The boy crashed onto new ground several meters below the blasted tunnel system. The mining lamps had fallen with him and gone out, plunging him into total darkness. Warm blood trickled down his forehead, and he instinctively held his torn linen shirt over his mouth and nose to breathe through the thick dust clouding the air. Slowly, he tried to stand up.

"Shit," he whispered. The moment he put weight on his right foot, a sharp, unbearable pain shot up his leg. "Damn it. Hello?"

The darkness wrapped itself in silence.

"Jeff?"

Only the echo of his voice answered, fading into the distance. "Hello? You okay, Jeff?"

Again, his echo was all that came back to him.

This cave must be massive, he thought.

He stretched his arm out as far as he could, feeling around in the debris and dust, his fingers brushing across shards of glass on the freezing, wet ground. Nearby, he found one of the fallen lamps. Some glass remained in the frame; the lower chamber for the fuel seemed intact. He gave it a shake and heard a faint slosh. Fishing the ancient matchbook out of his pocket, he struck a match with his thumbnail. The flame went out immediately, as if something or someone had blown it out for a joke.

Don’t screw this up. It’s your last match.

Lex crouched, wiped the blood from his forehead with his shoulder, wedged the lamp between his knees, and carefully shielded the flame with his cupped hand. Slowly, he guided it to the lamp. This time, it caught. A smoky flame flickered to life on the wick. In its dim light, he saw the piles of fallen rock. Beneath a boulder, he spotted a bloodied arm. The sleeve was torn to shreds, covered in dust, and the hand scratched and bloody.

Lex checked for a pulse but found nothing, which meant only one thing: Jeff was dead.

He picked up the lamp, holding it by the handle, watching as the wick bent toward the wind. Leaving the man behind, Lex limped toward the source of the freezing gust.

After a while, he found a narrow hole in the stone wall, only waist-high. The wind blew into the cave from this opening, and bits of metal scrap and rubble lay scattered in front of it. Where did all this come from? He knelt down and shone the lamp inside. The stone walls were slick and glistening, and the freezing wind stung his face. For a moment, he wondered if he’d even fit through.

There’s only one way to find out.

With that thought, he crawled into the hole.

On the other side, he wandered through abandoned mine shafts for what felt like an eternity. His hands and feet were frozen numb as he made his way through icy caverns, never encountering a single soul. His injured foot forced him to stop for breaks, but the biting cold made it impossible to rest for long. Eventually, he came across a hollowed-out space, about the same size as the burial ground. He stood at the entrance and shone his light inside.

A shelter? That was his first thought.

A dead man lay on a filthy mattress, surrounded by a pile of canned goods. Several water canisters were scattered around. The boy ventured in, bent down to examine the cans, set his lamp on the stone floor, and with stiff fingers, pried open a can of tomato soup. He slurped it straight from the can—cold, half-frozen.

"Don't people usually ask before they take something that isn't theirs?"

The boy dropped the can, staggered back, putting weight on his injured ankle and landed flat on his back. "Holy crap," he said, still breathless with shock. "I thought you were dead."

The scrawny old man had a beard that reached down to his stomach. In the lamplight, his milky, clouded eyes held an odd sharpness. He sat up from his makeshift bed, wrapped in a blanket, wearing hole-riddled socks that peeked out from under the wool.

"I’ve been awake this whole time," the old man said.

"Well, you could’ve said hello."

"And you could’ve checked to see if I'm alive."

"Like I said, I thought you were dead."

"Well, I'm not."

Lex glanced down at the spilled tomato soup, slowly freezing on the stone floor. He looked back at the old man. "Mind if I grab another can? I’m starving."

The strange man gestured dramatically over the cans. "Take as much as you can eat."

The boy thanked him and helped himself.

"What’s in that one?" the old man asked.

The boy examined the label. "Synthetically grown beef, fresh from the petri dish. Well, maybe not so fresh anymore. Made over—uh, do you even know what year it is?"

The old man chuckled into his beard and shook his head.

"Yeah, well, over ten years ago, I’d guess." Lex was about to open the can when the old man said, "Why are you limping, and where’d you get that gash on your forehead?"

"The tunnel caved in. Must've slipped down a level or so. Jeff… he wasn’t as lucky as me."

The old man nodded.

"And what are you doing down here?"

"Nothing more than what it looks like."

"You're hiding."

