The tremor faded as suddenly as it came, leaving the ruins in a breathless hush. Dust spiraled through the air like drifting ghosts. Small fragments of stone clicked and rolled across the ground, settling into a stillness too heavy to be natural.
Lucas tightened his grip on Elizabeth's arm until he realized he was holding her too hard. He released her with a soft exhale.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Elizabeth nodded, though her eyes were wide. "I… I felt it. Like something beneath us moved."
The teenager from the new group, a boy of maybe sixteen, looked around anxiously. "Is it another bombing?"
"No," Lucas said sharply. "Bombs fall from above. That came from the ground."
Elizabeth took a shaky breath. "Lucas… the earth is trying to say something."
Lucas tried for a tired smile. "Earth doesn't talk."
She held his gaze. "Everything speaks, if you know how to listen."
He wanted to argue, but the sincerity in her eyes disarmed him. She wasn't being poetic she was afraid.
And Elizabeth rarely showed fear.
The group moved again, slower now. Every footstep felt louder. The city seemed to lean in, listening.
Shattered storefronts looked like hollow faces. Fallen trees sprawled like broken limbs. The air carried an eerie pressure, like the moment right before a storm breaks.
"What if it happens again?" Ana whispered.
Elizabeth held her hand tightly. "If it does, we stay together. Understand?"
Ana nodded, trusting her completely.
They reached an intersection where a large section of the road had cracked open. Not shattered like debris but split, as if something beneath had pushed upward.
Lucas crouched and touched the edge. The asphalt was warm.
Too warm.
"Something heated the rock," he murmured.
Elizabeth knelt beside him. "Is that… natural?"
"No." He looked toward the horizon. "Nothing about this is natural."
The woman from the new group pointed toward a distant radio tower leaning precariously. "Will this part of the city collapse?"
"It already has," Lucas said.
They followed a broken path flanked by burnt cars, heading south toward a ridge that overlooked the outer districts. If they reached that ridge, they might see the landscape clearly and decide where to go next.
Lucas kept glancing at Elizabeth.
She walked quietly, her fingers brushing the beads at her wrist. Not praying aloud. Not whispering. Just… listening.
"What do you hear?" he finally asked.
Elizabeth hesitated. "Lucas… promise you won't laugh."
"I don't laugh much these days."
She breathed in deeply. "I heard a sound beneath the tremor. Not a voice. Not words. More like… a heartbeat."
Lucas stared at her. "A heartbeat?"
"I know it sounds impossible," she whispered. "But when the ground shook, something inside it felt alive."
Lucas ran a hand through his hair. "Elizabeth… the earth doesn't have a heart."
"Everything has a heart," she said softly. "Even broken things."
He wanted to protest, but the tremor had unsettled him too deeply to dismiss her.
As they approached the ridge, the wind shifted. The air tasted like iron. Not smoke something older. Something buried.
Suddenly, Lucas held up a hand. "Stop."
Everyone froze.
"What is it?" Elizabeth whispered.
Lucas pointed toward a collapsed parking structure ahead its cement pillars cracked, its roof half sunken.
A faint sound echoed from within.
Not footsteps.
Not rubble shifting.
Not wind.
A low hum.
Rhythmic.
Almost… pulsing.
Elizabeth's breath caught. "Lucas…"
He squeezed her hand instinctively.
Not to comfort her
but because the sound made his skin crawl.
"We go around," Lucas said. "Stay quiet. Stay close."
They skirted the structure cautiously.
But as they passed, the hum deepened, vibrating through the ground.
The child in the new group whimpered.
Ana clung to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth whispered, "Something is waking."
Lucas swallowed hard. "And we're getting out before it does."
They climbed the ridge slowly, one careful step at a time. The slope was steep and covered with debris, but the view from above would give them an advantage.
Halfway up, Ana's father stumbled. Lucas caught him quickly.
"Careful," he said. "We need you steady."
