Synopsis: On the advanced, anthropomorphic world of Zyan , where foxes drive cars and owls read books, an ancient secret is unearthed—buried beneath under a deep cave. When Luseen , a curious rabbit archaeologist, discovers a strange, organic pod deep in the ruins, she awakens something Zyan thought never existed: a human .

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Excitement rushed in when the drill broke through the ancient stone. Dust shot out and the researchers are still focused on what they are seeing. A rabbit archaeologist dropped her datapad. The tremor made it bounce off her foot.

“No way this is natural,” Luseen said while adjusting her headlamp. She crouched, claws scraping over warm metal.

Buried beneath the rubble—some kind of capsule. Not Zyanite. Not even close. Smooth like it was grown, not built. Symbols ran across the sides. Old ones. Not theirs.

“Get the professor,” she said with hurried voice. “Now.”

They dragged out more rock. The capsule looked like a pod, a coffin, a relic built to last. Even half-covered in sediment, its skin pulsed faintly under the dust. Not powered by anything they'd seen.

The youngest in the dig team pointed at the viewing panel.

“Something’s in there.”

Everyone leaned in. Jaws clenched. One of them stepped back so fast he tripped.

A pale figure lay inside. Bare skin. No fur. No tail. Two legs. Arms curled against its chest like a sleeping infant. Its eyes stayed closed, its ribs barely moved, but it was alive.

“Don’t panic,” Luseen said, completely panicked.

The viewing screen fogged over as something inside shifted. A hand twitched.

The crew stared.

That hand didn’t have claws.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The first video went live to the internet an hour later. Blurry, overexposed, but clear enough to start riots. A furless alien in a glass box, breathing.

Most people didn’t believe it. Too good, too weird, too... human.

“Photoshop,” one post read.

“Real,” another insisted. “And it eats kids.”

The networks lost it. Anchors laughed nervously while clips played of ancient myths: human firestorms, orbital bombardments, extinct cities. Children’s cartoons suddenly looked like documentaries. By noon, half the planet screamed “Fake.” The other half screamed “Kill it.”

The government did what governments do.

They held a press conference.

Minister Vorin stepped up, sharp-suited and sharp-toothed. He didn’t blink once.

“The creature is classified as a prehistoric anomaly. Potentially hostile. The safety of Zyan is our priority.”

Someone asked if it could speak.

Vorin ignored the question.

Instead, he leaned into the mic.

“We execute it within forty-eight hours.”

The room fell silent. Then reporters exploded with noise.

By evening, military drones buzzed the dig site. The creature was moved. The lab sealed. Scientists replaced with guards.

Luseen tried to protest. Her badge got deactivated. Her access code returned a blunt “Revoked.”

When she checked the footage again, the feed cut off after six seconds. The last frame was that pale hand, pressed to the glass.

They locked it underground.

Lab Virex sat buried in a mountain crater—classified, bleak, cold. Inside, the air was sterilized until it hurt to breathe.

The pod sat in a chamber walled with steel and lined with armed guards. Turrets blinked red in the ceiling. You’d think they’d caught a god.

Vorin paced along the observation deck, arms folded behind him, tail twitching.

“This thing should’ve stayed dead,” Vorin said in a worried voice.

The commander beside him didn’t reply. That was the smart move.

“We bury myths for a reason,” Vorin said and went on. “They’re dangerous. They make people question facts.”

He turned, staring down at the pod through reinforced glass.

“I want it gone before that thing starts talking.”

Down below, the pod’s vitals pulsed steadily. The body inside was no corpse. Still breathing. Still healing. Too calm.

They hadn’t even figured out how it survived.

In the Archives, Thalos flipped through a digital scroll. Pages glowed against his feathers. He zoomed in on a blurry symbol from the pod. It looked like a spiral with claws. Familiar.

He dug into the ancient war records. The Forbidden Campaigns. Files no one touched without clearance or desperation.

There it was.

The same symbol. Dated a thousand years ago. Right next to a single name.

“The Defender. Traitor to his kind.”

It wasn’t the name that stopped Thalos. It was the picture.

Not a photograph, obviously. Just an ancient mural scraped onto blackstone. Dozens of Zyanite warriors—foxes, bulls, snakes, birds. In the center, a biped, arms spread wide, standing between a line of Advanced ships and the Zyanite defense grid.

