entirely. Lira watched him walk past, her heart torn between relief and dread.
When he stopped at the edge of the clearing, he turned slightly toward her. "You kept them alive," he said. "You'll have to keep doing that. There are storms coming."
She frowned. "What kind of storms?"
"The kind that wake up the world."
And then he was gone, moving into the mist as if it had been waiting for him.
Lira stood there long after his silhouette disappeared. Around her, whispers rose, talk of miracles, of ghosts, of gods. She didn't correct them. She just stared at the place where he'd vanished and whispered to herself:
"He came back. But not alone."
The wind stirred the ash, and in it, faint motes of light drifted like embers, pulsing softly in rhythm with a heartbeat buried deep below.