The knock came just before dawn.
Not loud.
Not violent.
A deep, patient impact that rolled through the stone like the heartbeat of something sleeping beneath the world.
Ethan was already awake.
The floorboards shuddered. Mugs rattled on the long table. A lantern swayed and steadied. No one screamed. After the siege, Haven had learned the difference between noise and danger.
Marcus was lacing his boots. Ravi's notebook was open before his eyes fully were. Aria stood near the door, her spider rigid, the crystalline mantis locked in a glass-still pose.
Under the table, the ants had broken formation.
"They're afraid," Aria whispered.
Ethan frowned. "Of what?"
She swallowed. "Something below us is moving."
By sunrise, the leadership filled the central hall.
Maps. Chalk marks. Ravi's layered sketches of tunnels, ridgelines, and resonance readings. The air smelled of smoke and old stone.
Maria set the radio on the table. Its core pulsed low and steady, blue light darkened at the edges.
"This started last night," she said. "Low-frequency transmission. Biological rhythm. I triangulated it south of the ridge."
Marcus folded his arms. "So we reinforce. Collapse tunnels. Burn whatever comes up."
"It's not that simple," Maria said.
Ravi leaned forward. "You're sure it's not interference?"
She shook her head. "It repeats. Predictably. Like syntax."
Silence pressed in.
"You're saying it's communicating," Ravi said.
"I'm saying it's thinking."
Ethan exhaled slowly. "Then we find it before it finishes whatever it's doing."
Keith scowled. "You're going underground."
"Yes."
Darren's gaze lifted. "Team?"
"Small," Ethan said. "Fast. Quiet. Me. Aria. Sofia. Riley. Maria."
Marcus stepped closer. "Then Haven's mine."
Ethan met his eyes. "Hold it together. Keep the beacon active."
Marcus nodded once. "You come back."
They left through the south gate at first light.
Mist curled around the ridge like breath. The forest was wrong-quiet — no birds, no insects. Even the ants refused the soil.
Riley walked tense, lightning coiled faintly at his knuckles. "Feels like waiting," he muttered. "Like the air's holding its breath."
"Stay grounded," Ethan said. "No heroics."
Maria adjusted the radio. "Signal strength is rising. It's close."
The ridge changed underfoot.
Stone turned glassy. Black. Melted rather than carved.
Ethan crouched. "This wasn't dug."
Maria nodded. "Burned."
Aria's ants fanned out and immediately recoiled. "They won't enter."
Riley swallowed. "That's… bad, right?"
Ethan didn't answer. He activated the wrist-lamp. "We move."
The tunnel was not a cave.
It was a wound.
Walls of fused stone curved in concentric ridges, like muscle petrified mid-flex. Veins of green crystal pulsed faintly, out of sync with Haven's rhythm.
Maria brushed a hand along the wall. "Organic shaping. Not alive — but made by something that is."
They found the bodies an hour in.
Five defenders. North Beacon insignia. Armor half-melted. A rifle fused into one man's hand.
Riley crouched. "They didn't burn."
Ethan knelt, threads flickering as he sampled the residue. "They were drained."
The radio spiked.
Maria inhaled sharply. "It's here."
The tunnel forked.
Ethan pointed. "Riley, Sofia — right. Sweep and return."
Riley nodded. "Copy."
The left passage widened into a cavern vast enough to swallow sound.
The floor rippled like frozen waves of black glass. In the center rose a massive cocoon, half-submerged, layered in overlapping plates. Heat shimmered around it.
Maria whispered, "That's the source."
The cocoon pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Aria staggered as the ants panicked, flooding the walls. Her spider hissed. The mantis clicked sharply, wings trembling.
"The Queen says run," Aria said. "Now."
The floor trembled.
The cocoon split.
Heat exploded outward. Stone screamed. Riley's voice crackled over comms: "Movement— the walls are—"
"Warden's Grasp!" Ethan shouted.
Green threads snapped into place, bracing the tunnel as fractures spidered through the floor. They ran.
Behind them, something shifted inside the shell.
Maria looked back once.
Through the opening, a single eye opened — molten gold, calm, appraising.
Watching.
They burst from the ridge as the tunnel collapsed behind them.
Dust. Heat. Glass fragments skittering down the slope.
Riley coughed. "What was that?"
Maria stared at the radio. The core burned red now.
"It's broadcasting," she said.
Sofia's gaze went to the horizon. "To who?"
The signal resolved into rhythm.
Unidentified Source Detected
Origin: Subterranean
Proximity: Beneath Haven
Ethan's stomach dropped.
"It's not under the ridge," he said. "It's moving."
They reached Haven by dusk.
Marcus saw Ethan's face and stopped smiling.
Inside the hall, Maria set the radio down. The hum deepened. The floor vibrated.
Aria's ants poured from the walls, clustering toward the ground. The Queen's mound throbbed, essence bleeding through the seams.
"She says it's calling," Aria whispered. "The earth is changing."
Marcus slammed the table. "Then we dig it out."
Maria shook her head. "You don't understand."
Riley frowned. "Then explain."
She turned the volume higher.
The hum became breath.
"That tunnel?" Maria said. "It wasn't where it moved. It was how it breathes."
Golden text burned into the air.
SYSTEM ALERT
Subterranean Entity Detected
Classification: Unknown (Titan-Class)
Status: Mobile
Recommendation: Fortify. Evacuate. Or Perish.
Ravi swallowed. "That's not advice."
Outside, the ground knocked once more.
Slow.
Deep.
Patient.
Ethan rested his hand on the table.
"Then we build faster," he said. "And we stop pretending the ground is ours."
The knock echoed again.
And this time, Haven answered