All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 13
The Faces Scratched From the Photographs
Elias stared at Emily’s photograph while cold uneasiness spread slowly through his chest. Deep scratches carved violently across her face distorted the image beneath jagged lines, as if someone had desperately tried to erase her from the picture completely.
Not just her.
Every crossed-out face along the cavern wall seemed deliberately destroyed.
Visitors.
Travelers.
Outsiders.
All removed from the photographs the same way.
Elias Ward stepped closer toward the wall while Mara remained silent behind him beneath the weak lantern light.
“Who did this?”
Mara hesitated before answering.
“The people hiding down here.”
The underground chamber suddenly felt heavier after that sentence. Elias slowly looked around the cavern again—the old beds, the melted candles, the shelves filled with abandoned supplies.
This wasn’t just a tunnel.
It had once been a refuge.
“For hiding from what?”
Mara lowered the lantern slightly.
“The ceremonies.”
The distant bells echoed faintly through the earth overhead again, softer now but still close enough for Elias to feel their vibrations somewhere beneath his ribs.
He looked back toward the photographs.
“Why scratch out the faces?”
Mara moved toward the wall beside him.
“Because once the town accepts someone…” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “The person they used to be starts disappearing.”
Elias frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s not supposed to.”
Mara gently touched one of the older photographs near the edge of the wall. The picture looked ancient, edges yellowed with age. A smiling family stood in front of the Valemere church while one figure beside them had been violently scratched away.
“My father scratched my mother’s face out himself,” Mara whispered.
Elias slowly turned toward her.
“What happened to her?”
Mara’s expression tightened painfully.
“She heard the bells.”
The answer hit harder now because Elias was beginning to understand what that truly meant in this town.
Not death.
Transformation.
The cavern suddenly creaked softly overhead. Dirt drifted from the ceiling beams while faint movement echoed somewhere far within the tunnels behind them.
Elias immediately turned.
“You heard that?”
Mara nodded slowly.
“They search the tunnels during ceremony week.”
Fear tightened inside him again.
“How long has this been happening here?”
Mara looked toward the symbols carved into the stone walls.
“Generations.”
Then she pointed toward the largest carving near the center of the cavern wall.
A massive circular symbol surrounding a bell shape carved deep into the rock itself.
Beneath it, old words had been etched carefully into the stone:
WHEN THE FINAL BELL RINGS, ALL RETURN TO THE FOREST
Elias felt cold spread through his stomach.
“What does that mean?”
Mara stared at the carving silently for several seconds before answering.
“The people in Valemere believe the forest gave them life.” Her voice lowered further. “And eventually it calls them back.”
The bells rang again suddenly.
Seventh bell.
The sound crashed violently through the underground chamber hard enough to extinguish several candles resting along the shelves nearby. Elias physically grabbed the wall beside him as another wave of strange images flooded his thoughts.
This time clearer.
Lantern walkers moving through endless woods.
Hollowed creatures kneeling beneath enormous black trees.
A crowd gathered around a stone altar deep within the forest while bells rang overhead through the dark.
And standing at the center of it all—
was Emily.
Wearing white.
Smiling directly at him.
The vision shattered instantly.
Elias gasped sharply and nearly collapsed forward.
Mara caught his arm immediately.
“You saw the ceremony.”
His breathing became uneven.
“That wasn’t real.”
Mara’s silence answered him.
Then, from somewhere deep within the tunnel system behind them—
came a scream.