Before there was earth, before there were seas and skies, there was war.
Not a war of men, nor of gods, but of forces—raw, infinite, beyond comprehension. Light surged through the void in waves of brilliance, seeking to create, to shape, to give order. Darkness answered with coils of shadow, tearing down, unraveling, dissolving every thread of light into nothingness. For an age beyond counting, neither prevailed. Creation was chaos, and chaos was creation.
Where these tides collided, storms were born. Lightning without flame tore across the emptiness. Winds without air howled through the fabric of existence. There was no silence, only endless clash, endless rage. It was in one such storm, fiercer than any before, that something unexpected happened.
From the violent collision of light and dark, a spark was born. Unlike the countless sparks that had come before, this one did not fade. It thickened, condensed, held together as though some unseen hand willed it so. Colors swirled across its surface—golden one moment, black the next, then shades that defied names. It pulsed like a living heart, each beat echoing through the void.
The forces around it paused, as if recognizing their own essence within this fragile creation. For the first time since the beginning, the battle slowed. In the silence that followed, the spark hardened. It became crystal. Smooth, radiant, alive. Both pure and corrupt, both beginning and end.
The Crystal of Shadows had been born.
For a time it drifted, unclaimed, resting upon the peak of a barren mountain that jutted from the newborn Earth. The winds circled it, the skies darkened above it, and the ground trembled beneath it. The crystal was power incarnate, a relic neither light nor darkness could wholly command.
It was there that a cloaked figure appeared.
No one knew from where they came. One moment, the mountain stood empty, wrapped in storm. The next, a silhouette emerged from the mist—tall, shrouded in a flowing cloak that hid every feature. The air seemed to bend around them, thick with an aura of both reverence and dread. They moved slowly, with purpose, until they stood before the glowing relic.
For a long moment they only stared. The crystal's light reflected against the hood, but revealed nothing of the face beneath. The wind howled. Thunder split the sky. Yet the figure did not waver. They raised a hand, pale against the shifting colors, and reached toward the crystal.
The instant skin met surface, the world convulsed.
Lightning cracked from the heavens, striking the mountain in furious succession. The ground split with fire, rocks tumbling down its slopes. The crystal flared, brighter than the sun, shifting violently between gold and black, as if torn between accepting and rejecting its new bearer. The figure held on, silent, unmoving.
Then, the unexpected.
The crystal screamed. Not with sound, but with light. A blinding flash erupted from its core, and with it came force—an eruption so powerful it shook the newborn seas, rattled the stars, and carved lines of energy into the sky. The storm howled one final time, and then the crystal tore itself free.
It rose from the stranger's hand, spinning, glowing, bursting with power. Upward it flew, into the clouds, into the stars beyond. Its radiance left trails across the heavens, like fire etched into the night. Higher and higher it soared, until Earth itself grew small beneath it. And still it did not stop.
The cloaked figure reached upward, as if in longing. For a heartbeat, their outline seemed to flicker. Their form wavered, fading like mist in sunlight. One moment they stood solid, defiant against the storm. The next, they were gone. The wind carried nothing but empty echoes where they had been.
The crystal did not return.
It traveled through the void, unbound, unchallenged. It passed by the moon, its glow staining the gray dust with faint streaks of gold. It drifted further, until a red planet appeared before it—Mars, desolate and silent. Drawn by some unseen will, the crystal descended. It pierced the thin atmosphere like a falling star, blazing across the barren sky before sinking into the crimson sands.
There it remained.
Earth's storms quieted. The mountain where the figure had stood was left scarred, its peak broken, its surface blackened. In time, rains washed it clean. Forests grew around it. Civilizations would rise and fall upon its slopes, never knowing the secret they stood upon.
But memory is not so easily erased.
The story of the cloaked figure spread, whispered from mouth to mouth, tribe to tribe. Some said they had been a thief, punished by the gods for daring to steal a relic beyond mortal claim. Others swore they were a guardian, who gave their life to send the crystal away, sparing the world from its curse. Priests turned the tale into scripture, warning of the day when the crystal would return. Poets wove it into song, calling it the "stone of heaven" and the "tear of dawn."
Generations passed, and the myth deepened. Empires rose, carved their names in stone, and crumbled into dust, but the story endured. Children grew up hearing it by firelight, told to beware the balance of good and evil that no mortal should touch. Scholars debated it in candlelit halls, calling it allegory, a parable of human desire and restraint. Yet even they felt a chill when the wind howled over lonely mountains.
What none knew was that the crystal still lived.
On Mars it lay buried, glowing faintly beneath red sands. The planet was dead, its rivers long dry, its air thin and bitter. Yet where the crystal rested, the ground shifted. Minerals bent in strange ways. Patterns formed in the dust, spirals and circles that seemed carved by invisible hands. The rocks around it darkened, then glowed faintly at night, as though echoing its pulse.
For ages it slept, a silent guardian beneath the alien sky. But its influence spread, subtle and slow. Winds carried particles touched by its power, scattering them across the planet. Storms raged longer than they should. The soil grew restless, whispering secrets to no one. Mars itself began to change, though no living being remained to witness it.
Yet the crystal was patient.
It had waited through the wars of gods. It had crossed the void. It could wait still.
On Earth, humanity was young. They learned fire, built tools, raised walls, and waged wars of their own. They looked to the stars with wonder, never knowing that one of their oldest myths slept among them, not in heaven, but on a world they would one day reach.
The cloaked figure was forgotten, their name lost, their form only shadow in story. But the crystal endured, silent, watching. And as humanity grew restless, reaching higher, building machines to touch the stars, the relic stirred.
Its glow deepened, faint at first, then brighter with each passing century. As telescopes turned toward the skies, as rockets thundered upward, the crystal pulsed. It was waiting, always waiting, for the moment when Earth's children would step upon the red sands and find it.
For when that day came, the balance would shift once more.
And dawn itself would turn dark.
The crystal pulsed beneath the red sands, timeless, patient. It had waited through storms, through silence, through ages of emptiness. And it would wait still, for destiny always found its way.
Centuries Later
The Earth was no longer the same. Empires had risen and fallen, machines had replaced kings, and humanity had climbed higher than ever before. They had broken free of their world's gravity, sending ships into the black ocean above. And now, the stars that had once been unreachable stories were destinations, mapped and measured.
In a modest apartment in New Europa City, a young man named Darius Ren packed his belongings into a small case. He wasn't a hero, nor a chosen one — just one of hundreds selected for a rotation aboard the Helios Space Station, a new orbital hub circling the Earth.
Darius adjusted the collar of his training suit, checking the badge stitched across his chest. His heart beat quickly, but it wasn't fear — it was anticipation. He was about to leave Earth for the very first time.
Outside his window, shuttles streaked across the night sky like shooting stars. Somewhere beyond that vast expanse lay Mars, the next frontier. Scientists spoke often of it, of its mysteries, of the strange signals and shifting sands their machines could not explain.
Darius didn't think much of it. To him, Mars was just another destination, one far removed from his own small life. All he knew was that his journey began tomorrow, and he wasn't going to waste it.
He zipped his case shut, exhaled, and turned off the lights.
Far away, beneath the crimson deserts of Mars, the crystal stirred faintly — unseen, untouched, waiting.