The next morning, the team stood at the foot of Mount Hakone. The air was cold and thin, wrapped in a mist that seemed to seep into their bones. Kaori adjusted the straps of her pack, eyes focused on her equipment. The landscape was deceptively serene—until you looked closer. The mountain’s sloping silhouette betrayed a depth of secrets beneath its surface, secrets that the team was here to uncover.

  “It’s strange,” Kaori said, scanning her geothermal readings. “This part of Hakone shouldn’t have this much activity.”

  Goom remained silent. His eyes weren’t on the equipment but on the land itself, watching the distant peak. He was listening, waiting. He could feel the faint hum in the air, too weak for any instruments to pick up, but present nonetheless.

  The team had been called in after abnormal readings from the national monitoring systems—fluctuating geothermal energies that suggested instability beneath Hakone. Volcanic tremors were expected, but these signals were different. Goom had his own theory.

  They began their descent into a nearby cavern that had been part of the initial geological survey, but nothing in the reports had suggested what they were about to find. The air grew warmer as they moved deeper, heat rising unnaturally.

  Kaori pulled up a display on her wristpad. "Temperature’s spiking. It’s not just geothermal. It’s active."

  The team moved through the narrow passage, each footstep amplified in the quiet cavern. Their path led them deeper, but the closer they got to the source, the stronger the sense of something ancient—something alive—seemed to press on them. Goom’s footsteps slowed as he stared down at his seismic scanner, his brow furrowing.

  “Goom, what are you—” Kaori started to ask, but Goom was already ahead of her, pausing at a narrow split in the rock.

  He placed his hand against the wall, his mind slipping into a deeper awareness. The vibrations in the stone weren’t natural. They pulsed. A rhythm. He could feel it under his fingertips. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the pulse.

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  “It’s here,” he whispered. “Something is calling.”

  Kaori stood back, eyes narrowing. “A resonance,” she muttered under her breath. “But there’s no logical explanation for this pattern. It’s like... it’s trying to communicate.”

  Goom didn’t respond. He moved forward, guided more by intuition than logic now, feeling the pulse guide his path.

  They eventually reached a chamber—unmarked on any map, and hidden under centuries of rock. Goom’s scanner detected nothing extraordinary at first, but something tugged at him from deeper inside. It was as if the walls themselves were pulling at his attention. He moved toward the center of the chamber.

  There it was.

  A crystal, half-embedded in a stone pedestal. It shimmered faintly, its surface iridescent like water in sunlight, yet the edges seemed… unnatural. A part of it hummed, faintly, just below the threshold of hearing.

  Kaori stepped up behind him, her hands on her hips. “So this is it? It’s not just geothermal. This is a focus.”

  She scanned the crystal with her instruments. Energy readings were all over the place—high fluctuations, unexplainable spikes, but they were regular. A pulse.

  “Are you getting any idea of what we’re looking at?” she asked.

  Goom didn’t answer at first. He stared at the crystal for a long moment. The pulse it emitted seemed to draw him in, resonating with something deep within him.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly, his voice low. “But I think… it’s alive.”

  Kaori gave him a skeptical look, but she kept her voice steady. “We’ll need to report this. But first, let’s get some more readings.”

  As she moved to gather data, Goom lingered, his eyes tracing the surface of the crystal. There was a memory tugging at him, something faint but sharp, as if he’d been here before, as if he’d known this place.

  The temperature in the room shifted, growing hotter. The air thickened.

  "Something’s wrong," Kaori said, her voice tight. "The instruments are malfunctioning. It’s too unstable."

  The ground beneath them rumbled. A tremor, weak at first, then more pronounced. Goom’s heart pounded in his chest. The crystal’s pulse had become erratic. His instincts screamed at him to leave, but something in the back of his mind held him there. He had to know.

  “It’s fine,” he muttered, but it was a lie, even to himself.

  Another tremor shook the chamber. They needed to leave, and fast. The team scrambled to pack up their equipment, but Goom didn’t move. He couldn’t.

  It was only when Kaori’s hand clutched his arm, pulling him back to reality, that he realized how close he had come to touching the crystal.

  The energy in the room was rising, feeding off their presence, their interference.

  “I’m not going to let you touch that thing until we understand it,” Kaori said firmly.

  Goom nodded absently, his mind still racing. They gathered the data and retreated, but the weight of what they’d found hung over them like a cloud.

  That night, as the team settled into their tents, Goom sat by the fire alone, his thoughts tangled. He couldn’t shake the feeling that what they had found was only the beginning. It wasn’t just a discovery—it was a message.

  A message from something older than the mountain itself.