All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 22
The Faces Inside the Roots
The cavern descended into chaos.
Every hanging bell overhead rang violently at once while the Listener’s scream continued echoing through the mountain like something ancient and wounded awakening beneath the earth.
Elias Ward nearly lost his footing as the bridge shook beneath him. Massive roots tore through the stone walls around the pit while lantern light flickered wildly across screaming townspeople scrambling across the cavern floor below.
And inside the twisting roots—
the trapped faces had awakened.
Hundreds of human faces embedded within the Listener’s pale body slowly opened their eyes together.
Some cried.
Some screamed.
Others simply stared upward silently after what looked like decades trapped beneath the mountain.
Mara stumbled backward while clutching the rifle in horror.
Her brother’s face within the roots moved weakly now. His eyes locked onto hers beneath the writhing mass of pale flesh and tangled roots.
“Mara…” he whispered.
The sound broke her completely.
She dropped the rifle instantly and fell to her knees sobbing.
The Listener writhed beneath the bridge in agony while huge bell-shaped growths burst open across its body, spilling thick black fluid into the pit below.
Thomas screamed toward the townspeople:
“Protect the Listener!”
Several lantern walkers rushed toward the bridge immediately despite the collapsing cavern around them.
Emily grabbed Elias’s arm hard.
“We have to leave NOW.”
Stone cracked violently overhead.
Parts of the ceiling began collapsing into the pit while the bells continued screaming throughout the chamber. The roots holding the bridge twisted erratically beneath them.
Then the trapped faces inside the Listener began speaking together.
Hundreds of overlapping voices flooding the cavern all at once.
“LET US GO”
“IT NEVER ENDS”
“WE WERE PROMISED RETURN”
The sound shattered through Elias’s mind painfully.
These weren’t peaceful souls becoming one with the forest.
They were prisoners.
The realization hit him with horrifying force.
The Listener wasn’t protecting Valemere.
It was feeding on them.
Thomas looked toward Elias desperately while blood ran from his ears beneath the ringing bells.
“You don’t understand!” he screamed. “If it dies, the forest opens!”
The cavern floor suddenly split apart near the pit.
Something massive moved beneath the mountain deeper than the Listener itself.
A second presence.
Older.
Sleeping below everything.
Elias felt cold terror slam through him instantly.
The Listener wasn’t the true thing beneath Valemere.
It was only keeping something else contained.
Emily saw the realization spread across his face.
“That’s why the ceremonies exist,” she whispered.
The bridge lurched violently again.
Behind them, Mara’s brother slowly pulled himself free from the roots trapping his body. Pale skin tore apart while countless other trapped faces beneath the Listener began struggling desperately to escape too.
The mountain trembled harder.
The townspeople panicked now.
Some fled toward the tunnels.
Others dropped to their knees praying through tears while the bells screamed overhead without stopping.
Thomas stared into the pit in horror.
“No… no…”
Then the Listener finally spoke again.
Its voice sounded weaker now.
Fading.
“The gate is breaking.”
A deep cracking sound echoed far below the cavern.
Not stone.
Something enormous shifting beneath the mountain itself.
Then—
from the darkness under the pit—
another eye slowly opened.