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

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Tobias was starting to get frustrated. They had left the village with the hope of getting to the mountain within a day, but the swamp between the village and the forest was more treacherous than they had thought. They had made camp in the forest to recuperate before they would have to start the ascent up to the cliffs.

Tobias thought about a girl traveling this on her own, but he threw the thought away. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the idea that he had been a large, contributing factor in the girl’s decision. She probably had been terrified of walking through the swamp, with the gnarly trees and the oddly shaped shadows. As they had navigated their way through, they had all heard the growls of creatures and beasts that only snapped at the ankles of their large group, but they would have been braver to attack a singular girl.

Tobias wondered if she had even made it to the other side. Every day he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander beyond the trail they were on, fearing that at any point there would be some cloth, blood, or a shoe that an animal wouldn’t eat, but instead leave—a signal that something had been killed there. And then finally the emotional dam within him, which was already cracking, would break into a thousand pieces, and all the guilt, trauma, and grief would pour out with rage from his soul. The constant threat of it was heavy on him, causing him to go slower and slower with every step. Which, in turn, caused more guilt—because what if he got there and it turned out that if he had only gotten there a few moments earlier, he could have saved her? But because he procrastinated, he was too late.

His concern for Keira had somehow intertwined with the emotions of his son. He wasn’t sure if it was because they had known each other, or that in a different world, she might have been living with him as his daughter-in-law one day, or that maybe it was because she wasn’t that much younger than when his son got taken. Or, simply, if it was just because she was a child. A child that needed a parent. Maybe his son was the same. The hours he had given to his work while his son was clambering around on the furniture downstairs seemed wasteful now. He should have been clambering down there with him. If he could, he would remove every harsh look and every stern tone from his son’s memory and replace it with the warmth and love a child should feel from their dad.

If his theory was correct, and if the victim today was the one that turned in the next victim and it was all about anger, jealousy, and revenge, then he should have, technically, been the next victim after Gideon’s death, and not Keira’s older brother, Chris. If Gideon hadn’t had that fight with Chris a few days before, it could have been him who was within the gullet of the monster.

His boots were thick with mud from trudging through the swamp. There was little talk among the group. The heavy objective of this trip hung over them. It was right for them to go. It was the best action forward, the most logical, in fact. But the emotion of it went against everything that they were feeling. They knew there was a high probability that they were, in fact, walking to their death. After all, in their entire lives, and the entire lives of their parents, and their parents’ parents, no one had ever made a quest to the monster’s lair and returned. Not a single person that they cheered for ever returned. In fact, most of them would cheer and wish scholars, researchers, and the odd knight well on their quest to find the truth; then, as soon as they were out of earshot, they would turn around and collectively agree that the person was an idiot.

And here they were now. Deep into the wilderness, on the same idiotic quest as many before. They couldn’t believe it.

About a third of the village had stayed behind. Those who outright decided that Tobias was a moron, and those who had pledged some illness, or that the quest right now was a bit of an awkward time for them because, well, you know, they had to stay for the courier that was coming with their heirloom seeds. Or perhaps they needed to stay because the sun was coming out and they had to get on top of the laundry, you know. Moms with little ones stayed. Moms with little ones who had husbands that cowered behind them—their husbands stayed as well. And some husbands stayed while the moms left. Because sometimes, when you need a job done, it’s best for the mom to just do it. Perhaps that’s why they had all failed before, the women said.

And so, the group that was now camped under the dappled light of the forest canopy was a mix of all sorts. Tobias looked over them all, and despite the differences in everyone, there was at least one common denominator: this group had gumption. If they didn’t complete their quest, they’d get damn near close.

Tobias walked a little way from the group to the river and sat down on one of the boulders. He took off his muddy boots and brushed them off in the river. He also placed his weary feet into the cold water and followed his eyes to the source of the water, way, way above in the various waterfalls that cascaded down the mountain.

Gideon would have loved it here.

Sandy would have loved it as well. He wondered if perhaps she had been right about his true motive for coming out here. That it really was to find the closure that he had been longing so much for. Or perhaps it was to find his death and be with the rest of his family. He took a deep breath in and tried to relax his shoulders. The evening was slowly coming to an end. He put his boots on the still-warm rocks and let the last of the sun dry them.

Tomorrow their climb to the top would begin, and they would finally find out the source of their curse. He could see the clouds were already gathering over the top of the mountain. There was a blur to the sky which he knew meant that it was raining up there. A low rumble of distant thunder rolled down the mountain to them in the forest, and he could hear there was much conversation in the camp behind him.

“It’s alright,” he yelled to them. “The canopy will protect us. And anyway, I don’t think the wind is blowing this way.”

The conversation settled again, but he could still feel the unease.

Tobias grabbed his boots and, picking his way carefully on the path with his bare feet, he walked back to the main campsite.

“We kept you some meat,” one of the men said as he entered, gesturing to the campfire. Tobias smiled and thanked him.

As he sat down, he could feel that some of the villagers were starting to make jokes. Even though during the day the solemn thoughts had gotten them down, their true cheerful nature was starting to bubble back up to the surface. It had been an age since Tobias had sat around with friends and peers at a campsite in the middle of what he now realized was actually a kind of beautiful place. Soon stories were being told, with some jesting while others laughed. There was a burst of chuckles when one or two of them realised that they had missing left socks.

By the time he crawled into his tent and wrapped himself up in the woolen dark green blanket, he had a smile on his face. But as his dreams came, his smile slowly disappeared.