And then, for the first time in a year, the terminal played a sound that was not static or alarm. It was a low, harmonic chime—a note that felt less like data and more like a question. Or maybe a door, just beginning to open.

The northern horizon was wrong.

She was alone. The last Martian. And she was not going to die.

The dust storm had been screaming for three sols, and Commander Eva Solis was beginning to forget the sound of her own voice.

She ran to the terminal. Radiation sensors: spiking. Seismometers: a rhythmic pattern, too regular for tectonics. The terminal flickered, and for the first time in nearly a year, the line of text changed.