Author’s Note: Thank you for joining me on this journey. If you are new to this story, I suggest you start with Chapter 1. Your comments are very welcome!

---

Deia stood in front of the console, her eyes flicking between the readouts and the spiral device that now sat dark and inert on the table. Her mind buzzed with unease. The sudden power drain, the eerie glow, the feeling that the artifact had communicated with them—it all made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Jason paced behind her, muttering curses under his breath. Now and then, he would glance at the spiral with suspicion as if waiting for it to spring to life again.

Sam sat quietly in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, staring blankly at the far wall. Deia watched her, concerned. Sam had been acting strange ever since she touched the device. Her earlier fascination had faded, replaced by a distracted, almost distant demeanor.

“Sam,” Deia said softly, crossing the room. “How are you feeling?”

Sam blinked, as if snapping out of a trance, then turned her gaze toward Deia. “I’m fine. Just… tired, I think.”

Deia crouched beside her, looking her over. There was something off about her—something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. The bruises and cuts on Sam’s face, which had been angry and red just hours ago, now looked faded, like they had healed days ago. Her skin seemed smoother, her hair shinier, almost as if—

No… that’s impossible, Deia thought, shaking her head.

“I’ll feel better after some rest,” Sam added, rubbing her eyes. Her voice was soft, almost dreamy.

Deia stood, still watching her friend with growing unease. “Maybe you should lie down. Get some sleep.”

Sam nodded and slowly rose to her feet. As she did, Deia couldn’t help but notice something else—Sam’s clothes, which had fit snugly before, now looked a little loose. The collar of her jacket hung awkwardly, and her sleeves seemed too long, bunched slightly at the wrists.

“Sam…” Deia started, her voice low with concern, but Sam was already heading toward the sleeping quarters, not paying attention.

As the door closed behind her, Deia turned to Jason. “Something’s wrong with her.”

Jason glanced up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“I think…” Deia hesitated, trying to put the impossible into words. “I think she’s getting younger.”

Jason stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Younger? What are you talking about?”

“Her bruises are gone,” Deia insisted. “Her cuts have healed. And look at her—her clothes are starting to hang off her. I don’t know how, but the spiral… it’s doing something to her.”

Jason opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, a loud crash came from the sleeping quarters. Both Deia and Jason froze.

“What the hell?” Jason muttered, moving toward the door.

Deia followed him, her heart racing. As they pushed the door open, they found Sam standing beside the bed, breathing heavily, her face pale and wide-eyed. A shattered glass of water lay on the floor at her feet, the liquid pooling on the cold metal.

“Sam!” Deia exclaimed, rushing toward her. “What happened?”

Sam looked at them, her eyes wild with confusion. “I don’t… I don’t know. I was just getting into bed, and then… I felt dizzy. I dropped the glass.”

Deia reached out and gently took Sam’s hand, her pulse quickening as she realized that Sam’s hand felt smaller. Her fingers were slimmer, more delicate. Deia looked up at her friend’s face, and her breath caught in her throat.

Sam’s face had changed. Her features, once weathered by the hardships of countless missions, now looked younger—smoother, like she had shed years overnight. The lines around her eyes were gone, replaced by a youthful softness that hadn’t been there before.

Jason stood frozen, his expression twisted with disbelief. “No way…”

“Sam, look in the mirror,” Deia said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Sam, visibly shaken, slowly turned toward the small mirror on the wall. Her eyes widened as she stared at her reflection. “What’s… what’s happening to me?”

Deia felt a knot of fear tighten in her chest. “It’s the spiral. It has to be.”

Sam backed away from the mirror, her breathing becoming shallow. “I feel… strange, like something is changing inside me. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Jason stepped forward, his voice tense. “We need to stop this. The device is doing something to her—something we don’t understand.”

“I don’t feel sick,” Sam said, her voice trembling. “It’s not hurting me. But I’m…” She ran a hand through her hair, staring at the strands with wide eyes. “I am younger.”

