What Holds What Waits

They didn’t sleep in the clearing—
but none of them fully left it, either.

Not in body.
Not in memory.

The well hadn’t risen yet,
but something had.

That evening, they camped just beyond the outer ring of trees, close enough to see the last of the sunlight touch the stone circle.

Kai sat with his back to a cedar, sketching the root pattern they had found—how it mirrored something older, deeper.
Not a map. A reminder.

Sienna brewed a quiet cup of tea from foraged leaves.
“It tastes like what silence feels like,” she said softly, offering a cup to Cero.

Cero accepted. “It knows.”

Cairo moved around the perimeter with purpose, checking relay nodes and signal pulses. But it was different now.

“It’s not broadcasting,” he said aloud.
“It’s receiving.”

Orion, seated near the firelight, nodded slowly.
“Because the well isn’t for noise. It’s for listening. For holding.”

Then the relay crackled. Once.
Twice.

Kai rose, adjusting the frequency.
“We’ve got a contact.”

A familiar voice, sharp and grounded, cut through the soft hum of the clearing:

“This is Jada. I’ve traced a frequency spine back to its point of origin.”

The team froze.

“Say again?” Orion said, standing now, alert.

“The resonance fields you’re in… they link to a buried source node. Not synthetic. It predates everything in our archives.”

Cairo’s eyes widened.
“Pre-archive?”

“Pre-everything. And here’s the kicker,” Jada continued.
“It’s humming. Low band. Active. Still alive.”

A long silence followed.

Then Cero whispered, more to the stone at his side than to the team:
“That’s what I heard first.”

The stars blinked overhead like breath drawn in.

And in the ground, beneath moss and time,
the well waited, knowing it had been found.