"THE CORE AWAKENS"
In the early decades of the 21st century, global energy demand surged beyond anything previously recorded. Conventional reserves dwindled, and new extraction technologies pushed deeper into the Earth’s crust than ever before.
Coal seams long abandoned were reopened.
Oil deposits once considered unreachable were tapped.
Minerals and diamonds were pulled from depths humanity had never disturbed.
These actions were not isolated.
They formed an interconnected network of access points—vertical, horizontal, and diagonal pathways carved deep into the planet’s natural barriers. Individually, each operation appeared controlled. Collectively, they altered something fundamental.
Beneath the crust, the Earth’s core functioned as a superheated engine—stable for eons, dynamic by nature, but contained by pressure and distance. When human-made channels reached critical depths, that balance began to change.
Heat migrated where it never had before.
Pressure followed unfamiliar routes.
Systems once separated began to interact.
At first, the effects were subtle.
Localized temperature increases.
Minor seismic inconsistencies.
Readings that fell just outside accepted models.
Then came the anomalies.
Not explosions.
Not eruptions.
Irregularities—unexplained, persistent, and increasingly difficult to dismiss.
The planet had not fractured.
It had responded.
What followed would challenge everything humanity believed about control, stability, and the limits of intervention.