Deia swallowed hard, her mind racing. “It healed me. It healed you. But now it’s doing something else… reversing time somehow. But why? What does it want?”

Sam shook her head, panic creeping into her voice. “I don’t know! I didn’t ask for this. I just—” She stopped, her breath hitching as she looked down at her hands again, and Deia saw the faintest tremor run through her body.

Jason turned, pacing the room, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “We have to shut that thing down. It’s already tapped into the base’s power—who knows what it’ll do next.”

Before Deia could respond, another ripple of dizziness washed over Sam. She stumbled, gripping the bedframe for support. Deia rushed to her side, but it was clear that Sam was losing control of whatever was happening to her. Her body grew smaller and leaner, and her features continued regressing in real-time.

“We need to get rid of it!” Jason shouted. “We need to stop this, now!”

Deia’s heart raced as she looked from Sam to the spiral device, which sat quietly on the table in the other room as if it had nothing to do with the chaos unraveling before them.

“I’ll deal with it,” Deia said, her voice firm. “You stay with her.”

She turned and ran toward the main room, her hands shaking as she approached the spiral. Every instinct screamed at her not to touch it, but she couldn’t ignore what it was doing.

Deia reached out, her fingers hovering just over the dark surface. She hesitated, her mind flashing with images of the creature, the ship, the body they had found. Was the spiral connected to all of it? Was this a tool—or something more sinister?

Just as she was about to touch the spiral, a faint feeling rippled through her—like before, but subtler, more urgent.

Help me.

Deia pulled her hand back, her heart pounding in her chest. The feeling wasn’t just a plea. It was a warning.

Behind her, Sam let out a soft cry, her voice thin and frightened. “Deia… please… help me…”

Deia took a deep breath, steadying herself. Whatever this thing was, she had to figure it out. Time was running out—for all of them.

She reached for the spiral again.

---

Deia’s fingers hovered just above the dark, spiraling device. The air in the base seemed heavier now, thick with tension and the faint hum of energy coming from the artifact. She could feel its presence again—not a voice, but a pressure in her mind, urging her to act. 

Behind her, Sam let out another soft cry, her voice barely recognizable as it slipped into something younger, more fragile. Deia clenched her jaw, glancing over her shoulder to see Jason kneeling beside her, his face pale with fear. Sam’s body had changed even more—her limbs were petite, and her face was almost childlike. It was as if time itself was unwinding her, reversing the years in rapid succession.

“Deia, we don’t have time for this,” Jason’s voice was tight, filled with desperation. “She’s—she’s getting worse. We have to stop it!”

Deia turned back to the spiral, her breath catching in her throat. The device lay inert on the table, but she could feel it pulsing with an unseen energy, drawing from the base’s systems, manipulating them in ways she couldn’t fully understand. It wasn’t just a machine. It was alive, in its own way, and it was affecting Sam—changing her in ways that defied everything they knew.

“I think it’s trying to communicate,” Deia whispered, more to herself than to Jason.

“Communicate?” Jason snapped, standing up and taking a step toward her. “It’s killing her! We need to destroy it before it does the same to us!”

Deia shook her head, feeling the cold grip of fear in her chest. “I don’t think we can just destroy it, Jason. There’s something more here. It’s not just a machine—there’s intelligence behind it.”

Jason’s expression darkened. “I don’t care what it is. If it doesn’t stop soon, Sam’s going to—”

Sam whimpered, and both of them turned to look at her. She had shrunk even more, her body now that of a child, no older than five or six. Her eyes were wide with terror, her small hands clutching the bedframe for support.

“Deia,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I’m scared. Please… help me.”

Deia’s heart twisted painfully. She couldn’t let this happen. She had to do something—anything—to stop the process before it was too late. But what? The spiral had done this to Sam, but it had also healed Deia. It wasn’t malicious. It was… waiting. 