Thalos figured out that the Advanced ships are Human Ships. It’s too advanced even compared to the technology of Planet Zyan.

He focused on an interesting view of the Image.

The Human in the Pod, In the Image himself holding something.

He wasn’t holding a weapon.

He was shielding them.

The title underneath said it plain: “The One Who Betrayed the Sky.”

He didn’t need translation. The meaning was clear. One of the invading species—human, presumably—switched sides. Blocked the invasion. Helped save Zyan.

Then disappeared.

Or got erased.

Thalos was under his breath, Not thinking of the consequences, quickly went to Luseen to talk about this information.

So that’s why the Council wanted it dead. Not because they feared invasion.

Because this human—whoever he was—didn’t fit their story.

He clicked open a private channel. “Luseen, it’s Thalos. Don’t talk, just listen. The creature, the pod—it’s real. It’s not a myth. And I am pretty sure it saved this Planet a long time ago.”

“Too late,” Luseen replied, voice tight. “They’re prepping the execution room.”

Thalos blinked.

“What?!”

“They moved it. Government’s making a show of force.”

He looked back at the mural, the Defender’s face carved in shadow.

“BUT HE SAVED THIS PLANET.”

Luseen’s voice broke.

“They don’t care; they won’t care. Maybe they knew already”

The pod made a noise.

One of the guards flinched. Another tightened their grip on their weapon.

Lights flickered red. Pressure dropped. A thin wail of steam escaped from the seams. Then the glass cracked—not shattered, just opened.

The figure inside stirred.

Slowly.

No sudden jerk, no dramatic awakening. Just one shaky breath, followed by another.

The man inside—Jarek—opened his eyes.

Blue. Cold. Too aware.

He blinked against the light, sat up, then squinted at the armed guards pointing weapons at him like he was a bomb about to tick down.

He coughed.

Spoke something. Garbled syllables. Foreign. Lost language.

No one answered.

He tried again. Pointed at the glass, then the sky, then the wall where the symbol glowed.

One of the guards panicked.

“Move again, I drop him.”

Jarek stepped forward, hands raised. Not fast. Just urgent.

Too late.

Electricity fired through his body. His muscles locked. He dropped, twitching, smoke curling from his chest.

His fingers scraped the floor, still pointing toward the ceiling.

Toward something above.

“Thought it was gonna lunge,” the younger guard said, trying to sound tougher than he looked.

Jarek’s lips moved again. One last time before his body shut down.

They didn’t understand the words.

“They’re coming back.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

The lab’s perimeter became chaotic.

Crowds packed the gates, pressed against riot barriers, chanting, shouting, filming. Most held signs—“Burn the Monster”, “Return It to Hell”, “Stop the Silence”. The rest just stared like it was a museum exhibit that might bite.

“Do you think it eats grass?” a rabbit girl asked her mother.

The mother pulled her closer, not answering.

Dozens of influencers livestreamed around the clock. Hashtags flipped every hour: #TheThing, #AlienError, #PodLies. Government censors couldn’t keep up. No one trusted the news anymore.

Inside, the human hadn’t moved. Jarek lay strapped to a surgical slab, pale as chalk and barely breathing. The taser hit left bruises in weird blotchy trails across his chest. They hadn’t figured out if he even understood anything.

A wolf medic wiped his face, more annoyed than worried.

“You think it even knows where it is?”

The commander shrugged.

“Doesn’t Matter. We put it down either way.”

Thalos stood behind glass, watching everything like his brain was trying to work out a puzzle with half the pieces burned.

“We should at least try to understand what this human is trying to say.” Thalos said thinking this plan would be effective against the government plan of execution.

A Fox-Girl Linguist used a tech to pass him a notepad.

“We decoded some of the sketches it made.”

Two words blinked in glowing blue:

WE

ALLY

“Yeah. Great.” The linguist dropped her tablet onto the table like it insulted her.

“That’s all we got. ‘We’ and ‘Ally’. Could mean anything.”

Thalos squinted at the translated glyphs. The symbols were jagged, sharp. Scratched into a scrap of steel plate. One even looked like a simplified Zyanite war rune.

“Why would it write ally? That’s not how conquerors think.” The fox linguist said and rolled her eyes.

