All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 25

All Are Welcome Here

The words spread through the mountain like a living nightmare.

“Then all are welcomed.”

The moment the First Listener spoke, every remaining bell in the cavern shattered at once.

The sound exploded through the collapsing underground chamber while black roots burst violently upward from the abyss below. Lanterns died instantly. Stone bridges cracked apart. Screams echoed through the tunnels as the mountain itself began opening beneath Valemere.

Elias Ward stood motionless at the edge of the broken bridge while endless eyes stared upward from beneath the roots below him.

The First Listener was waking completely.

And now Elias understood the true meaning of the town’s greeting.

All Are Welcome Here.

Not kindness.

Not hospitality.

A promise.

Everything eventually belonged to the forest.

Emily clung desperately to his arm through tears while Mara shouted something somewhere behind them, but the words barely reached him anymore. The whispers beneath the mountain had become deafening now.

Millions of voices.

Forgotten people.

Lost towns.

Ancient prayers swallowed beneath roots older than history.

The wounded Listener writhed weakly beneath the cavern while its trapped faces screamed endlessly from inside its dying body. It had spent centuries feeding on willing sacrifices just to keep the First Listener asleep below.

Not out of evil.

Out of fear.

And now it was failing.

The First Listener’s countless eyes slowly focused upward toward Elias together.

Waiting.

He felt the answer forming inside him long before he spoke.

Not because the town demanded it.

Not because Thomas wanted it.

Because Emily was right.

If nobody remained beneath the roots—

everything would open.

The forest.

The mountain.

The thing sleeping beneath both.

Elias slowly turned toward his sister.

Emily already knew.

Her face collapsed completely as she shook her head over and over.

“No…”

He gently touched her forehead.

“You have to leave this place.”

Tears streamed silently down her face.

“I won’t remember you anymore if you do this.”

The sentence nearly broke him.

But then Mara’s brother screamed somewhere behind them as black roots burst through the cavern floor and dragged several fleeing townspeople into the abyss below.

The mountain was opening now.

There wasn’t time left.

Elias looked toward Mara quietly.

“Get her out.”

Mara stared at him in horror.

Then slowly—

through tears—

she nodded.

The First Listener’s whispers deepened beneath the roots.

Hungry.

Waiting.

Elias stepped toward the edge of the collapsing bridge while the wounded Listener beneath the cavern weakly lifted its massive broken form toward him.

And for one final moment—

he understood the town completely.

The ceremonies.

The bells.

The Hollowed.

The smiling faces.

All of it had been built around one terrible truth:

Some horrors are not defeated.

Only fed.

The First Listener opened wider beneath the abyss.

Endless roots rising toward him through darkness.

Emily screamed his name.

And Elias stepped forward willingly into the roots below.

The moment the darkness swallowed him—

the bells stopped.

Instantly.

Complete silence fell across the mountain.

The black roots froze motionless throughout the cavern.

The countless eyes beneath the abyss slowly closed one by one.

And deep below Valemere—

something ancient returned to sleep.

Morning arrived quietly afterward.

The forest surrounding Valemere stood perfectly still beneath pale sunlight while fog drifted softly between the trees. The town itself looked peaceful again.

Normal.

Almost beautiful.

The surviving townspeople rebuilt the broken roads.

Repaired shattered buildings.

And never spoke about the ceremony openly again.

Emily and Mara left Valemere three days later.

Neither of them ever returned.

But years afterward, travelers passing through the northern mountains still occasionally reported hearing distant bells ringing deep within the forests at night.

And near the old road entering the abandoned town—

one weathered wooden sign still remained standing beneath the trees.

Its faded words barely visible beneath moss and rain:

WELCOME TO VALEMERE