Deia’s breath hitched as she remembered the faint feeling she had gotten before—Help me. The spiral wanted something. It needed something. But what?

Before she could think further, Jason made a sudden move, lunging toward the spiral as if to grab it and throw it across the room. Deia’s instincts kicked in, and she grabbed his arm, pulling him back before he could touch it.

“Don’t!” Deia shouted, her voice sharp with panic. “We don’t know what will happen if you—”

“It’s killing her, Deia!” Jason yelled, his face flushed with anger and fear. “I’m not just going to stand here and do nothing!”

“We can’t destroy it!” Deia argued, her voice trembling. “We need to figure out what it wants—there’s something more going on. We have to think.”

Jason shook his head, breathing hard, but he didn’t push her away. His hands trembled as he looked at Sam, now curled up on the bed, her small, childlike body barely recognizable as the woman they had known.

Deia turned back to the spiral, her mind racing. There had to be something she wasn’t seeing. The spiral was alive in some way—intelligent, connected. But it wasn’t evil. It had healed her, and now it was reversing Sam’s age. It wasn’t random. It was deliberate.

Help me.

The words echoed in her mind again, soft and pleading. Deia closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she reached out, her hand hovering over the spiral. This time, she didn’t pull back.

“What are you doing?” Jason asked, his voice tight with panic.

“I’m going to connect with it,” Deia said, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s trying to communicate with us. I can feel it. We have to trust that it’s not trying to hurt us.”

“You can’t be serious,” Jason snapped, his voice rising with disbelief. “It’s killing her, and you want to—”

“I don’t think it’s trying to kill her,” Deia said, her voice trembling with uncertainty but laced with conviction. “I think it’s trying to fix something.”

She placed her hand on the spiral.

The moment her fingers touched the dark, cool surface, Deia felt a jolt of energy surge through her, more intense than before. Her breath caught in her throat as the pulse spread through her body, filling her with a strange, electric warmth. Images flickered through her mind—fragmented, blurred, but unmistakably alien. She saw flashes of light, stars, distant worlds, and then… a vast, empty darkness.

A feeling of immense sadness washed over her, a deep, aching loss that wasn’t her own. The spiral wasn’t just an artifact. It was connected to something—something ancient, something far beyond human understanding.

Deia’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked down at the spiral, her hand still resting on it. The pulse of energy continued to flow through her, but it wasn’t chaotic. It was rhythmic, steady, as if the spiral was trying to show her something.

Help me, the feeling whispered again.

Deia’s breath caught as the images in her mind shifted, showing her something new—Sam. But not Sam as she was now. The image was of Sam in her adult form, whole, uninjured, her face peaceful.

Deia understood then. The spiral wasn’t trying to kill Sam—it was trying to reset her, to undo the damage it had done when Sam had touched it. But it was struggling. It needed something more—something Deia didn’t fully understand.

She tightened her grip on the spiral, focusing on the feeling, willing it to stop reversing Sam’s age. “I’ll help you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Just stop. Stop hurting her.”

The pulse of energy intensified, surging through Deia with renewed force. Her vision blurred, and for a moment, the world around her seemed to flicker. The base, Jason, Sam—they all felt distant, like shadows at the edge of her consciousness. The only thing that mattered was the spiral, the pulse, the connection.

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the energy stopped.

Deia gasped, pulling her hand away from the spiral. Her body trembled, and her heart raced as she stumbled back. The room seemed to snap back into focus, and the hum of the base’s systems returned to normal.

“Deia?” Jason’s voice was filled with fear and confusion.

She turned to see Sam lying on the bed, her childlike form no longer changing. The reversal had stopped.

Deia’s heart leaped with hope. “Sam?”

Sam stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She looked up at Deia, her face still that of a child, but her eyes were filled with recognition. “Deia… it stopped.”

Deia exhaled shakily, relief washing over her. “You’re okay.”

But as Sam sat up, Deia noticed something strange. Though the aging process had stopped, Sam was still in her childlike state. She hadn’t returned to her adult form.