“Could be trying to manipulate us. Play nice before it melts our cities.”

Across the room, Jarek lifted his head.

He stared at them through glass, face unreadable. His eyes flicked from Thalos to the others. Then to the translation on the screen.

He pointed to it. Nodded. Tapped his chest.

“See?” the commander said. “It’s just mimicking. Parroting what we put in front of it.”

Jarek slammed a fist against the glass.

Not hard. Not violent. Just clearly frustrated.

No one flinched, but the message was clear. He wasn’t stupid.

Thalos leaned into the mic.

“You said ally. Why?”

Jarek stared at the mic. His jaw moved, slow and careful. He drew a star on the glass. Circled it. Then another. A pattern.

Someone behind Thalos said, “That’s not art.”

Thalos shook his head.

“No. That’s a warning.”

______________________________________________________________________

The mural stretched across an entire dome wall. Dust coated half the figures, but the colors were still intact—bronze and crimson, like old blood and rusted iron.

Thalos stood alone in the Archive’s oldest wing, eyes locked on the central figure.

Not Zyanite. Not even close.

The biped in the painting had no fur, no tail. Its arms were raised, blocking a wave of fire from descending airships. Zyanite soldiers stood behind it—scorched but alive.

Scrawled beneath the image in High Tongue: “He fought for us, not them. The Traitor to His Kind.”

“Why isn’t this in the public record?”

The computer librarian buzzed overhead.

“Section classified under Directive 92-A.”

“Who issued that?”

“Minister Vorin. Date: 63 years ago.”

Thalos’s feathers bristled.

He pulled up the metadata. The painting wasn’t just a mural. It was logged as historical fact. Not myth. Not fiction.

They knew about him.

They buried it. They buried the truth. They buried the past.

He closed the console. Stared back at the figure—Jarek, probably, though no name was attached.

The pose was the same one he’d made in the lab. Arms wide. Blocking, not attacking.

So why kill him?

Because the dead can’t correct history.

And liars don’t like witnesses.

__________________________________________________

The cameras caught everything in the Lab.

The Commander reviewed the footage with Thalos.

One second, Jarek was strapped down, docile. The next, his wrist restraints popped open like they were made of thread. He didn’t bolt. Didn’t swing. Just stood.

Then pointed.

Upward.

Straight at the reinforced ceiling.

“Do not move!” the guard said, raising his rifle.

Jarek’s mouth moved again. Fast this time. Urgent. He jabbed a finger at the ceiling, then at the star map he’d drawn earlier.

The guards didn’t wait.

Another stunbolt hit him in the ribs. He dropped again. Spasms kicked through his limbs.

“Why’d he point?” one of the guards whispered.

“No clue.”

“He wasn’t escaping,” said Thalos with his flat voice. “He was warning us.”

Nobody looked at him.

The commander reviewed the footage a second time.

“Maybe.”

But his tone said: Doesn’t matter.

They dragged Jarek back to the slab. This time, they used heavy chains, not just straps. The kind used for war criminals and unstable brute Zyanites.

He didn’t fight.

He just lay there, eyes on the ceiling.

Still pointing.

______________________________________________

Vorin leaned back in his chair like he was lounging in a throne he built himself.

Across from him, a secure comm projected six fuzzy silhouettes—the Council’s inner circle. No names. No faces.

One spoke. Female. Sharp.

“We warned you, Vorin. This thing stinks of history.”

Another chimed in.

“If it talks, we’re dead. You know how delicate the archives are.”

Vorin’s lip curled.

“It’s contained.”

“For now.”

“Then we accelerate the timeline,” he snapped. “Forty-eight hours is a PR move anyway. We kill it tomorrow.”

“Approved,” one figure said.

“Eradicate all links,” said another. “And if the historian talks—”

“He won’t,” Vorin said, standing. “He’s soft.”

They cut the feed.

He turned to his assistant. “Issue the command. ‘Focus Procedure Omega.’ I want him disintegrated before he gets another word out.”

The assistant blinked. “Tomorrow morning?”

“Dawn. No delays. No discussions.”

Back in the lab, a synthetic voice spoke through the cells.

“SUBJECT: 117-H DESIGNATED FOR TERMINATION. TIME TO EXECUTION: 14 HOURS.”

Jarek didn’t react. He just lay still, lips moving silently, mouthing words only he understood.