"No." The hermit seemed to think for a moment. "Maybe, yes."

"Are you sick? Contagious?"

"No."

The boy nodded.

"Let me see it."

"See what?"

"Your foot. Is it sprained? Torn ligament, maybe?"

The boy looked at his booted foot as if that might help him diagnose the injury. "Not sure," he said. "But it’s definitely not broken. I’d know if it was." He carefully pulled off the boot, rolled up his pant leg, and was about to bring the lamp closer when the old man told him to leave it where it was. He could see perfectly fine in the dark.

"I've been in the dark longer than you’ve been alive. My eyes adjusted, just like I did." He reached out with his claw-like hand, grabbed the boy’s leg and knocked his knuckles against the foot.

"Ouch! You nuts?"

"Hold still—Hmm, nothing’s broken." He pressed along the achilles tendon, his long, yellowed fingernails digging into the flesh. He flexed the foot back and forth, spread the boy’s smelly toes apart, and felt each one. "You're fine," he finally said. "Whatever it is, it'll be gone in a few days."

"Well, I guess I can trust your expert opinion."

"Yes," the hermit said. "I was a doctor once."

"Yeah, right. I can fool myself just fine, thanks."

The old man gave a thin smile in the lamplight and pushed a greasy lock of hair from his face. Then he folded his ears forward dramatically. "Do you see anything there?"

"Yeah, huge earlobes," said the boy. "But you didn’t have to fold them like that. I could see them just fine before."

"What’s behind my ears, boy?"

Lex looked closer, about to say there was nothing but a few long black hairs when he stopped and recoiled, startled.

"You don’t have a tracker," he said, eyes wide.

The old man let his ears snap back into place.

"Exactly."

"You’re really a… company employee?"

"I used to be, a long time ago."

"Then what the hell are you doing down here?"

"That’s a long story. And young folks don’t have the patience for long stories."

"We’re in exile. I’ve got all the time in the world. Go on, tell me." The boy stared at the old man for a moment, unblinking. Then he asked, "Do you know what life is like on Cetos V?"

"Oh yes," the old man replied.

"Have you been to Vega Prime?"

"I was born and raised there."

"For real?" Lex sat beside the old man on the dirty mattress and opened the canned meat. He scooped the gelatinous chunks with two fingers. Chewing, he said, "So, what’s it like? Tell me everything. I wanna know everything."

The old man laughed. "Alright, kid," he said. "Slow down. Let’s start by making a small fire, and you hand me that can of pickled veggies over there. — Yeah, that’s the one. Watching you eat makes me hungry, and I haven’t felt that in a long, long time…"

******

Lex stayed with the hermit for several days. He listened to stories about Vega Prime, which didn’t quite match his own idea of the city, but he listened intently anyway, never tiring of asking questions about things he didn’t understand. And the old man never tired of explaining them all. Eventually, Lex shared his own story—about his life, his dream of living on the planet, the welding goggles he wore around his neck, and his best friend who had died for what he believed in.

"So your friends joined Crimson Dawn?"

"If anything, it was the FLD. But really, it was corporate guys pretending to be rebels who set Tayus up."

"And you didn’t join them?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I’d never do that."

"But why not?"

"I already told you. I wanted out of here."

"Right," said the old man. "You wanted to leave with the LEVIATHAN and go to Vega Prime."

"Yeah."

"And do you still want that?"

The boy stayed silent.

After a while: "Ever heard the name Ember Drake?"

"Isn’t she the leader of the FLD? She used to go by Echelon."

"That’s right. And as it happens, we’re practically neighbors."

Lex looked at the old hermit, confused.

"I’m serious. She’s got her own hideout here in the Exile, much more luxurious than mine."

"Lu-what?"

"Well, bigger anyway. She’s got a whole group with her. You wouldn’t believe how huge this mountain is. I’d call it a full-on rebel base that Ember Drake’s built down here. Even in exile, they’re making life as difficult as possible for the Thandros Corporation. I helped them back then, gave them all the knowledge I had about how the company operates. In return, they’ve been supplying me with all this stuff ever since." He motioned to the canned food and the water canister that sat in front of Lex. "That’s how I know the company isn’t as all-powerful as it pretends to be. Crimson Dawn has moles within the company too. How else do you think Ember Drake gets her video messages out into the infonet from here? There are employees, even in exile, who care about the colonists and don’t agree with how the company treats these so-called prisoners. The company knows it’s in trouble, and the pressure from the public is growing. Protests in Vega Prime are getting bigger. Why do you think they came up with the Selection Program? It’s all just to calm people down—both the workers and the citizens of Vega Prime. There are plenty of activists there, and Crimson Dawn is stronger than you think. It always was."

