Peace never arrives all at once.
It comes in moments you don't expect—like watching people argue over where to build a well, or hearing laughter echo from a place that used to be silent. That was Mongula now. Alive. Growing. No longer just a hiding place.
I was still recovering, still moving slowly, when Kazim asked me to come with him.
"Found something," he said. His tone wasn't urgent.
That worried me more.
We walked beyond the outer shelters, past the training grounds, past where the land dipped and rose into uneven stone. This part of Mongula hadn't been touched much. No camps. No portals opening here.
Just rock.
The formation stood alone, half-buried in the ground like something that had pushed itself up from below. Dark stone, smoother than the rest, untouched by erosion in a way that didn't feel natural.
Ren ran her hand along it. "This isn't from Earth."
"No," Kazim said. "It predates the portals here."
Monisha stopped walking.
She was staring.
I followed her gaze.
There was writing on the stone.
Not carved roughly. Not scratched. It was precise, deep, and deliberate—like someone had wanted it to last.
A name.
I felt my breath catch before my mind caught up.
TAKAHASHI
My surname.
Our surname.
"That's not possible," I whispered.
Kazim shook his head slowly. "I checked. Mongula's records—what little we have—say this rock's been here for centuries. Maybe longer."
Monisha's fingers trembled as she touched the letters. The moment her skin made contact, the air shifted—just slightly. Like the planet itself had noticed her.
"I've seen this before," she said quietly.
We all turned to her.
"In the academy," she continued. "Old files. Forbidden ones. Stories about 'first travelers.' About people who didn't come through portals… but made them."
My stomach twisted.
"You're saying…" Aira started.
"That someone with our name," Monisha finished, "was here before any academy existed."
Silence pressed in around us.
I stared at the stone, at the letters that shouldn't have been there, and felt something cold slide down my spine.
This wasn't a warning.
It wasn't a memorial.
It felt like a marker.
As if someone had been here before us.
As if they were waiting.
Far above us, beyond Mongula's sky, beyond Earth and the academies and their wars, something shifted—subtle, unseen.
And for the first time since we escaped…
I wondered if this world was ever meant to be ours.
End of Volume One
To be continued…