42 years ago.

"How old do you think they are, grandpa?" a teenaged girl asked, her mind racing with curiosity and wonder, looking above at the unending trees.

There were seven of them. One could hardly see the crowns of them they were so high. The centre tree, the largest and thickest by far, was as black as charcoal. Black branches extended and grasped its brothers, three on its left and three on its right, smaller but just as tall.

If they were brothers, the middle tree was adopted, or the black sheep of the family. While the six smaller ones were golden and shining in the sun, almost appearing of metal and reflecting more light than it had been struck with, the middle one seemingly absorbed it all.

They were the greatest mystery of the planet. Uncuttable, not even scratchable, although curiously there was one strip of bark carved out from the left most tree about the size of a hand. Chemicals and fire having no effect on them, not even the absence of water or nutrients or sunlight appearing to affect them. They puzzled scientists to no end, and there was no easy way of estimating their age. The North Eastern quadrant was home to the tallest trees on the planet, but none were like these. The Seven Trees.

Thickly armored soldiers had secured the area, as Samuel and his granddaughter walked their way back to the convoy after Samuel promised he would take her to see Them. He took the girl's hand in his own, and said, "I'm not sure, Maeve. I don't think we'll ever know. Come on, you have a big day tomorrow."

Maeve angrily and abruptly removed her hand from her grandfather to his delight, and said, "You're wrong. Nothing is undiscoverable if we put our minds to discovering it."

Samuel laughed and opened a door to their vehicle for Maeve. "You're a lot like your great aunt Mayla. Beautiful though, aren't they? Our more religious folk think the Gods created them. The Black One promoting darkness and death, and his golden brothers promoting life and happiness, fighting him for eternity, keeping Gaiathal in the balance."

Maeve was silent on the ride home, and then said to her grandpa, "If someone created them, I will find them. Even before my brother. You'll see."

***

"What do you mean it's gone?" Felix whispered loudly at his aunt in astonishment. To his shock, Mayla continued packing a research vehicle and ushering in Felix's and Gwenta's children for their first expedition. The Alva family was elated for the moment, but with Mayla's newest revelation, Felix could hardly be excited for his children.

"I mean, it's gone and I don't know where it is," Mayla said, shrugging her shoulders and not taking the situation nearly as serious as Felix hoped.

"How do we misplace a submarine, Mayla? This is a disaster. Someone took it. Whoever took it has us by the throats, probably no friends of ours. It was probably Ffion, she could use it to blackmail us, or show the people that Samuel's off traveling the ocean while he keeps the people within a cage. Did you run all the people and their access scans at the eastern Outpost?"

There were also reports of three missing children. It was hard for Felix not to think the missing children and their missing submarine were not connected. Strange things were happening.

Mayla motioned to the children that were boarding the vehicle, incredulously. "Samuel has been looking forward to this moment for years, and what, you want me to cancel it? Do you realize how suspicious that will look?"

Although the submarine had been built years ago, Felix and Mayla had waited patiently for the proper moment to secretly leave, and it finally came. Incredibly, they convinced Samuel to start settling the Outposts, allowing people to live there fulltime, including Felix and Mayla who were to oversee the settling. It was a perfect opportunity for them to finally set sail to the lost continent.

Samuel was forced to let the population settle the rest of the planet for two reasons. The first was that the population was growing too large for the artificial gardens of Nighthawk to sustain every mouth.

The second and more pertinent issue was that Ffion Oddisy's following was growing larger and larger. While the people adored Ffion, the people now hated Samuel with the same passion, especially with reports of missing children that only the government had the power to cover up. He had ruled for over twenty years, winning election, after election, after election, after election. Felix, as humble as any, was even surprised he had not usurped his father's assessment scores after showing so much promise early in his life. Samuel had to let some of the people to leave, like letting steam out of a bubbling pot.

Samuel was still not outright tyrannical, to his credit. But the policies he began to adopt became more and more draconian and violent, and rumours surrounding his leadership were sinister but believable. Protesters were beaten by the police. Those trying to escape the Ring were sentenced to prison. Military men donning protestor clothing turned violent as an excuse for Samuel to return with force. Felix marveled at Samuel's scheming. His gradual grasp at more authority was genius, like slowly changing the temperature of the pot a frog found itself in.

