Ten789 Apr 2026

He fired his descent thrusters to slow his fall. Four kilometers. Five. The walls narrowed. The amber turned to blood-red. The singing grew sharp, insistent—not a choir now but a thousand whispered arguments, each one tugging at a different fear.

At seven kilometers, his boots touched the floor.

Leo looked down and saw not his reflection, but a younger version of himself—age ten, the year the选拔 trials had taken his brother. The boy stared up with hollow eyes and whispered, "You left him." ten789

Above, the purple sky waited. The comms crackled: "Leo? You're ascending early. Report."

"Descension Control to Leo," crackled the comms. "Final check. Bio-signs?" He fired his descent thrusters to slow his fall

Leo didn't grab the crystal. He opened his suit's sample pouch and let it float inside on its own. Then he fired his ascent thrusters and rose, not looking down, not listening to the boy in the mirror.

Ten years of guilt. Seven kilometers of descent. Nine minutes of mercy turned to seven seconds of truth. The walls narrowed

But for now, he had the crystal. And the singing had finally stopped.

Then he saw it: a single crystal, no larger than his thumb, floating in the exact center of the space. It was transparent, almost invisible, but it hummed at a pitch that made his joints ache.

And the singing glass all around him—the dark, dead shards—ignited at once, not with light but with sound. A single, perfect note: the note his brother had hummed the night before the trials, the last sound Leo had heard before walking away.