Children of Solara - Chapter 8: The Awakening

Silence.

For the first time since arriving on Solara, there was no whisper, no pulse, no sound of breath drawn by unseen lungs. I floated in blackness that felt thicker than air, heavier than sleep. Then — a gasp. My own.

I opened my eyes to white light. The ceiling above me was metal, sterile, humming faintly. A ship. My ship. I was back in the medical bay of the Ariadne.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

My body ached, but it was the kind of ache that reminded me I had a body again. I sat up slowly, the sheets sticking to my skin with cold sweat. Around me, machines blinked and beeped. Familiar sounds, mechanical, comforting — and yet each tone seemed slightly… off, as though played through a human mouth rather than a speaker.

The air smelled of disinfectant and iron. I reached for the comm switch on the wall, but the moment my fingers brushed it, a sharp shock jolted through me. Sparks jumped. The light flickered.

And for a split second, I saw it again — the Heart. Still beating behind the walls, faintly, like an afterimage burned into my retinas.

I stumbled to the floor, breathing hard. “No. No, it’s over. It’s done.”

The door hissed open. A figure entered — a woman in a navy uniform, her face half-hidden behind a respirator. Captain Darnell. She looked the same as she had before the crash. Exactly the same. Not older, not changed.

“Good,” she said. “You’re awake.”

Her tone was warm, rehearsed. I wanted to believe it.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice cracking. “The ship — we crashed. The planet—”

She held up a hand. “You suffered trauma. Exposure to atmospheric toxins. Hallucinations are common.”

She said it so smoothly that I almost laughed. Hallucinations. That’s what they’d call it. That’s what they’d want me to believe.

But then I noticed her shadow. It didn’t match her movements. When she leaned forward, it lagged a second behind. When she turned, it stretched toward me, not away.

“Captain,” I whispered, “where’s the rest of the crew?”

Her eyes flickered — literally flickered, like static on an old screen. “Resting. You’ll see them soon.”

I stood, backing toward the far wall. “No. No, you’re not her. You’re—”

“Careful,” she said, her voice suddenly layered — one tone beneath another. A child’s voice, echoing from the depths of her throat. “You’re still fragile. The dream isn’t finished healing.”

The lights dimmed. The hum of the ship deepened into a throbbing pulse.

The same rhythm.

I slammed my fist against the wall panel. Metal peeled away like thin skin, revealing something organic beneath — pulsing faintly with light. The ship wasn’t a ship. It was still part of it.

The illusion hadn’t ended. I’d only fallen into a new layer of it.

“Why are you doing this?” I shouted. “I destroyed you!”

The captain tilted her head. Her smile was childlike now, gentle and endless. “You can’t destroy what you create. We are memory. We are you.”

The walls began to ripple. Instruments melted into soft, translucent forms. The floor became warm under my feet, rising and falling with breath.

I ran. Through corridors that curved like veins, doors that opened like eyes. Every path led deeper into something that no longer pretended to be metal or machine.

And always, the children’s laughter followed me.

Finally, I reached an observation window — or what had been one. Outside, instead of stars, I saw faces pressed against the glass. Children, thousands of them, drifting in the void. Their mouths moved in unison, forming words I could hear in my head.

“You woke us. You can’t leave us.”

I slammed my hands against the glass. “I don’t belong here!”

Their reply was soft, almost mournful. “You do now.”

The captain’s voice came from behind me, whispering right against my ear. “Sleep, child of Solara. The dream must continue.”

Hands — dozens of small hands — reached from the walls, pale and shimmering, pulling me backward into the living ship. I screamed, kicking, fighting, but the harder I struggled, the warmer the hands became, comforting, familiar.

And then I saw my reflection in the glass — my eyes glowing faintly silver.

Just like Cael’s.

I stopped fighting.

As the darkness closed in again, the last sound I heard wasn’t my own heartbeat.

It was the world’s — steady, patient, eternal.

Solara was still alive.

And now, it lived through me.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model