We are deep in the story here. Want to start from the beginning?

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Keira looked around at all the faces. She remembered the general feeling she’d had when she first walked into this village—that it was warm and light. There had been laughter and a sense of community. But now they seemed drained. She knew from Eric that they were all concerned about the approaching people from the village below. But why would that have changed their mood so drastically? They had welcomed her with ease, and by the sounds of it, they had welcomed others before.

In Keira’s lifetime, she had been aware that every now and then, scholars and researchers came by their village. They wanted to hear about the “monster behind the waterfall.” The innkeeper was very good at telling the tale. They would write notes and take observations. They always thought they were the first, because there was very little on record about the creature. They would dive into the scrolls and books at the Hall of Records in town, greedily. Then they would leave to journey the same path that Keira had taken.

But they never returned. Keira, along with the rest of the village, had always assumed the monster killed them. But now that she was here in this space—seeing that these people all thrived up here with fresh water from the waterfall, growing vegetables and catching fish—she thought perhaps they were right here. Somewhere in the sea of faces that were all now turned to look at Katal. Some of these faces were the very scholars she had seen pass through town.

“What is your name, child?” Keira heard a voice pierce her thoughts. She turned back to look at Katal, who was staring right at her.

“Keira,” she said.

“Oh,” Katal replied with a warm smile. “And pray tell me… you said your brother was taken the last time the monster descended?”

Keira looked to Eric. She had told Eric that a few moments before Katal arrived, but she hadn’t seen Eric tell Katal.

“Yes,” she said. Technically, the monster had taken both her brothers. But despite Katal’s warm, smiling face, Keira was all of a sudden not feeling very giving with her information. A cold shudder rippled down her spine, even though the fire was crackling only a few feet away. Something didn’t feel right. Eric had said Katal was going to tell the story—the origin story—of the monster, because she was there. But the monster had come almost an age ago. This woman didn’t look that old. She was still standing and being theatrical by the fire.

Keira wanted to peer closer at her, to see how deep the wrinkles on her face went. But the firelight moved and shifted around the woman, casting shadows like the Shadow Cat. Katal’s outline seemed to blur as she shifted from foot to foot.

Keira looked around. Now that she was thinking about it, she hadn’t seen the Shadow Cat since she arrived in this place. She remembered the cat was with her by the river, but when Eric and Susan appeared, it had vanished.

“Something wrong, child?” the woman asked.

“No,” Keira quickly responded. “I just… you know, I haven’t seen so many people before. My village is smaller.”

“Yes, yes, the village has gotten smaller over the years. We have too, in some ways. Not as much, but sometimes people yearn for change, and they leave. Because they can, you know. People can leave at any point if they so wish.”

That was the second time someone had pointed out to Keira that people could leave. Eric had said that too. Why were they so fixated on telling her she could leave? Was it a false pretense to give the illusion of freedom? Could she really go, right now?

Keira turned and looked toward the tunnel she had come through the day before. It seemed so far away, and to get there, she would have to push through a wall of people. They were all looking at her. She turned back to Katal. It didn’t feel like she could leave. The shudder came again.

Why had she so willingly walked in here? She had, without even a thought, followed Eric and Susan, eaten their food, slept in their bed—all without considering whether she should. The warmth and comfort had overwhelmed her common sense. Her own villagers had treated her like a burden; why were these people so eager to take in what the town had thrown out?

“Did the villagers talk about coming up here before you left, child?” Katal continued.

“No. I might have said something about coming up here. I can’t remember. I had a fight with the council, and then I left. I don’t think I said anything. It’s all a bit blurry.”

Katal nodded her head, then shot Eric a glance.

“Seems like you don’t know much,” Katal said, turning her back to Eric, who shrank down. Katal raised her hands as she turned to address the crowd.

“You don’t have much to tell us, but you want us to tell you, correct?” Her voice grew louder, echoing off the stone walls of the cave. “You want to KNOW the TRUTH!”

There was a roaring cheer from the crowd.

“You want to know the STORY of the MONSTER!”

Another roar.

Katal lowered her arms and peered back at Keira. “You want to know how it came to be,” she practically whispered. “How the monster came out of the shadows, into the light?”

Keira swallowed. She wasn’t sure about any of this anymore.

“I was there, you see. I was there in the beginning, when the idea first came to be. It was my brother and I who first discovered it—the old runes in the mountain. The ones that could be activated by blood. But not just any blood. Blood of the bloodline who first made it. My blood. His blood. Our families had slaved away and connected the fields of energy together through stone and water. They gave their lives to allow us to live ours. It was not easy. We had to join forces with scientists from Vertex. They were easy enough to convince to come over with the promise of discovery. But we needed them to understand how this…” Katal paused, raising her arms to the cavern, “…how this all worked.”

Katal stopped and turned back to Keira. “They didn’t believe, though,” she said. “They weren’t like us!”

The crowd cheered again.

“But you know, clever people with their maths, their calculations, their tests, measurements, and quantifiers…” She chuckled darky. “They might be clever with those things. But they are not clever in understanding. They came here with their beakers and little electro-what-a-call-its and tapped here and there. They didn’t see how close a family the rest of us were. They didn’t see that we all believed in something bigger—that this place had drawn us in, and we could feel our destiny wrapped up in these rocks.”

Keira’s heart pounded against her ribs. She looked around at how everyone was staring at Katal. She realized there was something more in their eyes than just respect for an elder telling a story of yesteryear. This wasn’t like children watching a librarian read a storybook. This was more like followers seeking approval from a leader. There was an emotion stronger than communal love in their eyes—stronger even than what the villagers felt when looking at their council. Here, their eyes were filled with raw devotion and belief.

“Once they found the origin of the runes—once they found this cave behind the waterfall—we knew what we had to do!” Katal continued, met by a wave of agreement from the crowd.

“We took them!” someone in the back yelled. “We created them!”

We? Keira thought. Wait. Were they all here when the monster first came, not just Katal? Keira scanned the crowd. But they all seemed so young—all roughly parent-aged. Wait… why were they all parent-aged? Why weren’t any younger or older? Where were the children?

“I don’t feel well!” Keira blurted out.

Everyone, all at once, turned to look at her.

“What was that?” Katal asked.

“I don’t…” Keira looked at her, then turned to Susan. “I want to leave. I don’t feel well… I…”

Keira leaned forward and retched onto the stone floor. Everyone flinched back with a collective groan.

“I’ll take care of this,” Susan stammered.

“Did she not have the stew?” Katal asked sharply.

“I’ll take her; she’ll be fine.” Susan put her arms around Keira and hauled her up. Keira was still dry-heaving.

“Get her out of here!” Katal ordered, pointing back toward the room Keira had slept in the night before.

Susan guided Keira down the path between the benches as every pair of eyes followed them.

“Eric…” Katal said dryly behind them. “A word.”

Eric shrank back, but nodded, muttering, “Yes, of course.”

Katal walked back toward the heavy stone doors with an entourage surrounding her. Behind them, Eric shuffled along nervously.