The Sky Beneath Algeirs

The Crack in the Earth

The earthquake came without warning.

No tremor. No thunder. Just a single, sharp breath from the ground—like the earth had sighed after holding something in for centuries.

Yacine was the first to see it.

He had wandered past the olive groves at dusk, chasing the last light as it spilled across the hills of Algeirs. The air smelled of dust and jasmine. His village was quiet behind him, unaware that the world had just changed.

The crack was small at first. A jagged line in the soil, glowing faintly blue. He knelt beside it, heart thudding. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

Then it widened.

Beneath the surface was not rock or root—but sky.

A mirror of the night sky, shimmering with stars that moved too quickly, too deliberately. They weren’t planets. They were choices.

Yacine reached out, and the moment his fingers brushed the light, the world shifted.

He saw himself—older, standing beside a grave.

Then another star: he was laughing, holding a child in his arms.

Another: he was alone, staring at a burning city.

Each star was a future. Each one real.

But one star pulsed red.

He touched it—and screamed.

A vision flooded his mind: his village in ruins, his mother crying, the sky above fractured like glass.

He fell back, gasping.

“You must not let this happen,” a voice whispered from the crack. “You must choose.”

Echoes of the Red Star

Yacine didn’t sleep that night.

The vision haunted him—the burning sky, the fractured earth, his mother’s scream echoing through a village he barely recognized. It wasn’t just a nightmare. It was a warning.

He returned to the crack at dawn.

The stars beneath the soil still shimmered, but the red one was gone. In its place was a dark void, pulsing like a wound.

“You must choose,” the voice had said.

But who was speaking?

He knelt beside the portal, whispering questions into the light.

“Who are you?”

“Why me?”

“What happens if I choose wrong?”

No answer. Just silence.

And then—movement.

The stars shifted, rearranging themselves into a constellation he’d never seen. It looked like a door.

Yacine ran to the village library, dusty and forgotten. He searched old maps, astronomy charts, even folklore books. One passage caught his eye:

“In the time before time, the earth held a mirror to the sky. Those who touched it saw not what was, but what could be. But the mirror was cursed—one future always led to ruin.”

He felt sick.

Back at the crack, he tried touching a different star—one that glowed softly, like moonlight. A vision bloomed: his mother smiling, the village thriving, a child laughing in his arms.

Hope.

But the voice returned.

“Every future demands a price.”

“What price?” he asked aloud.

“Memory.”

Suddenly, he couldn’t remember his father’s face. Or the name of his childhood friend. The star had taken something.Yacine staggered back, terrified.

The portal wasn’t a gift. It was a test.

And the red star was still waiting.

The Keeper of the Forgotten Futures

Yacine tried to stay away.

He avoided the olive groves. He buried the memory of the crack beneath layers of denial. But the stars beneath the earth called to him—not with sound, but with silence too loud to ignore.

Every night, he dreamed of futures that weren’t his. A wedding in a city he’d never seen. A war he’d never fought. A child calling him “father” in a language he didn’t speak.

The portal was rewriting him.

One morning, he returned—not to touch, but to confront. The crack was wider now, pulsing like a wound in the earth. He stood at its edge and shouted:

“Who are you?”

The wind answered.

“Not who. What.”

Then came a voice—not from the portal, but behind him.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Yacine turned. An old man stood beneath the fig tree, wrapped in a faded burnous, eyes clouded with memory.

“You’ve touched the stars,” the man said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“Who are you?”

“I was the first.”

The man’s name was Idris. He had touched the portal decades ago, before the village forgot it existed. He had seen futures too—one where he became a prophet, another where he died young. He chose silence.

“The portal doesn’t show you what will happen,” Idris said. “It shows you what could—and then it waits for you to act.”

“But the voice—”

“Is the echo of every dreamer who came before. It’s not a guide. It’s a warning.”

Yacine felt the pull again. The stars shimmered, rearranging into a shape he hadn’t seen before—a spiral.

“It’s choosing you,” Idris whispered. “And it won’t stop until you choose back.”

Yacine stepped closer.

“What happens if I refuse?”

Idris looked at the sky.

“Then someone else pays the price.”

The Legend Beneath the Dust

Yacine stood at the edge of the crack, the stars beneath him shifting like restless spirits.

Idris had warned him: “Every future demands a price.”

But Yacine wasn’t ready to forget. Not his mother’s voice. Not the scent of mint tea in the morning. Not the name of the brother he lost to silence.

“There must be another way,” he whispered.

The portal pulsed. A new star emerged—dim, flickering, shaped like a crescent.

He didn’t touch it.

Instead, he went searching.

In the oldest part of the village, buried beneath the sand and stone, he found a shrine. Forgotten. Cracked. But still breathing with memory. Inside, carved into the wall, was a verse in ancient Tamazight:

“The sky beneath is not a gift. It is a wound. Born of betrayal, sealed by sacrifice.”

Yacine traced the words with trembling fingers. A hidden compartment opened. Inside was a scroll—older than paper, woven from palm and ink.

It told the story of El-Mir’ah, the Mirror of the Earth. A portal created by a mystic who tried to rewrite fate after losing his family in a war. He succeeded—but the portal demanded memory in return. Each time someone touched it, the land forgot a name, a song, a story.

“The portal feeds on forgetting,” Yacine realized. “But what if I remember for it?”

He returned to the crack.

This time, he didn’t touch a star.

He spoke.

“My name is Yacine. My father was Mourad. My mother is still alive. I remember the war. I remember the silence. I remember the stories.”

The portal trembled.

The stars flickered.

And then—a new star appeared. Not red. Not blue. Gold.

He touched it.

A vision bloomed: the village thriving, his mother smiling, Idris teaching children beneath the fig tree. But Yacine stood apart—watching, forgotten.

The portal had spared the village.

But it had taken him.

The Memory That Remained

No one remembered Yacine.

Not his mother. Not Idris. Not the children who played beneath the fig tree. His name had vanished from the village like a dream forgotten at dawn.

But the village thrived.

The olive groves bore fruit early that year. The sky stayed clear. The earth no longer trembled. And every night, the stars above Algeirs glowed a little brighter.

The crack in the ground remained—but it no longer pulsed. It slept.

Inside it, Yacine watched.

Not with eyes, but with memory.

He had become the keeper of futures. The one who remembered what others had forgotten. The one who bore the weight of every choice not made.

Sometimes, when the wind was just right, Idris would pause beneath the fig tree and whisper:

“There was a boy once. Brave. Quiet. He saved us.”

And though no one knew his name, the story lingered.

The portal had taken Yacine’s place in the world.

But it could not erase the echo of his sacrifice.

Because memory, like stars, cannot be buried.

It only waits to be seen.