While Samuel was stifling dissent, however, the opposite was true of Mayla's research. The progress Mayla's division was making was nothing short of astounding. New elements, new species of animals, new materials were being discovered weekly. Mayla and a group of scientists had even excavated a metal off the southern coast so strong that not even her Filtration Field could incinerate it. Felix could tell she was content with turning a blind eye to Samuel's behaviour as long as she could keep doing what she loved. Felix, to some extent, did the same.

"I'm going there, now. I'm going to check the security logs of all people that have been there," Felix whispered to Mayla as he threw on a suit and signalled to an official to ready his vehicle, hugging his children goodbye. He motioned them to come around him.

His eldest, Lisla, headstrong and daring, tall and dark featured.

Next was Aimos, like his sister, daring too, but more genial and caring, with kind blue eyes and an ability to make anyone cheer up with his little grin.

His middle daughter, Panza, was fiery and passionate and a dreamer, almost a replica of her eldest sister in appearance.

Next was Aaron, the bubbliest yet strongest of his children and even more gregarious than his brother Aimos, with brown hair and eyes like his father's but would no doubt be stockier.

Nik was the second youngest of the siblings, as inquisitive as his cousins Solan and Maeve and the shortest of the bunch with light brown hair and eyes to match.

Then was his youngest, Lleyton. Always picked on by his elder siblings, he grew the toughest of skins, and even as a young boy, Felix could tell he was fiercely loyal to his family. He was seemingly unable to hold grudges against any of them.

His nephew, Solan, was rather laconic and intelligent, and close with Felix. With black hair and green eyes, one could mistake Solan as Lleyton's twin, just many years older. Confidence in himself could have been misconstrued as arrogance, but Felix gave his nephew the benefit of the doubt.

His niece Maeve was probably as smart as her twin brother Solan, and Felix was convinced they would be smarter than him and Mayla one day. Gwenta would never let him hear the end of it.

Felix smiled at little Lleyton, and then said, "Listen children, your great-aunt Mayla is taking you out there on a little field trip. Lisla, Aimos, Panza, researching abroad is a great honour and responsibility. Have fun, but take this seriously. Aaron, Nik, and Lleyton, this is your first time outside of the walls. I want you to stick together and always stay with aunt Mayla, is that clear? Back to the vehicle if there's any sign of danger."

The children nodded and hugged their father, boarding the thick steel vehicle. Felix took the soldier who was escorting them aside, and said, "Keep an eye on Lisla. If anyone's going to disobey Mayla and wander, it's her."

***

"Where are we aunt Mayla?" Panza asked, as they walked down a valley of majestic mountains.

Snow licked the tops of them, silver clouds softly caressing the magnificent golden valley highs. The river that went along the valley slowly swirled in its beautiful light blue. Along the base of the mountains were strange holes that penetrated deep into the mountain side, and possibly every Gothreek mountain among the dozen of peaks was littered with them. Mayla, the children, and their guard walked along a path of lush wet green grass along the river in their yellow suits.

"These, children, are the Gothreek Mountains. And those holes at the base of them, we frankly don't know how were formed, if you're wondering," Mayla said, at the front of the pack.

A deer ran past the crew suddenly, from a nearby bush into a forest off to the left of the valley.

"What's that?" the children exclaimed all at once, Lleyton running after it and Mayla picking him up in her arms.

"That children, is a tree-capped Deer. All of the animals you will see, and that I've seen on this planet quite frankly, very closely resemble animals that humans have already documented on a very old planet."

"The First One," Solan breathed in amazement, watching the deer run with utter elation. "But how is that possible, Mayla? If Evolution is true then... how could such similar lifeforms end up on two planets?"

"Correct, Solan. The First One. We don't know yet, but all we can say is that these two planets, light years apart, share something. What that is, we don't know yet."

Maeve was irritated her brother was getting the attention of her genius aunt and idol, and said, "Well both planets have very similar climates and distances to their Suns and ages... It's not a statistical improbability to say that life evolving on both would turn into something similar, somewhere in the universe."