In the next room, Thalos sat in the dark, replaying the mural on his tablet.

He whispered, “You’re not a monster.”

And Jarek, eyes closed, whispered something too. But no one understood what he said.

_____________________________________________

Thalos didn’t sleep.

He sat hunched in the corner of his archive office, eyes bloodshot, feathers ruffled. The war files he’d pulled were marked red—RESTRICTED burned across every document. Each file took time to decrypt. Each minute brought Jarek closer to the execution room.

A breakthrough came from a scratched metal panel stored with the pod. It wasn’t just a note. It was a cipher key.

He uploaded it into the linguistic matrix.

The results hit like a slap.

Jarek’s markings matched entries in the Forbidden War Archives—specifically a human transmission titled: OPPOSITION PROTOCOL: ZYAN RESISTANCE.

Thalos flipped through fragmented logs. Voice messages. Images. Human generals talking in clipped tones in a language Thalos could understand, the Zyan Modern Language.

“Zyan—subjugation not worth risk.”

“Traitor operative interfering with planetary lockdown.”

“Designation: Jarek Voss. Execute on capture.”

His beak tightened. Confused and Shocked by the information that he just had.

First, Thalos is confused how could he understand the Human Language, While Jerek speaks a different language.

But most importantly.

Jarek wasn’t a scout. He wasn’t a soldier sent to destroy Zyan.

He was the one trying to stop it.

He bolted from his chair.

Ran through the hall like his feathers were on fire.

Downstairs, guards blocked him.

“Level’s sealed,” one guard said, not meeting his eyes.

“I have proof—”

“…..”

They pushed him back without another word.

Back in his office, he stared at Jarek’s photo.

“Why the hell would a human betray Earth?”

And in his gut, he knew the answer.

Because someone had to.

_______________________________________________

The lights shorted. The pod’s projector.

Footage spilled out—blurred, crackled, but unmistakable.

From a long time ago: Jarek, in a uniform, standing on a hangar bay. Yelling. Desperate.

“Don’t launch—there are children down there! They’re not soldiers!”

Then the ship behind him exploded. He fell. Cut to black.

No one moved.

No one understood what he said.

Even the Zyanite who saw the footage.

Or even the Human soldiers that killed the Zyanite children in the footage. It clearly looked like Jarek is not one of them. Different Clothing, Different Language.

One thing is for sure; they understood that he tried to save those Zyanite children.

The footage hit the net before anyone could stop it.

The recording spread like wildfire. First to private channels. Then public feeds. Then every major platform. Title: “Human Saves Zyanite Child?”

Edited clips followed. Slowed frames. Circles and arrows. Endless analysis.

The full footage of Jarek shielding a lab assistant during a power surge surfaced too. She’d fallen when a conduit burst, and instead of running, he had thrown himself over her—taking the hit.

Now people watched closer. Slowed things down. Re-examined.

And some started to ask different questions.

Why hasn’t he hurt anyone?

Why would he protect them?

The trending hashtag changed.

No more #KillTheMyth.

Now it was #NotAMonster.

In a crowded forum, a teenage badger posted: “What if he’s not here to destroy us? What if he already saved us once?”

The post hit two million shares.

Outside the lab, protesters doubled—but their signs were different.

“Let Him Speak.”

“Truth Isn’t a Crime.”

“Free the Defender.”

Luseen watched from the gate, arms folded, eyes sharp.

She didn’t smile.

But she stopped hoping for a miracle and started planning one.

Inside, Jarek watched too. His eyes followed the screen. Saw his own image. Then saw the signs.

Something shifted in him.

He exhaled.

Almost like relief.

Vorin stood in the vault room, eyes locked on a cold console that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

The screen glowed red. Message flagged Ultra-Classified.

Council Transmission – Clearance Only.

He tapped it.

Holograms flickered. Blurry faces formed in a circle.

“We’ve got a problem,” one said with a passive aggressive tone.

“Your execution plan backfired,” another snapped. “He’s becoming a martyr.”

Vorin’s jaw twitched.

“I moved it up. Dawn. He dies before the story spreads.”

The council leader’s voice came sharp and fast.

“Kill the story too.”

Another leaned forward, digitally distorted.

“If this spreads, they’ll ask why we never told them about it. Or our agreement.”

