[LIRA, whispering before it begins]
You're still here. Good. This part's slower. We don't run. We don't panic. We… breathe. Just follow quietly. Don't speak too loud—Zarconis might be listening.
The Door sealed behind them.
No flash. No jolt. Just silence—so deep it felt ancient. The kind of silence that didn't belong to air, or even water. It belonged to memory. Arron felt a strange mix of relief and emptiness wash over him. The mission was here, tangible, but the absence of those who should have shared this first moment ached. The metallic scent of the transport chamber, usually a comfort, now felt sterile, unable to mask the quiet grief that settled in his chest.
He didn't know what he expected. Wonder? Relief? Closure?
All he felt was quiet.
And the absence of the two people who should have seen it first.
Inside the transport chamber, the world outside stretched in a surreal stillness. They had arrived beneath an ocean not made of water, but of starlight and dreams.
Arron stood at the front viewport, hands behind his back. The soft glow of Zarconis bathed his suit, catching faint silver threads in the collar and wrists. He didn't speak. This was the moment—the one he had built for, trained for, lived for.
But not like this. Not without them.
The others waited behind him.
Lior leaned close to the glass, breath fogging her visor, eyes wide with wonder. Kael reviewed the last scan, fingers steady despite the awe on his face. Haren didn't joke—not yet. Mira and Teyra whispered a word or two between them, but even their voices sounded muted by the sheer depth of what surrounded them.
The ocean was impossibly clear. Coral-structures taller than towers rose in spirals, glowing with faint pulses like breathing lungs. Vine-creatures drifted by, trailing shimmering threads of soft green and blue. A school of translucent serpent-fish moved in rhythmic formations—like a living signature.
Above them, the surface rippled—mirror-smooth. Through it, they could see the sky.
Three moons drifted in a starlit canvas: one smooth and full, another cracked but held together by gravity, and the last—a pulsing orb that released light rather than reflected it. A sky without sun, watching without blinking.
Arron inhaled once, the air in his suit cool against his face.
Then: "Prepare to exit."
No one questioned him.
The lower hatch of the transport hissed open. No water surged in—the atmosphere had already equalized. The entry field shimmered, parting like quiet thought.
Kael stepped out first. His boots touched nothing. The water held him.
Lior followed, nearly breathless. She extended her arms, spinning slowly in place, a soundless gasp escaping her. The very air around her felt alive, a soft hum vibrating just at the edge of hearing.
Haren emerged next, muttering just loud enough: "This isn't liquid. This is silence pretending to be water."
Arron stepped out last. The shimmer of the hatch faded behind him.
They floated, suspended in glass. The world felt like a grand cathedral, vast and impossibly clear.
Nothing chased them. Nothing stirred. It felt like the world knew they were coming—and allowed it.
They moved toward the pre-sent platform. A hexagonal base floated just above the surface, softly glowing at its edges. Stabilized by drones, it waited like a stage for something sacred.
Arron was the last to breach the surface.
For a moment, the mirrored ocean clung to his faceplate—reflecting not three moons, but four. One was missing from the sky but visible in the water. The sight sent a shiver through him, a phantom touch of a memory he couldn't quite grasp, yet felt so deeply. The fourth moon...it held a silent weight, a promise of a future that felt intertwined with a past he carried.
He said nothing.
He stepped onto the platform.
The moss underfoot pulsed once, a soft, emerald breath. Then stilled. Vines along the edge swayed—though there was no wind. The air around them grew subtly warmer, a gentle embrace.
Lior crouched, fingers reaching for a glowing root. "It moved," she whispered, smiling, her face alight with wonder. "It really moved."
Kael scanned the treeline. "No immediate movement. Terrain stable. Readings nominal."
Haren approached the edge and stared down. "There's something down there," he said softly, his voice edged with a rare solemnity. "It doesn't blink."
"It might not have eyes," Mira offered.
"It has something," he replied. "And it's deciding if I'm real." He paused, then added, "Either way, it's certainly more interesting than most of my dates."
Later. Exploration began.
Drone-tents unfurled. Atmospheric monitors calibrated. Survey pods extended into the shallows. Every step was recorded, even when steps weren't taken.
Zarconis watched. Or didn't. It was hard to tell.
The team moved inland. Trees with crystal-veined bark twisted upward like frozen lightning. Moss changed brightness with each footfall. Four-legged creatures darted under roots, leaving trails of soft bioluminescence that vanished in seconds.
