Breathing on Mars still felt like the punchline to a bad joke.
I sat there, helmet off, sucking in air that had no business existing for human lungs. Every breath tasted thin and metallic, scraping my throat raw, but—somehow—I was alive.
And they were watching me.
The shimmering figures stood in a loose semicircle, silent and still, their glowing frames pulsing in rhythmic waves. "Beings" was the only word my brain could supply, but even that felt wrong. Their light shifted colors—cool blues, warm greens, the occasional sharp flicker of white—patterns I couldn't decode but desperately wanted to. A language? Mood signals? Or were they just… breathing?
They looked like curious doctors watching a particularly confused lab rat.
The sound they made was worse. A low, resonant hum rolled through the air, layered and complex, like whale song filtered through crystal. It made my teeth buzz and the fine hairs on my arms rise. The air itself seemed to bend with it, rippling like heat haze.
But what really had my brain spiraling wasn't them.
It was where I was.
When they'd carried me here—if "carried" was even the right word; it felt more like being folded through the air—I'd caught glimpses between bursts of red dust. Jagged cliffs, impossibly steep, stretching for kilometers. A massive scar in the planet's crust swallowed light like a black throat.
Now, sitting on cold rock, trying to slow my pounding heart, it hit me.
Tharsis. Specifically, under the Tharsis Plateau, near Noctis Labyrinthus.
A blank spot in every orbital map. No probe had scanned it cleanly—magnetic interference, unstable terrain. Planetary scientists had theories, but no human had ever been here.
Until now.
Me. A human. Breathing Martian air.
"Jesus Christ," I whispered.
Crystalline outcrops embedded in the cliff walls caught the Tharsi's glow, shimmering like wet glass. But they weren't just rocks. A faint hum vibrated through the ground, through my boots, almost like a heartbeat. If Clifford were here, he'd sell his own lungs for a sample.
I glanced back at the figures—the Tharsi, I decided to call them. Standing upright, easily seven feet tall. My scientist brain itched to measure everything about them—their light pulses, their body ratios, even the way their frames refracted dust.
The rhythmic flashing between them seemed deliberate. Structured. A language, definitely.
And maybe that explained something else: Mars's eerie electromagnetic quiet. If their "speech" used vibrations, maybe they suppressed other noise for clearer communication.
"Hi," I tried finally, clearing my throat. My voice sounded too loud, like shouting in a cathedral. "I'm Eren. Thanks for, uh… not letting me suffocate?"
Nothing.
I mimed breathing, tapping my chest, then pointed to my mouth. "Breath. Air. You… help me. Thank you?"
They tilted their heads in perfect sync.
"Right. Smooth, Eren," I muttered. "You sound like a tourist ordering lunch with bad hand gestures."
I tried mimicking them instead, tapping my chest in awkward rhythms and flashing my helmet light in clumsy imitation of their pulses.
One of them blinked a slow green ripple at me. I copied it, pulse for pulse.
The one on the left tilted its glowing head sideways. If a glowing alien could look amused, that one did.
"Don't laugh," I muttered, cheeks burning. "I'm trying. I don't have glowing skin, okay?"
I tried mimicking their hum next, pushing a low vibration out of my throat. It sounded like a dying seal.
A sharp, staccato flash rippled across one of their chests—laughter?
"Great," I groaned. "First human contact with an alien species, and I'm the joke."
I dropped my hands. "Anyway, nice meeting you. Not that I know if I'll even make it back to Earth to—"
The Tharsi moved.
Two of them stepped forward, gesturing—or doing something that felt like gesturing—and I found myself guided deeper into the cliffs. The ground under my boots was unnervingly solid, almost too solid, as if the rock itself adjusted for me.
The rift swallowed light the farther we went, except for the glow of the Tharsi themselves, casting liquid reflections on the walls. The jagged basalt gradually shifted to something stranger—filamentous strands woven into the rock, like glassy veins. Not natural.
And then I saw it.
Their home.
It clung to the cliffs like an enormous hive. Thin, transparent filaments arched across the walls, forming scaffolds that pulsed faintly, like veins. It wasn't built in the human sense—it looked grown, coral fused with stone, alive.
A section of filament shifted, peeling back like a sliding membrane, and revealed what I could only describe as a lab.
Organic workstations curved out of the walls, grown, not assembled. Transparent screens floated in the air, impossibly sharp.
And then I saw one of those screens.
My chest tightened.
"Nyx," I breathed.
Our ship. Spinning too slowly. No navigation lights. No trajectory path. Kevin and Betty were either lost… or dead.
I stepped closer, heart hammering. "That's my crew! They're alive? Dead? Ship—help—please!" I gestured wildly, pointing between the screen and the sky.
And then—
A voice.
Not a hum. Not a light pulse.
A clear voice. In English.
"And how," it said smoothly, "is that your concern right now?"
My head snapped up so fast my neck cracked. One of the Tharsi had stepped forward, its glow dimmed.
"You… speak English?" I stammered.
"Not all people are as foolish as yours," it said, tone clipped.
"You sound… angry," I managed. "I'm—uh—grateful, really. Thank you for the air."
"You breathe because we generate oxygen for you," it said flatly. "It is expensive."
"I figured as much. I wouldn't have survived otherwise. Thank you. Really. Humans say thank you as appreciation."
A flicker—amusement? "You're welcome."
My brain sputtered, then caught up. "Wait—you let me flail around like an idiot for ten minutes before talking?"
Another flash across its chest—laughter. "We were curious how long before you stopped embarrassing yourself. But eventually, I decided intervention was necessary."
"Great," I muttered, dragging my hands down my face. "Glad I'm entertaining."
"You are arrogant for someone stranded in another realm of life."
"I'm in shock, okay? Mental health. Very human thing."
"You seem fine." It reached toward me, and I instinctively jerked back—static snapped across my skin like a mild electric shock.
The Tharsi studied me intently. "Surprised you're not tied down and experimented on?"
"I—uh—yeah."
"It will happen," it said casually. "Once the General gives the order, you will be moved to another base."
"Wow," I said dryly. "Guess worrying about my crew's ship is pointless then?"
"You have no choice. Don't overthink."
I swallowed. "I'll cooperate. But… help? Can I get help?" I didn't even know what I meant—back to Earth? Escape? Nothing about this felt possible.
"Help," it repeated, flat. "I don't know."
"Okay, dumb question, but… how do you even know English? Did you learn it here?"
A long pause. Then: "I have been on Earth. A few times."
I blinked. "You've—seriously?"
"You think humans are the only intelligent species? Judging by your stupid choices, you're barely intelligent at all."
"Oh wow. Thanks."
It tilted its head. "You were betrayed, weren't you? That is why you are here."
I stared. "You know about that?"
It gestured at the screen. "We intercept your crew's communications. They don't mention you. They just want to make it home."
I stepped closer to the display. Betty's voice crackled faintly through translation filters.
"Maybe we won't make it," she whispered.
Kevin's voice followed, sharp. "We'll make it. I'll show them the footage of Mars. We'll be famous."
"Eren," Betty's voice cracked.
"Stop talking about him!" Kevin snapped. "We all knew he was going to die there. Clifford knew. You were at the meeting. Why pretend you care now?"
Betty went quiet, her voice trembling when she finally spoke. "It's not that. Thinking about him makes me think about all my bad decisions. We might end up like him. You know I was almost dead in that atmosphere too."
I stood frozen, stomach twisting.
They knew. All of them knew I'd been left to die.