Vorin’s ears flattened.

“We agreed to silence—not allegiance.”

“The records show that we accepted Earth’s control over our planet after Jarek fought their fleet. That truth can’t come out.”

Vorin’s claws tapped metal.

“So we rewrite history again.”

One figure nodded.

“Burn it all. If the human doesn’t die, we lose the lie.”

Vorin ended the call.

In the hallway, his assistant waited.

“They’ve started chanting outside.”

Vorin walked past her, coat trailing like a shadow.

“Let them scream. Tomorrow morning, there’ll be nothing left to scream about.”

He didn’t say Jarek’s name.

Like saying it gave it power. Vorin thought deeply that someone else learned Jarek’s name, it’s probably where it got the power to control the technology inside the lab. Why just reveal the footage? Why didn’t he just escape the lab?

They gave him one pen. One scrap of synth-paper. Probably didn’t matter. Just protocol.

Jarek took the pen. Not with anger. No shaking hands. Just quiet purpose.

He drew a circle.

Then a second.

Then a spiral connecting them both.

Zyan.

Earth.

Linked.

He added stars. Coordinates. Paths.

Then pointed to it when the guards returned.

They didn’t look. One took it, scoffing.

“What’s this? Galactic doodle?”

Another ripped the paper in half. Tossed it into a trash unit.

Jarek didn’t flinch. Just exhaled like this happened before.

He turned. Scratched the same spiral on the wall with a fingertip, slow and deliberate.

The camera above blinked.

Thalos watched from his terminal, lip pressed tight. His feathers shook, not with fear, but fury.

He was trying. Still trying.

They wouldn’t even look.

He stood. Pulled open his drawer. Inside sat the last piece from the pod—a strange, prism-shaped object, let a noise faintly now. Reacting.

A memory storage unit. Analog tech with a singular function.

Projection.

He whispered, “Maybe it’s your voice they’ll finally listen to.”

In the execution chamber, Jarek sat still.

Waiting.

Eyes closed.

As if timing every breath.

Not praying.

Preparing.

Vorin leaned over the railing above the chamber. Below, Jarek sat strapped to a metal slab like some ancient sacrifice, eyes half-lidded, lips cracked. The lights buzzed. The countdown ticked.

“Five hours,” the technician muttered.

Thalos slammed the door open.

“You’re making a mistake.”

Vorin didn’t turn. “A predictable entrance. I knew it’s you”

Thalos held up a tablet.

“I matched the human’s symbols to four verified records. This isn’t a monster. It’s the one who stopped the Human’s planetary strike.”

“You’re confusing pity with facts.”

“He saved our ancestors!”

Vorin stepped away from the railing, voice cold enough to make her feathers stiffen.

“He betrayed his own. That doesn’t make him our hero. It makes him their failure.”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Thalos snapped. “That we’ll start asking why he had to save us in the first place?”

Vorin bared his teeth.

“Don’t push it, owl. You don’t know what truth costs.”

“I know what lying buys.”

He shoved the tablet toward Vorin. A frozen image showed the mural again—Jarek shielding Zyanites as Advanced warships burned above.

Vorin didn’t even glance at it.

“History is written by survivors, Thalos.”

“And erased by cowards,” Thalos shot back.

Vorin didn’t answer.

The countdown continued.

The slab seems louder now.

Whatever chemical they pumped into him to keep him docile wasn’t working anymore. Jarek’s head twitched. His fingers clenched. And then—

Flash.

A memory bursts through like a migraine.

He wasn’t on the slab. He was standing in a tribunal chamber.

Humans called him Zyan’s Pet.

“They were in the way.”

“You chose them over us.”

Jarek Remembered the cuffs, Remembered everything. Everything became clear.

The Human Language is the Modern Zyan Language.

The words, Cryo Containment: Indefinite. No hearing. No broadcast. Buried like a secret no one wanted. Buried like the ancient Zyan language that Jarek had been using all this time.

Then darkness. Silence. Cold so deep it crushed thought.

He jerked awake.

Gasped. The slab didn’t hold him down anymore. Not mentally.

He was back.

Eyes open now.

The guards noticed too late. One leaned in—Jarek’s gaze locked him in place. Not with power. With clarity.

Jarek wasn’t human. Not by Earth’s standard.