Lior began naming things.
"That's a Glowtail," she said, pointing to a fox-sized lizard with glowing veins. A small, translucent creature, resembling a miniature serpent, brushed gently against Lior's outstretched hand as she pointed, its scales shimmering with soft light. Lior gasped, her eyes wide, then a quiet smile bloomed on her face as the creature lingered for a moment before silently gliding away.
"No way," Haren countered. "That's a Snortbeast. Look at the nose."
"It hasn't snorted once."
"Yet. Probably waiting for you to get closer, Lior." He winked.
They laughed. Quietly. Zarconis didn't seem to like loudness.
Kael stepped onto a vine that curled up gently, then released with a soft hum.
"Sleepwhip," he said.
Teyra knelt beside a flower that bloomed when touched, changing colors with each contact. "Painter's Grace," she named it.
Rul—tall, quiet—discovered a tree that swayed not with wind, but sound. When Haren whistled, it moved. Only then.
Arron didn't interfere. He watched, a quiet satisfaction settling in him. This was what they were meant for.
They didn't speak of fear. There was none.
Not yet.
Kael coordinated mapping scans. Mira cataloged biostructures in the soil. Lior filled her sketchpad. Haren debated names. Teyra observed with relentless detail.
They worked. And yet… they smiled more often than expected.
That night—if it could be called that—they gathered near a ridge of glowing moss. The moons shimmered above, casting silver light across the ocean.
Sera stared long into the water.
"There's a fourth moon again," she said, a hushed wonder in her voice.
"Three," Mira replied, glancing up at the sky.
Sera pointed. "I'm not counting that one."
They looked. There it was. Reflected. Silent. The air seemed to grow still, as if the world held its breath.
No one spoke.
Arron walked alone to the edge of camp. The soft, verdant scent of the moss filled his senses, a strange blend of earth and pure light.
He sat beside a fallen crystal root and looked across the stillness.
He remembered their voices—his parents—speaking about this world before it had a name. Before it had a Door. He could almost hear his mother's excited whisper, "It's a place of impossible dreams, Arron," and his father's steady, hopeful tone, "We will find it, son." The weight of their dream, now his burden, settled gently on his shoulders.
He opened his log.
> "You should have seen it. I'll carry it for you."
> He closed the log again.
> Behind him, the camp settled.
>
The first cycle of rest in the ship was restless. Accustomed to the rhythms of day and night, the constant starlight played tricks on their minds. Some tossed and turned, while others stared wide-eyed at the glowing moss outside their viewports.
Haren, ever the pragmatist, rigged up makeshift curtains to block out the light, muttering about "sensory overload." "Honestly, who needs a sun when you've got neon moss?" he grumbled, much to Teyra's exasperation. "My internal clock is doing disco."
Teyra kept resetting her internal clock every hour, unable to let go of the need for structure. "It's unscientific, Haren. We need data, not guesswork!" she insisted, though her own brow was furrowed with mild frustration.
Kael gave up after two cycles—he simply noted events by the way the moss changed color.
Lior, however, seemed energized by it, sketching furiously in her notebook, capturing the new world beauty of the landscape. She would hum softly, her fingers flying across the page, completely absorbed.
Teyra had already logged three separate hypotheses about the emotional effects of light without darkness. She didn't like any of them. Her notes kept contradicting themselves. "It's like a perpetual twilight, but without the relief of night. The neurological implications are...fascinatingly chaotic."
Kael, ever precise, stopped checking his internal chronometer by the second night. He began marking shifts by the moss's color—deep green for calm, silver for alert, gold for tension. "More reliable than any clock, apparently," he observed dryly to Mira.
No one asked if this was normal. They all knew it wasn't. And that felt normal enough.
The next cycle brought a semblance of routine. They learned to eat in shifts, their meals illuminated by the soft glow of the ship's interior. Conversations were hushed, filled with observations about the strange world outside. Kael noted the subtle changes in the ocean's reflection, how the fourth moon seemed to pulse with a light of its own. Mira discovered a patch of moss that shimmered with their thoughts, its colors shifting with their emotions.
Exploration continued, each venture revealing new wonders and mysteries. They found ruins, half-buried in the glowing flora, their surfaces humming with an unknown energy. They observed the creatures of Zarconis, their movements fluid and silent, their eyes reflecting the starlight like tiny mirrors. One vine-creature, long and sinuous, slowly curled itself around Haren's arm as he stood still, its shimmering tendrils brushing his suit before it gently released him and drifted away, leaving a faint, pleasant warmth. Haren simply stared after it, a quiet awe replacing his usual jests.