“I’m still… small,” Sam said, her voice trembling with fear. “It didn’t finish.”

Deia’s stomach twisted with unease. “It tried,” she whispered. “It tried to stop, but it’s not done.”

Jason looked between them, his face pale. “What now?”

---

Deia stared at the spiral device, the dark surface unnervingly calm after the chaos it had caused. Sam, still small and childlike, sat on the bed, her wide eyes filled with fear and confusion. Jason stood by, his face tight with worry and frustration, watching Deia as though waiting for her to make the impossible decision.

She had felt something when she touched the spiral before—something beyond herself, something ancient and powerful. It had listened to her, responded in some way. But it wasn’t finished. Sam was still trapped, her body regressed to a child’s, frozen in this strange limbo between ages. The spiral had tried to reverse it, but it needed more—something Deia didn’t understand fully but felt deep in her bones.

“I’m going to connect with it again,” Deia said quietly, not looking away from the spiral.

Jason stiffened. “Deia, no. We don’t know what this thing is capable of.”

“We don’t have a choice, Jason,” Deia said, her voice steady but laced with uncertainty. “It responded to me before. I think it’s trying to fix this, but it’s… struggling. I have to try again.”

Jason took a step forward, his face pale. “And what if it does something worse? What if it pulls you in like it did with Sam?”

Deia met his gaze, her heart pounding. “I don’t think it will. I can feel it… trying. It’s not trying to hurt us.”

She didn’t wait for his response. Taking a deep breath, Deia reached out, her hand trembling as it hovered over the spiral once more. She could feel the familiar pulse of energy, the low hum of life inside the artifact. Closing her eyes, she pressed her fingers against the cool surface.

The connection was immediate—more substantial this time, more purposeful. The world around her seemed to fade as the pulse of the spiral filled her senses, its rhythm merging with her heartbeat. Images flickered in her mind again, but they were sharper and more vivid this time.

She saw herself—her face reflected at her, not as she was now, but as she had been years ago—mid-20s, vibrant, youthful. The vision startled her, not because of the image itself, but because she hadn’t expected it. She had been thinking of Sam, willing the device to return her friend to her original age, but now she saw herself, too. Younger, stronger.

And then Sam appeared in her mind, not as the child she had become but as she should be—twenty-five years old, bright-eyed and alive. The image of Sam at that age felt natural, like it was meant to be, as if the spiral had locked onto that moment in time.

Deia’s breath caught. Was the spiral pushing them toward this age? Was it trying to reset them both to this specific moment?

The pulse of the spiral grew more substantial, and Deia’s mind filled with the certainty of what it wanted. It wasn’t trying to harm them—it was trying to restore them, but in a way that made sense to it. The age of 25—it was as if the spiral had decided that this was the optimal point in their lives, the prime age for them to exist.

Help me. The feeling echoed in her mind again, gentle this time, as if reassuring her.

And then, before Deia could process what was happening, the pulse surged through her, and everything shifted.

The world snapped back into focus, the hum of the base’s systems filling her ears once more. Deia blinked, her breath catching in her throat. She felt… different. Lighter. Stronger. She looked down at her hands, and her heart skipped a beat.

Her skin was smoother, her fingers slimmer, unblemished by time or stress. Her body felt leaner, more agile, as if the years had been stripped away. She stumbled toward the small mirror on the wall, staring at the reflection that greeted her.

It was her. But younger—much younger. She looked exactly as she had at 25, her face full of vitality, her hair thicker and glossier. The faint lines of age and the wear of years on Mars had vanished.

Her stomach tightened with disbelief, but before she could speak, she heard a soft gasp from the bed.

Sam was sitting up, her childlike form gone. In its place was the woman Deia had known for years—now back in her mid-20s, her face youthful and robust. Her eyes were wide with shock as she ran her hands over her face and body, staring at her reflection in the mirror across the room.