"I'm trying," the man panted. "Leg's burning."
Elizabeth helped him breathe through it. "We'll rest at the top. We're close."
When they finally reached the summit, the group stood stunned.
Below them lay the southern district
once a quiet residential area, now a vast landscape of collapsed homes, twisted alleys, and broken bridges. But that wasn't what froze their breath.
At the far end of the district
a huge fissure split the earth open.
Wide.
Dark.
Yawning like a mouth.
Smoke or steam rose from it in slow, ghostly tendrils.
Elizabeth covered her mouth.
Lucas whispered, "What the hell…"
The teenager asked, trembling, "Was that from the explosions?"
"No," Lucas said. "Explosions destroy. They don't open the earth."
Elizabeth's eyes filled with horror. "Lucas… something is alive beneath the city."
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know how to.
They rested at the ridge, huddled beneath a partially intact awning. Elizabeth checked Ana's father's bandages again. His fever had not returned, but exhaustion weighed on him heavily.
"We shouldn't go down there," he said weakly, pointing to the fissure. "There's nothing left."
Lucas agreed. "We go southeast. Away from the fault line. Away from patrols."
Elizabeth leaned against a broken column, staring toward the dark wound in the earth.
"You're thinking something," Lucas said.
She hesitated.
Then looked at him.
"Lucas… what if the tremor was not the beginning, but the warning?"
Lucas exhaled slowly. "Then we leave faster."
Elizabeth turned her face toward him, voice trembling but steady.
"No. I mean… what if it's calling?"
He frowned. "Calling what?"
"Us," she whispered.
Lucas stared at her for a long moment.
Then he shook his head. "Elizabeth no. We're not going to follow tremors. We're going to survive."
She looked away, her expression troubled.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
Elizabeth swallowed. "With my life."
"Then trust me now."
She nodded softly.
But the uncertainty in her eyes lingered.
They resumed their journey, skirting the ridge and moving gradually southeast. The wind grew colder. The sky dimmed strangely, though no storm clouds formed.
Elizabeth walked beside Lucas, her steps perfectly matched with his
not because she tried,
but because her exhaustion finally let her lean into his pace.
"Lucas…" she whispered.
"Yes?"
"You won't let anything happen to them, right?" She glanced back at the others.
"No," he said firmly. "Not while I'm breathing."
Elizabeth lowered her gaze.
"And… to me?"
Lucas stopped walking.
Slowly, painfully slowly, he lifted her chin with his fingers.
"I couldn't leave you even when the fire surrounded us," he murmured. "Do you really need me to answer that?"
Her lips parted
just slightly
as if she might say something she wasn't ready to say.
But then
The ground trembled.
Sharper this time.
Shorter.
More urgent.
Ana screamed.
The child cried.
Dust spilled down from the ridge.
Elizabeth clutched Lucas's coat. "Lucas"
"I feel it," he whispered, pulling her closer.
The tremor came again
a second pulse,
then a third,
each stronger than the last.
The ground beneath the southern district cracked further, sending a cloud of ash into the sky.
Then the sound returned.
Low.
Deep.
Rising like a heartbeat.
Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears.
"Lucas… the earth is crying."
He held her tightly.
"Then we run."
But as they started to move
A voice echoed across the ruins.
Not from a person.
Not from the sky.
From the earth.
A long, hollow moan
ancient, wounded, alive.
Ana sobbed.
Her father stumbled.
The survivors froze in terror.
Elizabeth's knees buckled.
Lucas caught her immediately.
"Elizabeth!"
She clutched her chest, breath stuttering.
"It's speaking Lucas oh God it's speaking"
"What is it saying?"
Her lips trembled.
Then she whispered, voice breaking
as if repeating something not meant for human ears:
"It says…
'Not yet.'"
Lucas felt the coldest fear he had ever known.
Not because Elizabeth heard it.
But because when the tremor hit again
he heard it too.