Mayla looked at both Maeve and Solan, smiling. "Well children, I won't be around forever. Perhaps you will find the answers that I never could."

"Psst, nerds," Lisla whispered to Maeve and Solan, Mayla attending to Aaron, Nik, Panza, and Aimos.

"Hey I wanna be a nerd, too," little Lleyton said, not aware Lisla was poking fun at her cousins but not wanting to miss out.

She laughed at her little brother and messed up his black hair, and said, "Okay nerd number three... you guys want to see something really cool?"

Solan and Lleyton nodded, while Maeve averted her eyes.

"I don't know, Lisla, your Dad said to stay with Mayla."

Solan and Lleyton pretended to be chicken, while Lisla pretended to wipe away tears.

"Fine, but we can't go far."

Lisla had already worked their escape plan out, and said, "Hey, aunt Mayla? These guys have to use the washroom, I'm going to take them over there by the bushes. We'll be right back."

Mayla looked over at the bushes the deer had ran into, and said, "Yeah... yeah okay, sure, we'll wait here for you."

Mayla watched as the teenagers and child made their way to the bushes.

Several moments passed, and Mayla grew anxious. The other children could sense her growing anxiety. She called out, "Children?"

There was no answer. Mayla took a deep breath. They were playing a prank on her. "Not funny, Lisla, come back now."

She signaled to the guard to run into the bushes after them. Moments passed and the guard did not return. Mayla's anxiety began turning into full fledged panic.

She exhaled as the guard returned, but his shrug sent a chill down her spine. She ran to him.

"You stay here and watch these ones, I'll find the others." The guard passed her a sword as he watched Aaron, Nik, Panza, and Aimos with his.

She ran into the small shrubbery, and there was no sign of the children. She made her way through the brush, and looked back along the other side of a mountain. There, in the distance, was little Lleyton, Solan helping him down into one of the strange holes in the base of the mountain.

Mayla was no athlete, but sheer terror and fear made her run after them like she hadn't ever before.

She finally arrived at the hole, and screamed into it. "Children come back at once! Lisla?" Her voice echoed back to her, but there was no answer from the children. She went inside, the hole somehow illuminated with a light green yellow hue. The air somehow smelling slimy.

She walked down a narrow path, dodging stalagmites and sliming, yellow green oily cave structures. For a moment Mayla was no longer fearful for the children, but confused. Her and Felix had explored the strange Gothreek holes many times, but never had they noticed these... structures? What she noticed too was the dulling of her senses. Her proprioception clouded, her sense of smell of the previous musty odor now gone, her hearing fuzzy with a mild tinnitus.

Mayla was reawakened by the screams. Her five senses coming back with a flood of adrenaline. Lisla.

Horrified, Mayla ran after the screaming. Lisla was not one to scream. Yet she screamed, and screamed.

And screamed.

Mayla fell and skidded along the slick cave floor, spiraling downwards into the darkness of the cave like the children had before her. She slid down and down, into darkness, the screams getting louder and louder. She came to a stop on her back, Solan, Maeve, and Lleyton beside her, and rose to her feet, trying to rub the slime off her knees and hands and back.

Lleyton was crying helplessly. Maeve stared ahead in shock. Solan's face blank.

Mayla looked around her.

Green, humanoid, faceless statues of varying heights and widths, row upon row, were before her like a graveyard. Some looked like slick olive-green tombs, others with more defined faces and limbs, and everything in between. Some even had gnarled mouths of brown jaws.

And then she saw Lisla.

Lisla was stuck between two of the unmoving statues, her screams beginning to subside. Her right arm, missing. Her left arm erupting into black ash as she tried to wriggle away and escape from the unmoving but numerous yellow-green structures.

Her torso and head followed, converting to grey dust like she had been incinerated by the heat of a sun. Her bodyless legs slumped and fell to the ground, scattering across the ground not as legs, but as dust as they came into contact with the slick structures. Mayla couldn't move. She was petrified.