The old man paused to let his words sink in. Lex lifted the water canister with both hands and took tiny sips of icy water; at the bottom, it had already begun to freeze.

"Who’s the leader of Crimson Dawn, if Ember Drake heads the FLD?"

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"Nobody knows."

"Somebody must know."

"Yeah, but only a very small circle. I don’t know, and neither does the TC."

The boy set the canister down and said, "You sure seem to know a lot."

"Well, I’m close to the source."

"So you’re saying this Ember Drake could help me escape exile because she knows the right people?"

The old man paused. "I hadn’t even thought of that," he said.

Those words hit Lex hard, right where a tiny spark of hope had just ignited in his heart. After all this time without any.

"Can you tell me where to find the rebel base? I’ll go there myself and ask her as soon as my foot’s healed."

"Of course I can tell you where it is. It’s not that far from here. But no one there is going to help you leave the exile. How do you think that would work? If the moles within the company let you out, their cover would be blown instantly. The risk is too high. Not even Ember Drake can leave this place."

"Then why did you tell me about it in the first place?"

The old man shrugged under his wool blanket. "I figured we were just talking. People share all kinds of stories."

******

They ate, drank and warmed themselves by the oil fire. The boy looked from the flickering flames back to the hermit and asked, "How old are you, anyway?"

He replied with his mouth full, "I’ve got no idea what year it is, so I don’t know how old I am either."

"When I got here, it was ‘66."

"Well, let me think… I’d be over eighty by now."

"Over eighty?"

"Yeah, somewhere around eighty. I came here five years after the turn of the century. Wasn’t even twenty then."

"You’re messing with me. Nobody lives to be eighty." Lex spooned the last bite from his can.

The old man chuckled softly into his beard, cracked open a new can for Lex, and handed it to him.

Lex took it and kept eating. "Doesn’t it drive you crazy, being alone in the dark for so long?"

The old man seemed to chew on the question for a long time before eventually speaking. "Maybe I already am," he said.

"Yeah, well, I’d believe it. If I chose to live in a dark hole under the ground instead of going back to my family on Cetos Five, I’d definitely have lost it." He glanced over at the old man. He just kept spooning food out of his can, showing no reaction.

"I never mentioned having a family," the old man finally said.

"Just a guess."

"Hmm..."

"So why are you down here?"

"As you rightly pointed out, I’m down here because I’m hiding. Not from the corporation, like you might think, but from… from my past. I’m afraid it’s going to catch up with me. That’s why I’ve holed up here. To forget."

"What’re you trying to forget?"

"Do you know the old saying about the Klabautermann? Something sailors used to say back on old Earth."

The boy shook his head.

"They used to say, ‘Don’t speak of the things you fear, or else they might come true.’"

"Don't get it. What you saying?"

"I’m saying you should probably shut up now."

******

On the final morning, just before Lex planned to set off for the rebel base, they shared one last meal by candlelight, sitting on the dirty mattress. Lex wore another jacket on top of his wool one, and an old, tattered scarf—both gifts from the old man.

"Mind if I ask you something?" Lex said.

The hermit pressed his thin lips together until his mustache covered his mouth entirely.

"Do you believe in life after death? Like, that there’s something more?"

The old man stopped chewing for a moment, then shook his head and continued eating. "No, I don’t think there’s anything after death."

Lex nodded, thinking about his own brush with death and how he saw things the same way—but secretly, he wished the old man had said something different.

"But just because I believe that doesn’t mean it’s the truth. Why do you ask?"

"I’ve been dead before. My heart stopped for about two minutes, maybe longer. And I can’t remember anything from that time. Just darkness. Then I woke up in the infirmary. So... yeah."

"Then you don't know any more than the rest of us," the old man said. "Do you remember what happened when you were born? Or right after, when they cut your umbilical cord? Something happened, even if you can’t recall it. Just because you don’t remember something doesn’t mean it wasn’t real."

"I thought you said you don’t believe in life after death," Lex replied.

"I don’t. But I don’t know for sure."