“I’m… I’m back,” Sam whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief. “Deia, it… it worked.”

Deia turned to face her, her heart pounding. “Are you okay?”

Sam nodded slowly, her hands still shaking. “I… I feel normal. But younger. Like I was… reset.”

Jason stood frozen, his eyes wide as he looked between them. “You’re both… younger.”

Deia took a deep breath, trying to calm the racing thoughts in her mind. “It pushed us both to the same age—25. It was trying to reset Sam, and it reset me, too. I think… I think that’s what it’s doing.”

Sam touched her face again, still disbelieving. “It didn’t hurt me. It was like… it just stopped everything, then put me back at this age.”

Deia glanced at the spiral, still pulsing faintly on the table. It hadn’t harmed them, but it had done something irreversible. They had both been in their late 30s, and now… they were back in their mid-20s. Time itself had been undone for them, and it felt surreal, like a dream they couldn’t wake from.

Yet the spiral seemed calmer now, almost as if satisfied with its work. Deia felt its presence, faint but reassuring, in the back of her mind.

“It’s promising something,” Deia whispered, staring at the device. “It won’t do anything more than this. It’s… settled. It will only heal and regress anyone who touches it to this age—around 25.”

Jason shook his head, his face pale. “How do you know that?”

“I just… know,” Deia said, her voice steady despite the confusion swirling in her mind. “It’s not trying to harm us. It’s doing this because it thinks this is how we should be.”

Sam looked at her, her face still filled with awe. “But why 25? Why that specific age? And why only regressing, not aging?”

Deia frowned, the question lingering in her mind. “Maybe it took its queue from me, my subconscious. I imagined us both healthy and strong at that age. And I had a horror of her older mind in her too young body, and imagined the opposite, the danger of a too young mind in an adult body. The spiral is intelligent, but it doesn’t think like we do.”

Jason rubbed his temples, his expression torn between disbelief and fear. “So what now? You just… live like this? Are you stuck being 25 forever?”

Deia didn’t have an answer. The enormity of what had happened weighed heavily on her. They had been changed—rewound to a younger state, their bodies restored in a way that defied all natural laws. And now the spiral sat there, as if waiting for the next person to touch it, to push them to the same age.

“We need to be careful,” Deia finally said, her voice low. “Whatever happens next, we have to make sure no one else touches it. This thing is powerful, and we still don’t fully understand it.”

Jason nodded, though his face was still lined with fear. “We need to figure out how to contain it. Keep it safe. And hope to God that Earth comes to retrieve us soon.”

Deia stared at the spiral, its dark surface pulsing faintly. It had given them a strange kind of gift—one they hadn’t asked for. But she knew deep down that this was only the beginning. The spiral had shown them its power, but its purpose was still unknown.

---

The base was quieter than it had ever been. The murmur of hidden machinery still filled the air, and the lights flickered steadily, but the weight of what had happened—the impossible transformation—hung over them all like a shroud. Deia, Sam, and Jason moved about in a daze, the reality of their situation sinking in with every passing moment. 

Deia stood in front of the mirror again, her eyes tracing the face of a woman she hadn’t seen in years. It wasn’t just her reflection that unnerved her—it was the way her body felt. Stronger, lighter, more energized, as if the aches and scars of age had been wiped clean. She realized there was no sign of gray hair, so this was more than a biological change. The person staring back at her was a version of herself that she had thought was long gone. But it was real. Was it still really her?

She glanced at Sam, who sat across the room, still looking stunned, her body restored to that of her 25-year-old self. Sam kept flexing her fingers, touching her face, as if trying to believe that it wasn’t some cruel illusion.

“Do you feel… different?” Deia asked softly, breaking the silence between them.

Sam nodded, her voice shaky. “Yeah. Everything feels… sharper. Like I’m seeing the world through younger eyes, literally. I don’t have the same stiffness or soreness in my joints. But mentally? I still feel like me, just… stuck in a younger body.”

