HAIL CEASER

In a fractured future where humanity has spread across one hundred planets within the Milky Way, survival is not evenly distributed. On the outer edge of civilization lies Skorrag—a brutal mining world where dust chokes the air, silver coins dictate worth, and violence is currency. It is a place where people are not meant to thrive… only endure. Ceaser, a young man hardened by scarcity, struggles to survive while caring for his thirteen-year-old sister, Mary. With no access to off-world credits and no opportunities beyond backbreaking labor or illegal fighting pits, he clings to a single ambition—to escape Skorrag and reach Jomark, a distant, prosperous world known for opportunity and life beyond survival. But dreams carry a cost. When a newly discovered mine promises an unusually high payout, Ceaser is forced to make a choice. Several miners have already gone missing beneath the surface, and those who returned speak in fragments—of fear, of something unnatural, of something waiting in the dark. Driven by desperation and the need to secure a future for Mary, Ceaser joins the expedition. What begins as a chance to earn enough to leave the planet soon becomes something far more dangerous. Because beneath Skorrag’s surface lies more than ore. And not everything buried was meant to be found.