Location: Tunguska, Siberia, Russia
POV: Akio Tanaka
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The frozen expanse of Tunguska stretched endlessly, snow whispering against jagged rocks. Akio stepped out of the transport vehicle, the biting wind tearing at his jacket. The air wasn't just cold—it vibrated. His instruments had been blinking in alarm ever since they crossed the Arctic Circle.
Beneath the permafrost, roots stirred. Black veins—massive, undulating—snaked through the soil like a living network, pulses radiating outward. The ground beneath Akio's feet hummed, synchronized with the data he had collected from China and Peru.
> "It's all connected," he muttered, scanning the readings.
His assistant, barely recovered from the earlier disappearance incident, had insisted on staying behind, but Akio refused. Every pulse, every shift, was a signal. Every signal, a warning.
He approached the epicenter of the anomaly—a vast crater, its edges jagged like shattered glass. From within, the black roots rose, intertwining with exposed rocks, like veins of a giant sleeping organism. He could hear a low, almost conscious groan emanating from deep underground.
> "This… this is the Earth's nervous system," Akio whispered, awe and fear mingling in his voice.
He activated his portable resonance scanner. The patterns from China and Peru materialized on his screen as a luminous lattice, converging at this node. As he mapped the network, one of the roots shifted violently, breaking through the snow and ice. A pulse shot through his body—like electricity, but intelligent, purposeful.
> "It's aware I'm here," he said, stepping back.
Suddenly, the assistant's voice cracked over the radio.
> "Akio… the root… it's moving!"
Before Akio could respond, the assistant was yanked off camera. A black tendril shot from the ground, leaving only a smear of dark residue on the ice. Akio's heart raced. The Earth wasn't just conscious—it was defensive, perhaps protective of its nodes.
He crouched, recording the movements. Each root's pulse seemed deliberate, almost communicating. The lattice on his monitor flickered, showing intersections forming strange, spiral symbols—the same shapes Lena had traced in Nazca and the manuscripts in Tokyo.
> "It's… language," Akio breathed. "It speaks through movement, energy… roots…"
The ground trembled as more veins erupted, branching outward, forming a web of black threads that glowed faintly. Akio realized the pulse was no longer isolated—it resonated with every anomaly he had recorded. China, Peru, Tokyo—everywhere.
He activated the encrypted satellite feed, overlaying Jianyu's pulse data and Lena's spiral coordinates. The combined map revealed a planetary sigil, converging here, in Siberia. The Earth's nervous system, laid bare.
A sudden aurora flared overhead, unnaturally bright, stretching across the sky like the arms of a colossal being. Akio's vision blurred; he felt himself drawn into the network, seeing fleeting visions of ancient civilizations, kneeling before a colossal tree whose roots penetrated continents and oceans.
> "It remembers… everything," he whispered, shivering.
The aurora pulsed in sync with the roots. Akio realized: the Earth wasn't merely alive. It had a memory, a mind, and intention.
He reached into his pack, pulling out the manuscript from Tokyo. Under the glow of the aurora, the symbols shifted again, aligning perfectly with the root formations beneath his feet. One symbol, in particular, drew his attention: a spiral intertwined with a human silhouette—Kai Yun's face, unmistakable, etched into the planetary lattice.
> "We're part of this," Akio said, voice trembling. "It's calling… all of us."
Before he could process the thought, the roots surged. The snow around him exploded upward, sending shards into the air. A low, resonant sound filled the crater, a call across time and space.
Akio felt himself losing balance, pulled toward the epicenter of the lattice. The last thing he saw before darkness overtook him was the Earth's memory unfolding like a living tapestry, and a voice—ancient, omnipotent, yet familiar—echoing through his mind:
> "Remember… or be forgotten."