The mouth of the crater yawned before them like a wound that refused to close. Wind rushed through the hollow, carrying the faint hum of buried machines. The morning sun barely touched the edge; beyond it was only shadow.Liam tightened the strap on his pack and looked back at Marcus and Ava. Behind them, the rest of Haven slept fitfully children monitored, guards on edge. “If we don’t come back by nightfall,” he said, “seal the gates. No one follows.”Marcus gave a half smile. “You always were terrible at good byes.”“Then let’s make this one unnecessary.”They descended carefully, boots crunching over glassy fragments of what had once been the Heart’s shell. The deeper they went, the colder it became. A pale mist hung near the bottom, carrying faint blue sparks that danced like fireflies.Ava shivered. “It feels alive down here.”Liam nodded. “It is.”At the crater’s floor, a narrow fissure split the ground barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through. From within c

The world was quiet again.For the first time in years, the wind carried only the sound of leaves and the crackle of rebuilding fires. Haven what was left of it stood where Redwater once sprawled, its skyline shattered but alive. The people who had survived the collapse were piecing their world back together, brick by broken brick.Ava walked through the ruins with a bandaged arm and a datapad clutched against her chest. She’d traded her old uniform for simple work gear dust stained, practical. The air still shimmered faintly where the Heart had been, a faint glass field stretching for miles, reflecting the pale sunrise like a mirror. Nobody dared to walk across it. They said it hummed at night.She stopped at the edge and crouched, touching the smooth surface with her fingers. It was warm.“Still breathing, aren’t you?” she murmured.Behind her, Marcus’s voice carried across the wind. “Talking to ghosts again?”She glanced over her shoulder. He looked older more tired but al