All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 20
Then She Stays in Your Place
The cavern fell completely silent after the Listener spoke.
Even the bells overhead stopped ringing.
The words echoed slowly through Elias’s mind while cold dread spread through every part of his body.
“Then she stays in your place.”
Elias Ward looked immediately toward Emily.
Her expression alone confirmed everything.
She already knew.
Of course she knew.
Emily slowly lowered her eyes toward the bridge beneath them while the golden lantern light flickered softly across her face.
“I tried to leave,” she whispered. “After I remembered.”
The Listener breathed deeply below the pit.
Massive roots shifted through the darkness beneath the bridge while the townspeople remained kneeling around the cavern floor in complete silence.
Thomas spoke softly nearby.
“The forest does not release what belongs to it willingly.”
Emily looked back toward Elias with tears finally forming in her eyes for the first time since he arrived in Valemere.
“That’s why I told you not to come.”
The memory of her voicemail hit him instantly.
“Please don’t come here.”
Not a warning about the town.
A warning about herself.
Cold anger rose through him.
“You knew they’d take me instead.”
Emily physically flinched at the sentence.
“I thought if you stayed away long enough…” Her voice cracked slightly. “Maybe the bells would forget you.”
The Listener shifted below the pit again.
The entire cavern trembled softly.
“Nothing is forgotten.”
Its voice no longer sounded threatening.
That somehow made it worse.
The thing beneath the mountain genuinely believed this was natural.
Necessary.
Mara stepped closer toward Elias slowly while gripping the rifle tightly.
“Don’t listen to it.”
Thomas calmly looked toward her.
“He already hears the forest clearly now.”
And Thomas was right.
Elias hated realizing it.
The bells no longer frightened him.
The cavern beneath the roots no longer felt completely alien.
Even the presence beneath the pit felt strangely familiar now, like something ancient he had spent his entire life unconsciously remembering.
That terrified him more than the Hollowed ever had.
Emily moved closer again.
“You don’t understand what happens if someone refuses.”
Mara answered sharply before Elias could speak.
“I do.”
Everyone looked toward her.
Mara’s face had gone pale beneath the lantern light.
“My brother refused the ceremony.”
The cavern became still again.
Thomas lowered his head slightly.
Almost mournfully.
Mara’s voice shook now.
“The forest couldn’t replace him…” She swallowed hard. “So it kept calling him back.”
Elias frowned. “What happened to him?”
Mara closed her eyes briefly.
“He became Hollowed.”
The word settled into the cavern like a death sentence.
Suddenly Elias understood the creatures above the cellar.
The pale hands.
The twisted smiles.
The voices imitating people they used to be.
Not chosen.
Failed.
People trapped between leaving and belonging.
The Listener spoke again beneath the bridge.
“The Hollowed are unfinished returns.”
Emily’s tears finally fell now.
“I didn’t want that to happen to you.”
The bells above them began swaying softly once more.
The ceremony was reaching its end.
Thomas slowly stepped closer.
“The choice must be made before the final ringing.”
Elias’s thoughts spiraled violently.
If he stayed—
Emily could leave.
If he refused—
she remained trapped here forever.
And if both resisted…
They became Hollowed.
The cavern suddenly felt impossibly heavy around him.
The townspeople remained kneeling silently waiting for his answer.
Emily stared at him through tears.
Mara gripped the rifle beside him desperately.
And far beneath the bridge—
the ancient Listener waited patiently beneath the roots of the mountain.
Then the final bell began to ring.