Lex looked up from his can of food, studying the old man. Then, turning back to his nearly empty can, he muttered, "I don’t get how someone can believe one thing and say something else. You either believe it, or you don’t. Whatever. Thanks for everything. Maybe I’ll come visit again." He stood up from the mattress.

The old man smirked, still stirring his spoon in the empty can, long after he'd finished eating.

"Hey, Lex?"

Lex turned around. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Why do you think you’re really down here?"

"Because I didn’t turn in my best friend, even though he joined the rebels," Lex answered.

"That’s what I thought at first too," the old man said. "But now, I know the real reason."

"And what’s that?"

"Where I come from, we call it fate. Fate brought you here, to me, before you leave this moon."

"Leave the moon? What are you talking about? What kind of twisted fate sends me into exile, lets me fall down a shaft, and leads me here to you? I won the Selection Program… If fate wanted me off this moon, why didn’t it just let me leave on the LEVIATHAN?"

The hermit shrugged. "You can’t see through fate," he said. "Nobody can. You only understand it afterward, when you look back, and maybe, just maybe, you see how it all fits together."

"I don’t get it."

"You don’t have to. Do you believe in fate?"

"Mori and Tayus asked me the same thing. I used to believe in my dreams, but not in fate. Now… I... only believe in what I can see."

The old man studied him for a while. Lex could see the candlelight flickering in his eyes. Then the old man lowered his head, and his greasy white strands of hair fell over the can of food. He scooped a spoonful, chewed, then pulled out a stray hair that had gotten into his mouth, and kept chewing.

"Well, I guess I’ll be going now," Lex said.

"Dreams are traps," the old man said. "They come true for only a very few people. And usually, it’s not until they’re old. By then, they realize that while they may have fulfilled a dream, reality is nothing like what they imagined back then. Others spend their whole lives chasing a dream and never get there. Those people are never happy. Do you kind of get what I’m saying?"

Lex thought for a moment. Then he replied, "Without the hope of getting out of here, I wouldn’t have anything to hold on to."

The old man shook his head. "You don’t understand much yet," he said. "You think you’ve reached the end of your journey because your dream’s been shattered. But this is just the beginning. Dreams give you direction, but the journey? That’s a wild ride."

"And that wild ride is... fate?"

"Not at all. The wild ride is the path you take in life while you’re chasing your dreams. It’s simple. But fate? Fate is something far more important than your wishful thinking about how the world should be for you. So stop dreaming and follow your true purpose."

"I don’t understand a single word of what you’re saying."

"You don’t need to," the hermit said, chuckling to himself. He pointed to a pile of what looked like worthless chunks of rock, piled up at the far end of the cave. "Go over there and pick that one up. – No, not that one, the other one. Yes, that’s the one. Take it. It’s for you. With it, you can keep dreaming."

The boy picked up a strange piece of rock. In the center was a black pearl, emitting a warm glow. He couldn’t quite tell if the glow was truly there or if he was merely sensing it. It was... a substance unlike anything he’d ever seen before. A perfect sphere, a black orb, with no reflection of the candle’s light on its surface, as though it wasn’t a sphere at all but a black hole, swallowing all light. An enigma that defied explanation, a substance that shouldn’t even exist.

Cautiously, he touched the orb with his fingertips. A perfect sphere, he thought again, round and smooth. It radiated warmth, which was impossible.

He looked up at the old man. "What is this?"

The old hermit, half hidden in the candle’s shadow, whispered as if revealing a long-guarded secret, as if he were the keeper of that secret: "It’s magic."

Lex lowered his gaze again, hearing the hermit’s raspy laugh.

"Don’t mess with me," Lex grumbled. "I’m not in the mood."

"I’m old, kid. I don’t believe in magic anymore. But you’re young. For you, it should be magic. To me, it’s just something we humans don’t understand yet. Something that wasn’t made by us, but isn’t exactly natural either."

Lex ran his finger over the smooth curve of the orb. "Not natural?"

The old man shrugged under his blanket.

"Are you saying you believe in aliens?"

"Aren’t we aliens too?"

The boy examined the strange artifact again. "Is it valuable?"

"It’s the reason the corporation set up this exile camp here in the north. It’s the most valuable thing in this entire star system. An almost endless energy source. Perhaps. I don't know. They knew it had to be hidden somewhere here. And only in a place like this, where the exiled never come out, can that discovery be kept secret. Punishment is a pretense, a cover-up, just like the whole inherited guilt thing is."