One evening, as they gathered near the edge of the forest, they noticed a change in the air. A subtle shift in the light, a feeling of anticipation. The trees seemed to lean in, their crystal veins glowing brighter. And then, they heard it.
Vael sat cross-legged on a moss-ringed stone, her crystalline wings folded tight. Her eyes were half-lidded, a subtle tremor in her hands that only Arron, watching from a distance, seemed to notice. She took a slow, deep breath, her gaze drifting to him for a fleeting moment before she lowered her eyes. She often practiced in secret, her voice a hushed whisper, as if preparing for this very moment. Arron felt a strange pull, a quiet resonance with the vulnerability in her stillness.
And she was singing.
Her voice didn't echo. It moved—like light through water. Each note drifted into the starlit air, fragile and reverent. The air thickened with a quiet anticipation. Vines trembled gently, as if inhaling. Moss glowed brighter, pulsing with the beat of a silent song. Crystal branches chimed faintly, harmonizing with a melody only the planet could hear. The ground beneath their feet vibrated with a soft, deep hum, a silent counterpoint to her voice. A subtle warmth spread through the air, like the world itself was drawing closer to listen.
"I came for the silence," she sang, almost breathless. "But found a voice in the waves."
Haren stopped walking. Lior looked up from her notebook, her eyes widening as the glow around her intensified. Even Arron glanced toward the sound, a quiet understanding settling in his chest.
"No sun to warm me… just moons that know my name."
The song didn't rise. It floated.
"The sky is beneath us,
The stars, they don't sleep.
I see your shadow
In oceans too deep."
For a moment, when Vael's voice rose, a vine above her curled slightly—as if leaning to listen, not to judge. The crystal trees pulsed with a synchronized brilliance, their light a soft, rhythmic dance.
"My feet touch no soil,
But the world holds me still.
It listens in colors
And bends to my will."
The notes seemed to shimmer in the air, like the reflection of something half-remembered. A low, gentle hum rose from the glowing moss, a soft response to her melody. Lior's face was a study in awe, her fingers instinctively reaching out to trace the pulsing light. Haren, usually so quick with a quip, simply stood, a profound stillness about him, observing the resonance in the landscape. Arron felt a profound sense of connection, a subtle stirring in his own heart as Zarconis seemed to embrace Vael's song. It was a harmony that resonated beyond sound, touching something ancient and deeply peaceful within him.
"The sky is beneath us,
The stars, they don't sleep.
I see your shadow
In oceans too deep."
Her voice softened further. Like a lullaby meant for something ancient.
"You should have seen it—
The way it breathed when I sang.
A fourth moon wasn't just reflected. It was remembered. Like a story told only in water
Where no memory hangs."
And then, silence again. The crystal trees slowly dimmed, the moss settled back to its usual soft glow, and the gentle vibrations underfoot faded. The air returned to its previous stillness, leaving behind a lingering sense of profound peace.
Not from absence. From peace.
He won't tell you how hard he's holding it all together. But you saw it. The way he touched the hull. The fourth moon. The way he doesn't interrupt her song. The way his gaze lingered on Vael, a quiet acknowledgment of something profound in her.
Don't forget it.
The camp glowed faintly.
Kael watched the edges.
Haren chased a glowing orb that spun when startled. Lior laughed, hand over her mouth. Mira sat by a root that pulsed when she breathed. Sera still stared at the ocean, as if daring it to blink.
And Zarconis remained silent.
Peaceful.
And somewhere—far beyond their camp—a flicker passed beneath the trees.
No sound.
No movement after.
Just the sense… that something now knew they were here.
And The fourth moon
End of Chapter 4
[LIRA, whispering]
Do you feel the ocean's pulse beneath the stillness? It's like the world itself is listening. Notice how the moss glows when they breathe. What does it remind you of?
That was their first day on Zarconis. No battles. No discoveries that broke them.
Just silence, beauty… and one song beneath the moons.
Did you feel something when Vael sang?
I'd love to hear your thoughts:
Did the lyrics land for you?
Would you want more music like this woven into future chapters?
Or should songs stay rare—quiet moments meant to echo only once?
Drop a comment if it moved you. Your words help shape how this story grows.
Thank you for reading.
—M.R.Synn