THE DISCOVERY

The village elders decreed that the settlement must expand eastward before winter, and Taran’s family had drawn the duty of carving into the ancient hillside.

“Over here, Mira,” he called.

His daughter scrambled across the rocky ground toward him. Her small form moved with surprising confidence for one so young, navigating the uneven terrain with instinctive grace.

“Father, look how deep Oren’s team has gone already,” she said, pointing toward her brother’s excavation.

Taran nodded. “The ground is softer there. We’ve struck something hard here. Different.”

He brought the tool down again. Instead of the dull resistance of stone, a hollow sound echoed back. He paused, then struck once more. A hairline crack appeared, widening as he chipped away at it.

“Find Elder Kaven,” he said. “Something lies within.”

By sundown, half the village had gathered at the hillside. They formed loose rings around the discovery, each person settling into place without instruction. Taran and three others had widened the opening just enough to reveal a smooth, curved surface beneath the rough stone.

“A cave?” one woman suggested.

Elder Kaven knelt and placed his palm against the exposed surface. “Far too smooth to be natural.”

As the light faded, more of the structure emerged. Not a cave, but a vast dome of stone, perfectly rounded, with two shadowed hollows set side by side. The symmetry was unsettling. Alien, yet strangely familiar.

They agreed to return at first light.

As Kaven turned back toward the village, he glanced once more at the moonlit form.

“It looks almost like a face,” he whispered.

Three days of careful excavation revealed the enormity of what they had uncovered. The thing in the hillside was larger than the village meetinghouse. A massive dome with paired hollows where eyes might be, and a deep, triangular hollow beneath them. Below that yawned a broad opening, dark and recessed, as though the entire structure had once been part of something far greater.

Scholars arrived from the capital, arguing among themselves as they took measurements and made rubbings of faint markings found within the shadowed cavity.

“It is a temple,” declared one, voice ringing with certainty. “Built by the ancients to honour the gods.”

“It is a fortress,” another countered. “Designed to watch over the valley.”

The villagers listened politely, but none of the scholars seemed to feel what they had felt from the beginning. That quiet jolt of recognition beneath the strangeness.

Only Pela, the village wisdom-keeper, spoke plainly.

“It is a skull,” she said.

Some scoffed. Others said nothing. But none challenged her observation.

Word soon spread across the realm. Pilgrims climbed the hillside to touch the smooth stone and peer into the empty hollows. The King himself journeyed from the capital, accompanied by priests and scholars bearing their own interpretations.

Taran was named keeper of the site. His home filled nightly with visitors eager to debate the meaning of the stone face.

“Who could carve such a thing?” a visiting artist asked. “The artistry surpasses even the masters of our age.”

“Perhaps a higher power left it as a reminder,” another offered.

“Of what?”

“Of his presence.”

“Or,” Taran said carefully, “of what we might grow into.”

The debates stretched across seasons. Artists imagined how the face might once have appeared. Some gave it features like their own. Others depicted a powerful divinity, radiant and all-seeing, light streaming from the hollow eyes.

In winter, the capital’s master scholar made a proclamation.

“After much prayer and consideration,” he announced, “we believe this being to be the creator of all things.”

The name took hold quickly. The stone face became known throughout the land as The Creator.

On a clear spring morning, Taran climbed alone to the hillside. He sat before the immense visage and rested his hand against what they called the cheek.

“Tell me who you are,” he whispered.

The stone gave no answer. But as clouds drifted overhead, light and shadow moved across the ancient features, almost suggesting expression.

Stories had grown around the face. Of a being who came from the sky in fire, who shaped the first people from the dust, who taught them to build and grow before returning to the heavens. Leaving only this memory behind.

Were any of them true? Or had their need for meaning shaped an answer from stone?

Taran did not know. But as he sat there, a quiet peace settled over him. Something had existed before them. Something vast enough to witness the birth of their world. And now, he bore witness to it.

That was enough.

***

Commander Sawyer checked her suit seals one final time as the airlock cycled open. After three years in transit, she would be the first human to set foot on Wolf 1061 c.

“Systems nominal,” she said. “Preparing to exit vehicle.”

Mission Control’s reply came fourteen minutes later. “Copy that, Commander. Make history.”

The alien landscape spread before her as she descended the ladder, rolling hills beneath a sky tinged faintly orange. Probes had confirmed breathable atmosphere, manageable gravity. A perfect candidate.

Sawyer stepped onto the surface. Her boot left a faint imprint in the soil.

She stood motionless, afraid that any movement might break the spell. The silence was absolute. No wind, no birds, no distant hum of machinery. Just her own breathing and the soft click of her suit settling around her. She turned slowly, taking in the hills, the pale sun, the sheer impossible reality of where she was. A whole world, stretching away in every direction.

She unclipped the analyser and waited for the readings to stabilise. Oxygen. Nitrogen. Trace gases. All within acceptable parameters.

“Readings confirmed,” she said. “Switching to ambient.”

She released the valve. Air cycled through the filters and into her helmet. It carried a dry, mineral scent, unfamiliar but not unpleasant.

“One small step—”

Pain tore through her chest. She gasped, alarms shrieking as she clutched at her suit.

“Medical… emergency,” she managed.

She collapsed onto her side, vision narrowing as her lungs seized against whatever invisible thing had found its way inside her.

The alarms faded to a distant whine.

Her fingers curled weakly into the soil.

Somewhere above her, the orange sky was deepening toward dusk.

Her gaze fixed on the distant hills. So beautiful. So alien.

She would be dead long before Mission Control even heard her distress signal.

Wolf 1061 c would be downgraded and discounted. Humanity would move on. There were other planets, other candidates.

This one would eventually be named in her honour.

A memorial. A warning.

Elena.

Her final breath fogged the inside of her visor.

She did not see the microscopic movement within the condensation, in the follicles of her hair, the oils of her skin. Tiny passengers from Earth, carried unknowingly across lightyears.

As the light left her eyes, they continued their lives. Living. Dying. Spreading outward across a vast new landscape.

Across the face of a brave new world.

The face of a dying deity.

The face of God.