The camp was still heavy with the silence Aiden had left behind. The air seemed charged, like the sky waiting to split open. Lira could still feel him, not his presence, exactly, but the echo of it, a faint pressure at the edge of her mind. She pushed it aside. They didn't have time to wonder what he had become.
The horizon was bruising dark again, though there were no storm clouds. The light came from the ground this time, faint, rhythmic flashes beneath the cracked streets of Ares, pulsing like the heartbeat of something vast and restless.
Lira moved through the survivors with purpose. "Pack what you can carry," she said. "We move within the hour."
A few heads turned, tired, confused. "Move where?" someone asked.
"North," she said. "Away from the Dominion's reach. There's still clean water in the upper district, and the air isn't as thick."
Another voice rose, Darek's. "You saw what just happened, Lira. You really think we can outrun whatever that thing is? He came out of that crater glowing like a reactor."
Lira met his gaze steadily. "Aiden's not the danger. Not right now. The ground is." She pointed east, where the surface rippled faintly. "The Dominion's moving. If we stay here, we'll be swallowed with it."
The group murmured uncertainly. Exhaustion had carved deep lines in every face. They had lost too many already, and now the one man who might have saved them had returned as something unrecognizable.
Lira took a breath and climbed onto the rusted hood of a half-buried truck. "Listen to me," she called out. "We survived because we didn't stop moving. You've all seen what the Dominion does when it wakes, the lights, the noise, the air tearing itself apart. If that storm reaches us, there won't be anything left to move."
The wind picked up, carrying the metallic taste of ozone. The sky shimmered faintly, though there wasn't a cloud in sight.
She raised her voice. "We move north. Gather supplies, ration packs, fuel cells, medical crates. Strip the machines that still run. Anyone who can't walk gets carried. No one's left behind."
Darek folded his arms. "You think the Dominion won't follow?"
Lira's jaw tightened. "If it does, we'll deal with it when it comes. But I won't let us die waiting for the ground to open again."
Something deep beneath them groaned, a low, rolling sound like stone grinding against stone. The survivors froze. Dust drifted down from broken beams.
"Go!" Lira shouted. "Now!"
The camp erupted into motion. People scrambled to pack bags, tie tarps, drag what little they owned into battered transports. The hum beneath the ground deepened, resonating through their bones.
Lira moved among them, helping where she could, lifting a fallen panel, steadying a frightened child, shouting orders when her voice would carry. Every breath hurt, but it kept her human. It kept her from thinking about the light she'd seen in Aiden's eyes.
As the first truck roared to life, she climbed into the back to check the supplies. Fuel drums, water canisters, scavenged food, not enough, but better than nothing.
Mira, the medic, appeared beside her, wiping grease from her hands. "You're really going through with this," she said softly.
Lira nodded. "There's nothing left here but ghosts."
Mira hesitated. "And what about him?"
Lira looked toward the crater, still glowing faintly in the distance. "If he wanted to stop us, he would've. Maybe he's giving us a head start."
The words tasted bitter.
A sudden flash split the horizon. The ground trembled, and somewhere far off, a pillar of light erupted from beneath the ruins, a beam that stretched into the clouds before fading just as quickly. The Dominion was stirring.
Lira grabbed the truck's frame. "Move out!" she shouted.
Engines roared. One by one, the convoy rolled forward, a line of weary survivors threading through the bones of Ares. The city around them was dying, its towers half-collapsed and its streets split open like dry riverbeds. Static hissed through the air, curling around metal and skin.
Hours passed. They moved until night bled into dawn. The sky was a strange color, pale gold, tinged with green. The wind carried a low vibration, like a song too deep to hear.
When they finally stopped at the ridge overlooking the north valley, the storm began.
It wasn't rain. It was light, thin, shifting curtains of energy sweeping across the ruins below. The ground pulsed with it, and where it touched metal, sparks leapt and danced. The air hummed like the world itself was exhaling.
The survivors watched in silence.
Lira stood apart, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "We made it," Mira said quietly beside her.
"For now," Lira answered. "But it's changing faster than we can run."
She thought of Aiden then, of the way he'd looked back, his face caught between pain and purpose. Whatever connection he had to the Dominion, it wasn't over. He was part of the storm now.
The light grew brighter, then dimmed, as though the Dominion were searching, reaching.
Lira turned away. "Get everyone settled," she said. "We move again at first light."
Mira frowned. "You really think we can keep this up?"
Lira's voice was steady. "We don't have a choice. Until the world stops breaking, we keep moving."
The others gathered around the fireless camp, their faces lit by the eerie glow of the storm below. No one spoke.
Lira stood watch through the night, the cold biting through her coat. She listened to the hum under the ground, the rhythm that now matched her heartbeat. She didn't know if it was the Dominion, or Aiden, or something else entirely.
But she knew one thing, this was only the beginning.
And when the next storm came, she would be ready.