All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 24
One Must Remain Beneath the Roots
The cavern trembled violently beneath the mountain.
Stone rained from the ceiling while black roots burst through the walls in every direction around the collapsing bridge. Far below, the countless eyes of the First Listener continued opening within the abyss, each one staring upward with impossible awareness.
Watching.
Waiting.
Elias Ward held tightly onto Emily as the broken bridge groaned beneath them. Around the cavern, the surviving townspeople screamed and fled through collapsing tunnels while others simply dropped to their knees praying through tears.
The wounded Listener writhed weakly beneath the roots, its massive bell-shaped growths cracking apart one by one while the trapped faces embedded inside its body cried out endlessly.
“One must remain beneath the roots.”
Its final words echoed through Elias’s mind repeatedly.
Emily shook her head desperately.
“No. There has to be another way.”
But deep down, Elias already knew there wasn’t.
The mountain itself was breaking open.
The Listener had been weakened.
And the First Listener beneath it was waking.
Thomas slowly approached the edge of the shattered bridge while blood streamed down his face beneath the ringing bells.
“For generations the marked have chosen willingly,” he whispered. “That is why the gate stayed sealed.”
Mara suddenly grabbed the fallen rifle again.
“No more.”
Her voice cracked with fury and grief.
“This town fed people to that thing for centuries!”
Thomas looked toward her with exhausted eyes.
“And the alternative is worse.”
As if responding to his words, the First Listener moved below the abyss again.
The cavern floor split open wider.
Endless black roots surged upward from beneath the pit while whispers flooded through the mountain like millions of voices speaking at once beneath water.
Elias felt the sound entering his thoughts directly now.
Ancient memories.
Forests swallowing entire villages.
Mountains hollowed beneath endless roots.
Human voices praying to things older than language.
The First Listener had existed long before Valemere.
Long before people.
And it was hungry.
Emily clung to Elias’s arm tightly while tears streamed down her face.
“You can’t do this.”
Elias looked at her quietly.
“You already tried to protect me once.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It is.”
The bridge lurched violently again.
Huge sections collapsed into the abyss below while the wounded Listener screamed weakly beneath the roots. The remaining townspeople fled toward the upper tunnels now as the cavern continued falling apart around them.
Mara looked toward Elias in horror.
“Don’t listen to them.”
But Elias no longer looked afraid.
Only tired.
The bells overhead continued swinging wildly through the darkness while the ancient eye beneath the abyss watched him patiently.
Waiting for his choice.
Then Emily suddenly grabbed his face hard.
“You don’t understand what happens beneath the roots.”
Her voice shook violently now.
“You don’t stay yourself.”
The sentence hit him harder than everything else.
Not death.
Worse.
Becoming part of the Listener forever.
Another face trapped beneath the mountain.
Another whisper in the roots.
Elias closed his eyes briefly.
Then softly asked:
“What happens if nobody stays?”
Silence filled the collapsing cavern.
No one answered immediately.
Then the First Listener finally spoke for itself.
Its voice did not echo.
It arrived directly inside every mind beneath the mountain.
Ancient.
Bottomless.
And hungry.
“Then all are welcomed.”