He was the ghost of their guilt.

And they were scared.

The first explosion rocked the west gate. Smoke poured over the lab perimeter like it belonged there.

Protesters—now a full-blown mob—rushed in before security could regroup. Not all peaceful. Some threw stones. Others just shoved through, desperate.

At the front, Thalos stood, wings flared, eyes burning.

“Get out of the way,” he shouted at the guards.

One raised a stun-baton.

Jarek saw from inside. The glass wall was enough to keep him trapped, but not enough to stop what came next.

The charge launched—bright blue crackling across the air.

Thalos froze.

Jarek moved.

In one brutal surge, he ripped the restraints off. The glass didn’t shatter—it exploded outward.

He slammed into the path of the stunbolt. Took the hit directly.

Dropped hard.

Thalos screamed.

Chaos exploded. Guards scrambled. Protesters swarmed. Some tried to help him. Others backed off, too afraid to touch him.

He twitched on the floor, smoke rising off his chest.

One kid—maybe twelve—knelt beside him.

“Are you dying?”

Jarek blinked. Coughed once. Smiled.

“No. Just... catching up.”

Vorin smashed a monitor with his cane.

“Ten minutes!”

The chamber was chaos now. Half the staff fled. The rest locked down the room.

Jarek lay inside again—but awake this time. Fully. No straps. No restraints.

Just waiting.

Vorin stormed in, pistol drawn, flanked by three armored guards.

“You don’t get to win,” he snarled.

Jarek looked up.

“I didn’t come to win.”

Vorin raised the pistol.

“You stayed. Like an idiot.”

“I warned you,” Jarek said. “I’m not your enemy. But they’re coming.”

The room shook. Not from protestors this time.

From orbit.

A loud alarm triggered across every terminal. EXO DETECTED – NON-ZYANITE SHIPS – EARTH SIGNATURE

Vorin froze. The guards hesitated.

Jarek stood.

“You remember how fast they struck last time?” he asked.

Vorin’s mouth opened. Closed. The pistol wavered.

Jarek stepped forward, slow.

“I’m your last defense. And you chained me up.”

Vorin screamed.

“Fire the chamber! Do it!”

Nothing happened.

Thalos had locked the system from his terminal.

The override screen blinked.

EXECUTION SYSTEM DISABLED.

Jarek looked at the sky.

“They’re early.”

Thalos stepped into the chamber, clutching it like a grenade. He walked past stunned guards, past broken consoles, straight to Jarek.

He nodded once.

He set the projector on the ground and tapped it.

It unfolded like origami under light—projecting holographic panels into the air, spinning, syncing with the remnants of the pod’s data.

Jarek stepped into the projection field.

A message played.

Not a file. A living memory.

Young Jarek, years ago, in a Zyanite city. Kneeling beside fallen civilians. Screaming at Human Ships, voice raw, shaking.

Jarek cried in a Language that no one in that room understands, but everyone knew Jarek is on Zyan’s side.

The feed flipped.

Adult Jarek, like the age he is right now standing before Zyanite elders.

“I have no orders. Just this: live.”

Then his final message. Addressed to no one. Or maybe everyone.

“I chose you. Survive. When they return... fight smarter.”

As he entered the Cyro containment Luseen found him in.

The chamber fell silent.

Thalos turned to the crowd behind him—thousands watching the projection through the breached walls.

“Now tell me again he’s the threat.”

Vorin backed away.

The guards didn’t follow.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “HE’S OUR HERO!”

It echoed.

Louder.

Until it was the only sound left.

The projection didn’t fade.

It expanded.

Not just a message. A flood.

Dozens of memory threads branched out, each one replaying fragments of Jarek’s time on Zyan. With his powers, he’s shielding Zyanite soldiers and civilians from orbital strikes. Hiding children in blast shelters. Hacking Earth drones. Rerouting missiles. Always behind the lines. Always alone.

The chamber, from silence, transformed into a monument of resistance.

Jarek stood in the center of it, a ghost of every moment he’d spent keeping this planet breathing.

“He didn’t just warn us,” Thalos whispered.

“He chose us.”

The truth hung there, undeniable, unflinching.

No edits. No propaganda. Just a man who gave everything for his people who weren’t his own race.

A human who was born on a foreign planet tried to protect it as Zyan’s last hope.