Deia swallowed, understanding exactly what she meant. The experience was surreal. Inside, they were still themselves—still carrying the weight of years of experience and memories—but their bodies had been reset, almost as if they’d been given a second chance. It should have felt like a gift, but it came with an overwhelming sense of unease.

Jason walked into the room, his expression grim. He hadn’t touched by the spiral, hadn’t experienced the impossible transformation Deia and Sam had, but he carried the same tension in his face. The situation was far from under control, and the fact that they were now cut off from Earth only made it worse.

“I’ve checked the systems again,” Jason said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Still no signal from the comm satellite. I don’t know if Earth’s shut us down or if there’s something else going on, but we’re completely isolated.”

Deia nodded, barely surprised. “It’s been hours. If Earth doesn’t want us talking, we’re not going to.”

“And even if they did,” Sam said quietly, “what would we tell them? ‘Hey, we just got rewound to our 20s by an alien artifact’? They didn’t believe us before. This would just make them bury us even deeper.”

Jason clenched his fists, pacing back and forth. “We can’t just sit here and wait for something else to happen. That thing”—he motioned toward the spiral device—“it changed you both. What if it starts affecting other parts of the base? What if it pulls more power? We need to figure out how to contain it, how to stop it from doing more damage.”

Deia nodded, her eyes drifting toward the spiral, still resting ominously on the table. It hadn’t moved, hadn’t pulsed since it had pushed her and Sam to 25, but its presence was suffocating, like a sleeping beast that could wake at any moment. She didn’t trust it—not completely. Whatever intelligence lay inside that artifact, it had its own agenda.

“I think… it’s done for now,” Deia said hesitantly. “I don’t feel it trying to reach out anymore. But that doesn’t mean it’s safe. We need to isolate it, keep it from affecting anyone else.”

“How?” Jason asked, frustration lacing his words. “We can’t even touch it without risking getting reset. We don’t have the equipment to contain something like this.”

Deia frowned, pacing in front of the table as she tried to think. The base wasn’t equipped for this kind of discovery. They were miners, engineers, scientists—none of them were prepared to handle an alien artifact with the power to manipulate time and biology.

But the spiral had spoken to her, in its way. It had shown her its intention, its limits. She knew it wasn’t purely malicious, but it was dangerous, and they needed to treat it as such.

“We could move it into one of the storage containers,” Deia suggested. “They’re sealed, insulated. It might not stop it from working entirely, but at least we could get it out of the open and prevent anyone else from touching it by accident.”

Jason considered it for a moment, then nodded. “It’s better than leaving it out here where anyone can brush up against it.”

“But how do we move it?” Sam asked, her voice shaky. “If we can’t touch it without risking another… ‘reset,’ we can’t exactly just pick it up.”

Deia stared at the spiral, thinking hard. She knew they couldn’t directly touch it, but maybe they didn’t need to. “We could use the drone. We have a remote manipulation drone for handling hazardous materials. It’s not perfect, but it could be enough to move the spiral without risking contact.”

Jason’s eyes brightened with a glimmer of hope. “That could work. Let’s try it.”

They moved quickly, setting up the drone’s control console in the adjacent room. Jason handled the controls with careful precision, guiding the small, mechanical arm into position. Deia and Sam stood back, watching anxiously as the drone approached the spiral.

The drone’s claw hovered above the dark, spiraling artifact, the air tense as Jason maneuvered it delicately into place. Deia held her breath as the drone finally grasped the spiral, lifting it ever so slightly off the table.

Nothing happened. The spiral remained still, inert in the drone’s grip.

“It’s working,” Jason muttered, his concentration razor-sharp as he guided the drone toward one of the empty storage containers at the far end of the room. “Just a little further…”

The tension in the room was palpable as the drone lowered the spiral into the container, gently placing it inside. Once the spiral was securely in the container, Jason backed the drone away and triggered the lid to close, sealing the artifact inside.