"Do not touch any of those!" She screamed at the children, Lleyton still sobbing and Maeve wide-eyed and traumatized. She carefully navigated through the slimy structures careful not to touch them and share the same fate Lisla had, scooping up Lleyton into her arms and grabbing Maeve and Solan by the hands.

"We are going back to the cave entrance. Do not touch anything. Stay right behind me."

Mayla's body was shaking as she guided the children through the structures and back towards where she and the children slipped down.

"They're moving," Maeve said bewildered and quietly, whatever remaining of her childhood evaporating like Lisla's body had moments ago.

Mayla looked back, but the structures looked as still as stone, and said, "It's your imagination, Maeve. I need you right now, with me, okay? Stay close and do not touch them."

Finally out of the reach of the cemetery of olive tombs, the children frantically scampered up the slick slope of the cave, again seeing the light of day of the cave opening as Mayla was underneath them, making sure they did not slip back towards it.

Just as they were about to climb out of the cave hole at the opening, Maeve who was in front, crashed into another being. Not a green sculpture, but a man.

The man was dressed in a vibrant red, with a silver beard and dark red cloak, a strange sharp piece of wood strapped to his waist and a book in his chest pocket. He looked down at a terrified Maeve, and then to Mayla. Their screams must have lured him here.

He was not from this planet, Mayla realized. He was taller than any human she had seen, and sharp features to his face. Who knew how many colonies removed he was from theirs.

"Please, don't hurt us," Mayla pleaded, holding Lleyton and reaching for Maeve and Solan.

The Man in Red continued to look at them. Mayla could tell after a moment that he was not an evil man. His face showed compassion. Mayla tried various other languages of nearby planetary systems that she knew to plead with the man, but he seemed to understand none of them.

Then, the man turned to Solan and Lleyton.

Something about their faces turned the compassionate face of the man into one of anger and rage. Mayla noticed the man staring at them, and two boys stuck closely behind her. She continued to plead with the man, noticing the new animosity he developed seemingly out of nowhere.

As fast as the man's face turned to rage, it turned to shock and anguish.

Aimos, having heard the screams and commotion from the cave, had silently entered the cave, grabbed the pointed stick from the man's cloak, and stabbed him in the back, thinking he was the culprit of his family's screams. 

The Man in Red, bewildered, fell beside a horrified Maeve. Red blood dripped from the Man in Red's grey bearded mouth. He looked at Maeve who was lying beside him, and to her surprise, he passed the book from his chest into her hands slowly, his face of compassion returning.

The Man in Red then retrieved the weapon lodged in his back with a grimace, and passed the bloodied object to Maeve. He closed her hands around the two items and Maeve's two hands, and with a gentle smile, died.

Solan pushed the Man in Red off the cliff of the cave into the green structures below with his feet. He took the book from Maeve's bewildered and shaking hands, noticing that the blood-stained book perturbed her greatly. The Alva's watched as the Man in Red's body turned to ash as it tumbled amongst the strange protrusions of the cave below.

The chaos ended. The silence of the cave deafening.

The guard and other children received them outside the cave, horrified and bewildered and stunned, not sure what was happening, not wanting to know.

Mayla recollected the sword she left at the cave opening, and Solan and Maeve were explicitly aware that the mighty gears in her mind were clicking and turning as she devised her next course of action. It was clear she had a plan, but what that was, they could only guess.

She called to the guard, "I need your help with something in here, quickly."

The guard entered the cave, but only Maeve returned.

The children and teens were crying uncontrollably, confused and scared, and asked Mayla where Lisla was.

Maeve, Solan, and Lleyton hadn't blinked since leaving the cave, and Mayla's crazy look and wide eyes terrified the children. She always seemed to have the answers, composed and logical, but right now she didn't have any. While the eldest children looked at their dishevelled great aunt, the youngest children continued to cry.

"I want you children to listen to me very carefully. Lisla's gone," Mayla began, her voice trembling. The children continued to cry. Solan and Maeve were silent.

"We are going home, right now. Your sister was killed by the guard and he ran off deep into the cave. If you say anything other than the story I just told you, you will not be safe. You may even have the same