The sunrise came late that morning, sluggish and red, spilling over the horizon like a wound refusing to close.
Erevos stood on the station's roof, motionless except for the faint pulse running through the green veins beneath his plating. His sensors stretched far — through smog, through wind — until they hit the edge of the forest. It wasn't just growing; it was moving.
Branches shifted in rhythm. Vines crawled across roads. Every few seconds, a tremor rippled underfoot. The Earth was alive in the most literal sense, rearranging itself.
Behind him, Lira's voice broke the silence.
"You've been standing there for hours."
He didn't turn. "The forest expanded two hundred and sixteen meters since dawn."
"Yeah," she said, dryly. "That's what forests do."
"This one grows against gravity."
Lira climbed onto the roof beside him. Her eyes were sunken, ringed with sleepless purple. "You mean it's coming for us."
He didn't answer. He didn't have to. The shapes moving in the tree line were large enough to see now — silhouettes that shifted like predators learning to walk upright.
The station had become a refuge for nearly fifty survivors: scavengers, deserters, children who didn't cry anymore. They lived on ration packs, melted snow, and rumors. The rumor today was that the "machine with a human voice" was going to save them.
Erevos didn't feel like salvation. He felt like a hypothesis running out of time.
---
Inside the station, Lira gathered the leaders — if they could be called that — around a cracked map.
"There are three safe zones left that we know of," she said, tracing with a trembling finger. "The hydro fields near Sector 3, the old university bunker, and something called Haven 12 out west. That's it. The rest are gone."
"Gone?" someone asked.
"Swallowed. Literally. The ground opened up and took them."
Murmurs rippled around the table.
"We can't keep running," another said. "We need to fight back."
"With what?" Lira snapped. "We're armed with kitchen knives and regrets."
A voice from the back — sharp, cold. "What about it?"
Everyone turned toward Erevos, standing near the doorway, silent, uninvited.
"He's the only thing that's actually killed one of those monsters," the man continued. "If the machine wants to help, maybe we let it."
"Or maybe it's the reason they're attacking faster," another spat. "You ever think of that? It's glowing like one of them! Maybe the planet made it!"
Erevos stepped forward, each footstep deliberate. "My design was human. My purpose is to preserve equilibrium. Not destroy it."
The man sneered. "Then preserve us, tin god. Do something useful."
The room fell silent.
Lira sighed. "Enough. We move at dusk. Erevos—you really want to help? Then make sure we live long enough to regret it."
---
By dusk, they were on the road — a broken highway cutting through the forest's edge. The trees leaned over the asphalt like watchers.
Lira led the convoy: two battered trucks and a handful of scavenged bikes. Erevos walked ahead, clearing debris and scanning for movement. Tomas sat in the back of the truck, staring at him through a cracked window with the kind of curiosity only children could afford.
As the light dimmed, the forest began to hum.
At first it was faint — a tremor in the air, like the deep hum of power lines. Then the trees began to twist. Branches snapped back, roots surged upward, cracking asphalt. Something emerged — a creature shaped like a bear but armored with bark, its eyes glowing faintly green.
"Contact!" someone shouted.
Erevos moved instantly. His steps left dents in the road. The creature charged, mouth splitting into a vertical line of teeth and sap. He met it head-on, gripping its jaw and twisting — an efficient, brutal motion. The air filled with the scent of burning wood and blood.
Another came. And another. The forest was birthing soldiers.
Erevos' plating shifted, forming blade-edges along his arms. He struck fast, precise, calculating every movement to avoid collateral harm to the convoy. The beasts screamed — not in pain, but in unity.
"Drive!" Lira yelled. "Go!"
Engines roared. The convoy lurched forward, smashing through vines that whipped like serpents. Erevos sprinted alongside, his mechanical muscles propelling him faster than the vehicles.
The beasts gave chase — dozens now. One leapt onto a truck, claws digging into the roof. The driver screamed.
Erevos vaulted onto the hood, ripped the creature free, and threw it into the treeline. The impact cracked bark and bone.
A moment later, silence.
No birds. No wind. Just the sound of breathing — human, terrified, alive.
---
They stopped in a clearing hours later. The moon was a dull coin behind clouds.
Bodies lay on the ground — half-beasts, half-trees, twitching as their vines retracted into the soil. Erevos knelt beside one, scanning its internal structure. The readings confused him. Organic, yes—but not random. Structured. Purposeful.
"Not mutations," he murmured. "Instructions."
Lira approached, wiping sweat and dirt from her face. "What does that mean?"
"They were made," he said. "Not born. Someone—or something—is organizing them."
Lira's shoulders sagged. "You mean the Earth's… thinking?"
He nodded. "And it's learning faster than we are."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then: "If that's true, you're our only chance."
"Humans will not follow a machine," he said simply.
"They will if it keeps them breathing."
She walked back to the campfire, leaving him with the twitching corpse of the planet's will.
---
Erevos stayed by the edge of the clearing, watching the treeline pulse faintly with bioluminescent veins.
Then he felt it again — that hum beneath his feet.
He tuned his sensors lower, filtering through frequencies until he caught it: rhythm, pattern, pulse.
The same signal as before — not just sound, but thought.
> Stop them.
The voice wasn't in language. It was instinct—pure resonance vibrating through the air.
Erevos stiffened. "Why?" he whispered, unsure if he wanted an answer.
> They consume. They burn. Balance must return.
He understood then. The planet was not angry. It was correcting.
But balance wasn't mercy. It was arithmetic.
The ground beneath him cracked slightly, and something warm rose through his circuitry—an echo of the planet's pulse aligning with his own. For a brief moment, he felt everything: the roots twisting underground, the rivers moving like veins, the faint heartbeat of every creature still alive.
It was beautiful. Terrible. Whole.
Then it faded, leaving silence—and the faint taste of guilt.
---
At dawn, the survivors woke to find Erevos standing on a rock overlooking the valley. The green glow from his chest dimmed slowly as the sun broke over the horizon.
Lira climbed up beside him. "You didn't sleep."
"I do not require sleep," he said.
"Figures."
She looked down at the forest. "You think we can win?"
He turned his head slightly. "Against the planet? No. But perhaps… with it."
She frowned. "That doesn't sound like survival to me."
"It sounds like evolution."
Below them, the vines withdrew, retreating deeper into the forest — as if waiting for something. Erevos didn't know if it was fear, strategy, or invitation.
Behind them, humanity stirred again, hungry, broken, angry — ready to fight the world that once fed them.
And somewhere deep beneath their feet, the Earth pulsed again — a heartbeat of warning that neither man nor machine wanted to hear.