Brennick stood by the makeshift altar outside their small homestead, watching the blue sun of the distant world dip below the horizon. The violet light reflected off the smooth stone altar, a relic of sacred significance, blessed at the beginning of their pilgrimage that had spanned years. The steady hum of the air scrubbers and the creaking of the wind against their ship turned shelter filled the evening air, but the silence between him and Narah was more unnerving than the planet’s stillness.

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The world, named Diligence, was plentiful and beautiful—a vast expanse of green forests, stretching plains, and jagged cliffs. It was meant to be theirs, given to them by the Confluence to tame and settle. No intelligent life. No resistance. Or that’s what the sacred data records had told them.

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Brennick looked over at his wife as she meticulously scrubbed the altar. She had always possessed a quiet strength, a grace that had drawn him to her back on their homeworld, a planet nestled deep within the settled colonies of their faith. Like him, she had been chosen to spread the Confluence’s teachings, to leave civilization behind and prepare the way for others.

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For Brennick, this was more than just a mission—it was a sacred duty. A calling. And the next step, the one he longed for most, was to start a family. They had built their homestead, planted their first crops, purified their water. It was time, he thought. Time to bring children into the faith, to raise them in devotion to the Confluence, just as they had been raised.

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But Narah hesitated. She had been different since they arrived—distant, restless.

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One night, as they lay in their small, cramped shelter beneath the artificial warmth of their generator, she spoke softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

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“I don’t know if I can do this,” she had said.

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Brennick turned to her, confused. “Do what?”

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She hesitated. “Bring children into this.”

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Her words were a dagger to his heart. “Narah, this is what we’re meant to do. This is what the Confluence teaches—what we were chosen for.”

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She shook her head. “I used to believe that. But now… I don’t know. This world—it’s not what we thought it was. And neither is our faith.”

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He had tried to push the conversation aside, tried to assure her that faith was about endurance, about pushing through doubt. But the look in her eyes haunted him.

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It wasn't long after that conversation that Narah would start to wake before dawn and disappear into the wilderness, returning hours later with a faraway look in her eyes—and always, inexplicably, smelling of oil similar to the automated machines that tended their crops. When he questioned her, she would only say, I needed to see something.

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And then one morning, she was simply gone.

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Brennick scoured their homestead, then the surrounding plains. He called her name into the vast, untamed wilds.

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At first, he thought she had wandered off, the way she often did. But as the hours turned to days, a gnawing dread took root. He packed supplies, filled his canister, and followed the faint traces of her path. He moved deeper into the alien wilderness, farther than either of them had ever dared.

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On the third day, he found something he couldn’t explain.

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The earth had been disturbed—crushed grass, snapped branches, and a jagged trail of bent metal. He followed the path until he came upon it: a colossal, decapitated machine.

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Half-buried in the soil, its metallic face was unmistakably insectoid—sleek, angular, almost elegant. It resembled a praying mantis, its shattered compound eyes glinting in the twilight. The sheer size of it dwarfed him. Its long, metallic antennae were still intact, its faceplate cracked open like a discarded husk.

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Brennick’s breath hitched.

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This world was supposed to be empty. Yet here lay proof of something ancient, something beyond the reach of the Confluence’s understanding.

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A sharp rustling broke the silence.

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Then—light.

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A blinding spotlight cut through the darkness, pinning him in place. A deep, mechanical hum vibrated in the air. Something moved in the trees, its enormous form emerging into the clearing.

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It was another mantis.

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This one was intact. Towering. Alive.

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Its metallic limbs moved with eerie precision, its mandibles clicking rhythmically. The spotlight from its eyes narrowed into a thin beam, centering on him.

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“You should not be here.”

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Brennick’s pulse pounded. The voice was neither wholly mechanical nor entirely organic—it reverberated with something ancient, something knowing.

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“Who are you?” Brennick asked, his throat dry.

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The mantis tilted its head, observing him.

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“Who are you to come here?”

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He swallowed, straightening. “I am a pilgrim. I have come to spread the Word.”

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The creature stepped closer, its joints whirring.

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“You do not understand. This world is not yours to claim. It is not yours to conquer.”

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Brennick’s chest tightened. His faith had always been unwavering. The Confluence taught that they were chosen, that the frontier was theirs by divine right. But standing before this being, before this intelligence—he wasn’t so sure.

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He clenched his fists. “Where is my wife?”

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The mantis paused. Its gaze flickered with something almost… familiar.

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“Narah is not lost. She is exactly where she needs to be.”

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The words sent a chill through him.

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“What have you done to her?” he demanded.

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The mantis leaned in, its faceplate mere feet from his own.

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“Narah is not yours to find.”

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A flash of something buried deep in Brennick’s mind surfaced—memories of her disappearances, the scent of oil clinging to her skin, the strange way she had looked at him before she left.

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Had she known? Had she chosen to leave?

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His vision blurred, his breath unsteady.

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The mantis remained still, its glowing eyes reflecting his turmoil.

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“Leave this place, pilgrim. It was never meant for you.”

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Brennick fell to his knees, desperation overtaking him. The weight of his faith, his beliefs, his purpose—all of it seemed to collapse inward.

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Narah had always sensed the truth before he had. She had questioned what he could not. She had felt the presence of something beyond their doctrine, beyond their Confluence. And now, she had become part of it.

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The creature’s gaze softened, a flicker of something like pity passing through its glowing eyes.

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“Look around you. The world speaks. The land speaks. But you do not listen.”

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The light from the creature’s eyes dimmed, but its presence remained overwhelming. Brennick felt a stirring inside himself, a profound shift.

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Narah had found her place here, among the mysteries of this ancient world.

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Brennick made his way back to the homestead in silence.

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That night, he stood by the altar he had built with Narah. He stared at the stone, once sacred, now meaningless.

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With a deep breath, he pried his pickaxe from the ground and swung. The first strike sent cracks through the stone. The second shattered it. He gathered the broken pieces, wrapped them in cloth, and left them at the edge of the homestead. A monument to something he no longer understood.

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By morning, he powered up the ship.

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The Confluence had taught him that doubt was weakness, that questions led to ruin. But Narah was gone, and the only answers he had left terrified him.

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As the ship lifted off, he looked down at the landscape stretching endlessly below him, silent and vast.

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For the first time in his life, Brennick wasn’t leaving to seek something new—

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He was leaving to escape the truth.

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Far from the homestead, deep within the ruins of the mantis machines, the great mechanical creature watched as the ship became a streak of white in the morning sky.

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Slowly, it moved, servos adjusting, posture shifting. The glow in its eyes dimmed.

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Inside the machine’s chest cavity, human hands disengaged from the controls.

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Narah stepped out.

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The scent of oil clung to her clothes, her fingers still stained with grease.

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She had found the broken mantis long ago, buried in the wilds. Night after night, while Brennick slept, she had ventured into the ruins, piecing it back together, learning its controls, its history.

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And as she had worked, she had come to understand.

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The Confluence had never been about enlightenment—it had been about control. About taking, about shaping worlds to fit the needs of the faithful. But this world, Diligence, had spoken to her. Its machines had whispered secrets older than the settlers' faith.

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And now, she was no longer a pilgrim.

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She was something else.

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As the last traces of Brennick’s ship faded from the sky, Narah exhaled, her shoulders light for the first time in her life.

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She was free.

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