Deia let out a long breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “We did it.”

Sam nodded, looking pale but relieved. “It’s contained. For now.”

Jason powered down the drone, his shoulders sagging with exhaustion. “Let’s hope that’s enough. We’ll monitor the base’s systems and make sure it’s not drawing more power, but for now, I think we’re safe.”

Deia stepped forward, staring at the sealed container. The spiral might be contained, but its effects were permanent. She and Sam were living proof of that.

“We need to be careful,” Deia said softly, her voice carrying a weight of responsibility. “Whatever this thing is, we don’t know its full potential. It’s changed us—reset us—but it could do more. We need to figure out what it wants… and why it’s here.”

Jason nodded. “Agreed. But first, we must figure out how to survive being cut off from Earth.”

As they stood in the eerie quiet of the base, the reality of their isolation settled over them once more. They were alone on Mars, trapped with a powerful alien artifact that had already altered the course of their lives. Deia could feel the uncertainty gnawing at her, the fear of what might come next.

---

The days after they had sealed the spiral in the storage container passed in tense, anxious silence. Deia, Jason, and Sam moved through the base like ghosts, constantly checking the base systems, monitoring the artifact, and trying to figure out what their next steps should be. With no communication from Earth and no way to leave the planet themselves, they were trapped in limbo.

Until the retrieval team arrived.

It was a quiet morning when the alert lights blinked to life, signaling an incoming ship. Deia had been reviewing the latest energy readouts from the base’s power grid, trying to make sure the spiral wasn’t drawing any more energy, when the sudden beeping sound startled her out of her focus. She glanced up at the console, her breath catching in her throat.

“Jason! Sam!” Deia shouted, rushing toward the comms console. “We’ve got a ship inbound!”

Jason and Sam came running, their faces pale with a mix of surprise and relief. “You’re sure?” Jason asked, glancing over the readouts. “After all this time, Earth is finally sending someone?”

Deia nodded, her heart racing. “Looks like it. The landing trajectory is locked in. We’re about to have company.”

Sam’s eyes were wide with apprehension. “What do you think they’ll say when they see… us? They’re not going to believe this.”

Deia shared Sam’s unease. They had been rewound to their mid-20s by an alien artifact, something Earth had refused to acknowledge when they’d tried to send the initial reports. Now, they were about to face a team of people who had no idea what had really happened. And that was assuming this team wasn’t sent with the explicit purpose of containing or retrieving the artifact itself.

“They’ll have to believe it once they see us,” Jason said, his voice firm though his face was still tight with tension. “We’ve got the suit footage, the base logs, everything. They can’t ignore it.”

The three of them stood in silence as the retrieval ship entered the atmosphere, the base’s sensors tracking it as it descended toward their location. Deia’s stomach churned with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Would they be saved, or would they be treated like lab rats? Worse yet, what would happen to the spiral?

Minutes later, the ship touched down in the dust outside the base, its sleek form shimmering in the thin Martian light. Deia’s comms unit beeped, and she activated the link, hearing a voice crackle through the static.

“Base team, this is Earth Retrieval Unit 2. We’ve arrived at your location and are preparing to make contact. Please confirm status.”

Deia exchanged a glance with Jason before responding. “This is Deia Ramos, team lead. We’re operational. We have some… critical updates to share. Proceed with caution. You’ll want to hear everything we have to say.”

There was a pause on the other end of the comms, and Deia could almost feel the tension. “Understood, Deia Ramos. We’re suiting up and will make entry shortly. Stand by.”

Deia turned to Jason and Sam, who were both staring at the entryway with apprehension. “Here we go.”

The base’s doors hissed open, letting in a gust of thin Martian air as the retrieval team entered, their pressure suits gleaming in the dim light. There were four of them, their faces obscured behind reflective visors, moving with the practiced efficiency of highly trained personnel. They scanned the room as they stepped inside, clearly assessing the situation.