"And you’re just giving it to me? Just like that?"

"Just like that," the old man replied. "Haven’t you been through enough to earn it?"

Lex studied the strange, otherworldly orb again. "So, you’re saying this thing could get me off the moon?"

"The TC would jump at the chance. They’d grant you any wish if you handed them that thing."

"But why didn’t you take it? Why didn’t you go to the corporation with it? You used to work for them. Wouldn’t they have made you rich?"

The old man coughed into his bony fist. "Without a doubt," he said, then paused. A long pause.

"This must have something to do with why you’ve been down here all these years. But don’t tell me it’s all for my sake. Fate and all that. That you’ve been guarding this thing just for me. I don’t buy it."

"The Black Orb was meant for you. That much I realized only when you came into my cave. From that moment, everything came full circle for me. I think it’s time you knew why I’m really here: I did have a family once. They were at the beginning of everything, at the start of this whole story. I had just finished my training when I volunteered to relocate to Limbo. I did it for them, and it was the hardest decision of my life. The pay was triple, but I knew that I would have to leave behind my wife and sons."

"Couldn’t your family have come with you?"

"They could’ve, yes. My wife wanted to come, and my sons wouldn’t have minded either. They were just babies back then—twins. But that would’ve defeated the whole point of my decision. I came here to earn enough money to give them a better life, to make sure my boys didn’t grow up in the slums, or even worse, here on this moon. That’s why I did it."

"And then?"

"Then, one day, I found myself on the moon, stationed here in exile. For the first few months, I got through the pain by reminding myself how much better off my family would be with the money the TC was sending them. That got me through the first year. But by the second year, I began to feel the weight of my mistake, even if I hadn’t fully admitted it to myself yet. It must have been toward the end of that second year that I realized: I should’ve worked three jobs at once, or four, or five. I should’ve sold my organs on the black market and died in my wife’s arms—anything would’ve been better than living here, millions of miles away from the only people I love. But by the time I understood that, it was already too late."

"Couldn't you just quit and return to Vega Prime?"

"My contract was for eight years. I would’ve left after that, without question. But I never got that far. One day, a boy came to me, a prisoner, about your age. He brought me this very artifact you’re holding now. Before I even saw it, I could sense that something was changing, that the boy was about to bring me something important, that the Black Orb was here to alter fate—my fate, I thought back then. But in truth, it was never about me. I took the orb from him. The moment I saw it, I knew this was what the corporation had been searching for here in the polar region, what they had sent us all to find."

"So, you took the Black Orb from him because you thought it would make you rich?"

"Yes. The Black Orb was the fulfillment of my dreams. I was sure of that the moment I saw it in the prisoner's hands. But I was also terrified, terrified that someone might take my dream away, now that it was within my grasp. I feared the prisoner would tell others. So, I lied. I told him that in order to receive his reward, he had to first show me where he had found the artifact. It was right here in this cave."

"Here? He found the Black Orb here?"

"Yes."

"And what happened then?"

"The same thing that happens to anyone consumed by greed. It corrupted me."

"What do you mean?"

"When we got here, I smashed the boy’s skull."

Lex clenched his jaw tightly.

"I've never left these mines since. I washed the blood from the artifact and my hands, but I never found a way to cleanse my soul. That, I could never do. I didn’t show the Black Orb to anyone. The guilt was too much. I started to think that I didn’t deserve the life I’d dreamed of anymore. Holding that thing changed everything for me—but in a way I could have never predicted. It destroyed me. The guilt made me lose my mind. It got so bad that I even forgot my family. It consumed me entirely.

Am I guilty? I’ve spent my whole life asking myself that question. But now, I believe it’s not about what I am, it’s about what I lived for. I believe everything happens for a greater purpose, though none of us, not a single person, can ever truly understand it. By giving you the Black Orb, I believe I am helping to set something inevitable into motion. But I don’t know how this artifact will affect the world, whether it will bring disaster or fortune. In my life, at least, it brought nothing but ruin. I can’t say if, by the end of your journey, you’ll wish you had never met me. But I know one thing: I must give you the Black Orb. It will allow you to continue your journey. But take heed from my mistakes, never hand this artifact over to just one person. Give it only to a group. An individual can far too easily be overtaken by greed. Just as I was.

And now, let me show you the way to your new life."