Come home, First Daughter.

The voice echoed inside Maya’s skull with impossible warmth.

Not threatening.

Not cruel.

Loving.

That terrified her more than anything.

Maya staggered backward as visions flooded her mind again—vast underground chambers buried beneath forgotten civilizations, oceans of black fungal growth spreading beneath continents, entire species consumed and reshaped over millions of years.

The thing below was ancient beyond understanding.

And it knew her.

“No...” Maya whispered aloud.

The glowing red eye deep in the abyss blinked slowly.

The cavern answered instantly.

THOOM.

THOOM.

The fungal walls pulsed like living organs while Harvesters across the chamber writhed in agony. Some collapsed entirely, their bodies mutating violently beneath the Deep Signal.

Bones snapped.

Limbs elongated.

Mouths split wider across their faces.

The infection was evolving faster now.

Selena grabbed Maya’s arm.

“Don’t listen to it.”

But Maya barely heard her.

The voice continued inside her head.

You were born from us.

Fragments of memory surfaced again.

Her mother strapped to a medical chair.

BLACKTHORN scientists screaming.

Machines failing.

And something moving beneath the hospital floor.

“They lied to me...” Maya whispered.

Selena’s face tightened with guilt.

“We hid the truth because we were afraid of what you might become.”

The Shepherd growled softly nearby.

“She was never the danger.”

Its pale eyes shifted toward the abyss below.

“You awakened the real hunger.”

Suddenly Ethan screamed.

His body convulsed violently as black fungal tendrils erupted from his back, lifting him slightly above the ground. White light poured from his eyes while dozens of voices spoke through him simultaneously.

“It sees the surface.”

The Deep Signal had fully connected to him.

Maya rushed toward Ethan instinctively.

Selena blocked her path.

“If you touch him now, the Root may connect through you.”

“But he’s still alive!”

“For now.”

Ethan looked at Maya desperately.

“Please...” he gasped. “Don’t let it inside your mind.”

Then his expression changed again.

Calm.

Ancient.

The Deep Signal spoke through him.

The old world is dying, child.

The cavern trembled harder.

Far above them came the distant sound of collapsing buildings and endless screaming spreading across the valley. The infection was no longer contained to the silos.

It was spreading everywhere.

Fast.

The Shepherd suddenly dropped to one knee.

Every Harvester in the cavern did the same.

Submission.

The enormous red eye below the abyss widened further.

A massive shape began moving upward beneath the earth.

Maya could see its outline now through the cracks splitting the cavern floor—an enormous body coiled endlessly beneath the stone like a buried god awakening from ancient sleep.

Selena stared downward in horror.

“It’s trying to emerge physically.”

“How do we stop it?” Maya shouted.

Selena looked toward the darkness beyond the abyss.

“There’s an access tunnel leading to the neural core. If we overload it, the entire underground network collapses.”

“The Root dies,” Maya said.

Selena nodded silently.

“So does everyone connected to it.”

Thousands.

Maybe millions by now.

Ethan looked at Maya with fading humanity in his eyes.

“If you destroy the core... do it before I disappear completely.”

The Deep Signal immediately reacted.

Black tendrils exploded upward from the cavern floor toward Maya like spears.

The Shepherd roared and intercepted them, its massive claws tearing through fungal growth as the chamber erupted into chaos again.

“GO!” the Shepherd thundered.

Maya hesitated only briefly before grabbing Selena and running toward a narrow tunnel opening behind the collapsing cavern wall.

Behind them, the Shepherd battled the rising tendrils while Harvesters screamed beneath the Deep Signal’s control.

And deep below the earth—

The ancient thing continued rising toward the surface.

Waiting for its First Daughter to return home.