“Ramos,” the lead officer said, stepping forward and removing his helmet. His face was sharp, his eyes steely and focused. “Lieutenant Bryce. We’re here to extract your team and assess the situation. I understand you’ve encountered something… unusual?”

Deia felt her breath catch as Bryce’s eyes flicked to her, then to Sam. His gaze lingered, his brow furrowing slightly as he seemed to register something off about their appearance.

“You could say that,” Jason muttered, folding his arms across his chest.

Deia stepped forward, swallowing the knot of anxiety in her throat. “Lieutenant, you need to understand that what we found… it’s beyond anything we expected. There’s an artifact here, something we can’t explain, and it’s already affected us.”

Bryce’s eyes narrowed. “Affected you? How?”

Sam, unable to stay silent any longer, pulled off her helmet. “Look at us.”

Bryce’s expression shifted from confusion to shock as his eyes widened, taking in Sam’s youthful features. “What the hell…?”

“We’ve been changed,” Deia said, pulling off her own helmet and stepping beside Sam. “That artifact… it did this to us. It reset our bodies to this age—mid-20s. We don’t know exactly how, but we have video evidence, data logs, everything. This isn’t a joke.”

The other retrieval team members exchanged nervous glances, clearly unsure of how to process what they were seeing.

Bryce’s face hardened as he turned to the others. “Secure the base. I want full scans on the energy readings, and I want to know where this artifact is now.”

Deia felt her stomach tighten. She knew this was coming, but it still felt like a punch to the gut. The retrieval team wasn’t just here for them—they were here for the spiral.

“It’s sealed in a container in the storage area,” Jason said, his voice tight. “We’ve kept it isolated since it started affecting us. You should be careful. We still don’t fully understand how it works.”

Bryce nodded, his gaze sharp and calculating. “You did the right thing by isolating it. We’ll take over from here. Our primary objective is to contain and study the artifact. Your safety is our priority, but this thing… it’s a high-level concern now.”

Deia’s chest tightened. She could see where this was going. The spiral was no longer just their discovery—it was about to become something much bigger, something Earth would control, study, and possibly weaponize.

“What about us?” Sam asked, her voice small but defiant. “We’ve been changed by it. Are we just… experiments now?”

Bryce’s expression softened, but there was no denying the gravity of the situation. “You’ll be debriefed, assessed by medical, and most likely taken back to Earth for further evaluation. What’s happened to you is… unprecedented. We need to understand the long-term effects.”

Deia clenched her fists, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. “We’re not lab rats, Lieutenant. We came here to do a job, and now we’ve been thrown into something we never asked for.”

Bryce’s eyes softened, but his tone remained firm. “I understand. But this is bigger than any of us now. The artifact needs to be secured before it does any more damage.”

Deia exchanged a glance with Jason and Sam. She could feel their unease, their fear that this wasn’t going to end well. But they had no choice. They were trapped between the unknown power of the spiral and the rigid authority of Earth’s retrieval team.

As the retrieval officers moved to secure the storage area, Deia felt a sinking dread in her gut. The spiral had done something unimaginable—reset their bodies, altered time itself. And now it was in the hands of people who had no idea what they were dealing with.

“We’ll cooperate,” Deia said finally, her voice low. “But you need to promise us one thing.”

Bryce raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”

Deia’s gaze hardened. “That you won’t let this artifact fall into the wrong hands. It’s too dangerous. We still don’t know what it really wants.”

Bryce stared at her for a long moment before nodding. “I’ll do what I can. But this is bigger than both of us now.”

As the retrieval team moved deeper into the base, securing the spiral and preparing it for transport, Deia couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning. The artifact had altered their lives forever, and now it was about to be taken back to Earth—a place it was never meant to go.

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Author’s note: Thank you for continuing to read my story. Your thoughts and suggestions at this point are very welcome, so leave me a comment, positive or negative! The next chapter, “The Shape: Revelation Becomes Connection”, is coming soon.