Jarek turned slowly, arms hanging by his side.

He wasn’t smiling.

He wasn’t crying.

Just tired.

Like he’d finally finished something that was never meant to be his.

Vorin stood in the back, breathing hard. Fur twitched. Paw gripped the pistol.

The crowd didn’t notice him.

But the council did.

They stepped out of the observation corridor, robes stripped of gold emblems. No pretense.

The lead councilor pointed at Vorin.

“Your orders led to this crisis.”

The lead councilor said.

“You gave the same ones! You told me to kill him!” Vorin replied.

The second councilor’s gaze didn’t waver.

“We told you to prevent exposure. You tried to bury a martyr.”

Third stepped forward.

“Zyan will not fall on the side of lies. Not again.”

“You’re cowards—” Vorin raised the pistol.

Jarek stepped forward.

Didn’t speak. Just stared.

Vorin stopped. Hand trembling.

“Why didn’t you just let us forget?” he said.

Jarek blinked. Looked down. Not dismissive. Not angry. Just tired of being asked.

“Because forgetting your past is how you get conquered.”

The guards moved.

Vorin didn’t resist.

The pistol clattered to the floor.

Outside, the crowd had moved on. No chants. Just stillness. Watching Jarek.

As if they knew this wasn’t the end.

Just the last warning.

The sky screamed.

Not thunder. Not atmosphere. Ships.

Dozens. Breaking orbit in clean formation—sleek, angular. Unmistakably Human Advanced Ships.

They didn’t fire.

Didn’t broadcast.

They arrived.

Jarek didn’t wait for panic to spread.

He turned toward the crowd, raised his arm, pointed upward. Then pressed a device to his chest—a piece from the pod no one else had touched.

The universal translator crackled.

The voice that came out wasn’t smooth or human.

Fragmented. Translated real-time. Glitching between languages.

Jarek using his original language, the language he learned as he was born in this planet, the ancient Zyan language.

No modern Zyanite could understand what he’s saying, but somehow his voice is going directly through their brains along with its direct translated message.

“The human planet, Earth Returns to destroy this planet with their power and technology.”

“As a human, heck I never even wanted to be one. But this human power of mine will be of use to protect this planet that accepted a human like me.

Whispers. Then shouting. Then silence again.

Jarek continued.

“I… stayed. To save you all. Again.”

Thalos watched from the side, eyes sharp. Didn’t panic. Just nodded.

“Tell me you’ve got a plan,” he spoke.

Jarek pointed toward the pod.

Didn’t speak.

Just walked.

His steps were slow. Final. Like a man going back into a war he never wanted.

Again.

The pod’s weapon had never been built for offense.

It wasn’t a bomb. It was a failsafe. A key deterrent against advanced weapons.

Jarek unlocked it with his blood.

It reacted instantly. Lights ignited. Pulses scanned his frame.

The moment the Earth fleet locked weapons, the pod’s failsafe engaged.

A pulse began building. Not radiation. Not plasma.

EMP. Planetwide. One-time-use.

It would cook every Earth ship in orbit. Their tech would fry. Ships would fall dead in the sky.

But it would also kill the operator.

No shield. No escape.

Jarek didn’t hesitate.

He pressed the trigger.

The blast was silent.

A ripple passed across the sky. All the ships above flickered—then went dark.

They didn’t explode. Just died. Powerless pieces of technology drifting, falling above the planet they tried to claim again.

Jarek stood at the center of the pulse.

His body didn’t fall.

It disintegrated. Flash-burned to light and static. Gone.

No scream.

No last word.

Just silence.

Peace.

There was no statue.

No funeral.

Just his face.

Painted across the east wall of the rebuilt archive. Scarred, hard, steady. Eyes looking at something far beyond the planet.

Words beneath: “He chose us.”

Zyanites hold celebrations for the human hero.

Kids on school trips stared at the mural.

One asked, “Was our hero really a human?”

Thalos, older now, feathers grayer, knelt beside him.

“Yes,” he said. “And he didn’t want to be one.”

The boy frowned. “Then why’d he save us?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Looked up at the sky, where wreckage still orbited.

“Because history forgets,” he finally said.

“Until it needs you.”

And then he stood.

Walked back into the archive.

Where the future awaits.

Posted 04/09/2025