The heart chamber no longer echoed with emptiness.
Scaffolds climbed its walls like veins. Steel supports ribbed the ceiling. Pipes snaked across the floor, connecting reservoirs and generators, water trickling into tanks. Floodlights bathed the cavern in a glow that revealed not just stone, but possibility.
It was still raw, half-born, but it was alive in its own way.
"This chamber," Elara said, voice sharp, "is ready to anchor the first biome."
She stood at the center, clipboard in hand, boots caked with dust. Her hair was tied back in a messy knot, streaked with stone dust and grease. The exhaustion on her face didn't dull her eyes — they gleamed with fierce purpose.
She pointed upward, where ducts branched from the ceiling. "Airflow will stabilize here. The reservoirs will feed artificial waterfalls along the walls. We'll install UV lighting systems on a day-night cycle, synced to power from the generators. The soil samples are viable — the flora will take."
She turned to me. "It won't just be a habitat. It'll be an ecosystem. A self-sustaining forest beneath the mountain."
My chest tightened. I imagined wolves padding through shadows, hawks circling above false skies, rivers rushing against stone walls that no longer felt like prisons.
Not cages. Not exhibits.
A world.
But Elara's tone hardened. "We can't build this alone. Not anymore."
She tossed the clipboard onto the table, sketches and diagrams spilling across it. "We need biologists, ecologists, geneticists. People who understand how to keep life alive. If you want this to last, if you want these animals to thrive — you need experts."
Marcus snorted from his place at the wall. "Experts ask questions. Questions get dangerous."
"Then you find the right ones," Elara shot back. "Ones who can keep secrets."
Marcus folded his arms, sunglasses glinting in the floodlight. "And how do you tell the difference between a loyal expert and a curious liability?"
"Instinct," I said quietly.
Both of them looked at me.
I ran my hand along the rough stone wall. "I know what this place is meant to be. And I'll know who belongs in it."
The first recruitment was Dr. Haruto Ishikawa.
He had once been a leading conservation biologist in Tokyo, renowned for his work on species reintroduction. My father had tried to recruit him for corporate environmental projects, branding deals masquerading as charity. Haruto had refused.
I remembered that. That refusal.
Marcus tracked him down to a modest apartment near the bay, books stacked high enough to serve as furniture, aquariums bubbling with rare fish. He listened as I spoke — not with skepticism, not with disbelief, but with the quiet stillness of a man who had seen too much to be easily surprised.
"You want to build a sanctuary underground?" he asked, his voice soft.
"Yes."
"And not just for animals that still exist." His eyes, sharp behind round glasses, flicked to my sketches. "You believe in restoring the extinct."
I held his gaze. "I believe extinction isn't the end. Not if we try."
For a long time, he said nothing. Then, slowly, he nodded. "If you are serious — truly serious — then I will come. But I will not work for you."
I blinked. "What?"
"I will work for them," Haruto said simply, pointing at the sketches. "For the wolf. For the hawk. For the ones who have no voice."
My throat tightened. I managed a rasp of a smile. "That's all I could ask."
Next came Dr. Miriam Solano, a marine biologist from Spain who had once led expeditions into deep-sea trenches. She laughed when I told her what I was building. Laughed until she realized I wasn't joking. Then her laughter turned to fire.
"You're insane," she said, eyes flashing. "And I love it. Do you have any idea how many species die in nets every year? How many we've never even discovered before they vanish? If you give me tanks deep enough — reservoirs vast enough — I'll fill them with life no one else will ever see."
Her handshake was fierce, her smile sharper than Elara's.
Marcus muttered afterward, "She's trouble."
"Good," I replied.
One by one, the team began to gather. Scientists, engineers, trackers who knew the wild better than any city. Not many — just a handful. Enough to start.
Elara oversaw them like a general, setting tasks, demanding precision. Marcus hovered like a shadow, watching every move, ready to cut anyone who slipped.
And me? I watched the sanctuary grow.
The heart chamber was seeded with soil and saplings, artificial sunlight warming the stone. Reservoirs filled with water, filtering systems humming. Air shifted, fresher now, carrying the scent of earth instead of dust.
The first biome was alive.
That night, I stood at the center of the forest chamber. The saplings stretched pale and thin, reaching toward the UV lights like desperate fingers. Water trickled from the artificial falls, mist curling in the air.
It wasn't much yet. But it would be.
I closed my eyes and let my altered voice rise, low and resonant, vibrating in my chest and through the stone. Not words. Not language. Just sound.
The chamber answered. My voice echoed strangely, bending against the walls, resonating back in harmonies that didn't feel human.
I whispered into the dark: "This is your home. Come back to me."
And though no creature stirred, I felt it — the promise, the waiting.
The sanctuary was no longer a dream.
It had begun.